The Week In Review: Sept. 3
By Mark LaPedus
A nationwide survey, conducted online by Harris Interactive on behalf of Crucial.com, revealed that more than half (52%) of U.S. adults who own a computer have been unhappy with the performance of their computer in the past 6 months.
SEMI rolled out 450 Central, a web-based information service to help the semiconductor industry transition to 450mm-ready solutions.
Mentor Graphics posted strong results for the company’s fiscal second quarter ended July 31, 2012.
GlobalFoundries announced the addition of Bruce Kleinman as vice president of product marketing.
FormFactor has signed a merger agreement with Astria Semiconductor Holdings, the parent company of MicroProbe, Inc., a provider of probe cards. Under the terms, FormFactor will acquire MicroProbe for $100 million in cash and $16.8 million in stock. C.J. Muse, an analyst with Barclays, said: ”We view FormFactor’s acquisition of MicroProbe as largely mixed. From a positive perspective, MicroProbe makes FormFactor a real player in the faster-growing SOC probe card market and the price appears reasonable. From a negative perspective, we expect losses in memory to continue and expect few synergies in the deal.”
Mapper Lithography, a developer of maskless e-beams, has obtained a financing round of 80 million euros.
Lam Research announced that James Bagley, who has served as the company’s chairman of the board for the last 15 years, has decided to retire.
IBM rolled out the zEnterprise EC12, the company’s most powerful mainframe computer to date. zEC12 offers 25% more performance per core, more than 100 configurable cores and 50% more total capacity than its predecessor.
Swissbit—Europe’s largest independent producer of industrial DRAM modules and flash storage products—is expanding its production capabilities, moving into new product markets, and boosting its distribution channels.
Almost a year since the launch of ultrabooks, the market for these products has been a disappointment thus far. Vijay Rakesh, an analyst with Sterne Agee, said: “Overall, ultrabook ASPs remain high. We believe overall the high price points continue to be a challenge for the PC OEMs and also consumers.”
China will overtake the United States in smartphone shipments in 2012, according to IDC.
Driven by increased demand from developed regions for high-end models, smartphones are expected to rise to account for the majority of global cellphone shipments in 2013—two years earlier than previously predicted, according to IHS isuppli.
Media tablets powered by new Microsoft operating systems Windows 8 and Windows RT will have an impact on the overall market; just not this year, according to market intelligence firm ABI Research.
The April to June quarter of 2012 set a new record for media tablet shipments reaching nearly 25 million units, says ABI.
Six months after losing the top spot in the global hard disk drive (HDD) segment, Western Digital in the second quarter recovered its market lead from chief rival Seagate Technology, according to an IHS iSuppli.
In the second quarter of 2012, worldwide server shipments grew 1.4 percent over the second quarter of 2011, while revenue declined 2.9 percent year-on-year, according to Gartner.
Tags: ABI Research, Crucial.com, FormFactor, Gartner, GlobalFoundries, Harris Interactive, IBM, IDC, IHS iSuppli, Lam Research, Mapper Lithography, Mentor Graphics, MicroProbe, Seagate, SEMI, servers, Sterne Agee, Swissbit, tablets, ultrabooks, Western Digital, Windows 8, Windows RT