Life on the Silicon Frontier in the 60s was pretty wild as Phil Ferguson, co-founder of MOS pioneer General Microelectronics, told National CEO Charlie Sporck, recounted in Sporck’s book SPINOFF: “There was a lot of partying. there was a party one time we had with people who shall remain nameless. A bunch of them flew out for a meeting, and ...

Foxconn has ten ‘lights out’ fully automated production lines at its Chinese factories and is increasing automation levels on other lines by deploying 10,000 new robots a year, reports Digitimes. Foxconn makes its own robots which it calls Foxbots. It has already installed 40,000 at its factories. Foxconn’s eventual aim is to automate entire factories with only a minimal number ...

Although the semiconductor industry was flat in terms of revenues, the Philadelphia SOX is up 34% on the year from 88 in January to 124 yesterday. The SOX has been driven by continued M&A, continued growth in data centres and increasing demand for automotive ICs as cars get increasingly automated and connected. Other potential drivers like IoT, AI, VR, AR ...

Scientists at Stanford University and the US Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have discovered a way to use diamondoids to make electrical wires which are three atoms thick. “What we have shown here is that we can make tiny, conductive wires of the smallest possible size that essentially assemble themselves,” says Stanford’s Hao Yan, “the process is a ...

Automation will kill off 15 million jobs in the next 20 years says a report from the indtitute for Public Policy Research (IPPR). The report says that 2 million jobs in retail will disappear by 2020, and 600,000 will go in manufacturing. Robot-owners will get rich and displaced workers will get poorer – much like the Victorian mill-owners snd their ...

It’s been a turbulent year and, like all turbulent times, it has been been very revealing about the truth of how things are. Brexit revealed that the Euro-elite are ideologues who think it more important to keep the four freedoms intact than to ensure the prosperity and safety of Europeans. The US election campaign revealed that the mainstream media are ...

This is a belated Christmas gift for SEPAM though I expect he’s seen it already – the Amazon patent for a flying warehouse unearthed by Zoe of CB Insights. The airship-borne warehouse flies at up to 45,000 feet and drones go back and forth delivering stuff to and from it. Filed in 2014, the patent looks like the product of ...

There was once a Auschwitz prisoner who was liberated by the US army who then enlisted as a soldier and applied himself to mechanical repair work. Later he started a machine repair business which morphed into a typewriter sales business, then into adding machines, calculators and, finally, computers. He based his computers on the 6502 and one product became the ...

Forecasts for the 2017 semiconductor market are beginning to trickle in and, on the whole, they are much more positive than in the last three years. The last two years have shown no growth at all. Mike Cowan predicts 4.7% growth for 2017; WSTS predicts 3.3%; Bill McLean’s IC Insights predicts 4%; Bill Jewell’s Semiconductor Intelligence predicts 8%; International Business ...

What a week for Toshiba shares – down 12% on Tuesday, 20% on Wednesday and 17% today. 40% down since the 26th. However Toshiba shares did very well in 2016 rising 70% in the year up to Dec 26. But Toshiba’ solvency is now being questioned and banks which have lent to Toshiba are seeing falls in their shares. Last ...