(This is a roundup of last week’s semiconductor/EDA industry news by Abhijit Athavale founder/editor of PuneChips – Pune’s forum for the semiconductor industry. For more information about PuneChips see the PuneTech wiki profile of PuneChips)

Thank you for the great response to last week’s e-mail. Please continue with your responses and I will keep on sending this out every week.

Arati Halbe gets the mention for being the first one to pick on the OT news from last week. A few other people did point it out as well, but she was the first. Another reader thought that the Semi industry in Pune is like the Mayan Civilization as it keeps on depleting local resources, and hence the topic was really on the money 🙂 This newsletter also contains an OT item, but is more entertaining.

Markets

• Google and the Internet caused economic crisis: This brilliant conclusion drawn by Peter Clarke of EE Times. While it is true that globalization and improved communication technologies have disrupted traditional economies, by the same token the Industrial revolution disrupted existing agrarian economies and can be blamed for the great depression. So, while the headline is catchy, the conclusion is just plain wrong …
• Are we in denial about the crappy semiconductor market: iSuppli says that foundry market will see strong growth in Q2 after three straight quarters of contraction, but FBR said that the market will cool off in Q3. Why the bullish tone? Does it really matter that the IC market declined by 22% against 24%? It still is terrible and unless and until the cost structures created to support higher sales numbers are dismantled, we will not see 1990’s type growth. Short term thinking to please the wall street is the real culprit here. There are innumerable news items last week that herald a recovery, but is it real? I have nothing against a recovery, but I just don’t get how people will start buying more chips when they are just not buying anything at all? Gartner clearly says that the demand has not returned to the market and increased sales for some companies are due to inventory restocking – this is also known as stuffing the channel. (link)

PC/Processor

• Global PC makers vying for the Green Crown: Are we really that green or is this a marketing innovation aimed at better profits?
• Sun to start porting OpenSolaris to ARM processors: While clearly a ploy at getting into the embedded market, will this work? I can see Intel just shuddering at the thought…

Mobile

• Low cost phones, emerging markets show a ray of hope: You don’t need an analyst to tell you this. Mobile companies in India have figured this out long time ago. Please get on with the program, Jupiter …
• Apple launches iPhone 3GS: In a game of one-upmanship, Apple has launched the new iPhone at only $99, but there is a catch – it is only for new customers who do not have an AT&T contract.
• Iranian Politics 101
• A Palm Pre Teardown: Portelligent shows the innards …

Storage

• Broadcom wants confidential information from Emulex: Does this not sound a little odd? Why would anyone give up their confidential information to a hostile buyer? Broadcom seems to have painted itself in a corner with no way of getting out. The market is also pricing Emulex above the Broadcom offer.

Technology

• Power over Ethernet market sees growth: Now what would be interesting is to see if someone could send power packets over wireless Ethernet. That will instantly get rid of all the clutter we have around our PCs. Let’s see if that can be done without frying anything that gets in the way!
• Nokia demonstrates energy harvesting handset: Hey, I was not that far off. Hopefully, laptops can also be charged in the same way not too far in the future.
• ZigBee & low power Bluetooth tapped as the next generation health device standard: This is really important as networked health devices are going to be a huge market. Imagine a blood pressure monitor sending a message to your doctor when irregularities are seen. I think this is a fabulous opportunity for Indian companies to be developing health devices. However, Bluetooth is far from reliable and has too many connectivity issues so they will hopefully have been fixed.
• Thin Film Batteries are here: This could be a solid advance in reducing device sizes even further.

That’s all for this week …