Taiwan’s fab recovery from earthquake could be delayed by quartzware shortage Tom Foremski Taiwan’s fab recovery from last week’s devastating earthquake could be delayed by a shortage of quartzware reports US market research company Dataquest. The company says that its contacts in Taiwan report that the main problems facing Taiwan chip makers is in replacing broken quartzware and that replacing ...

AT&T seen buying $1bn in Motorola, GI goods Tom Foremski Motorola’s planned acquisition of General Instruments looks set to pay off handsomely with a major cable TV set top box and cable modem deal from AT&T valued as high as $1bn. Industry sources report that AT&T will soon announce that it has placed orders for 2 million set top cable ...

Tyco International to acquire Siemens EC Tom Foremski Tyco International is continuing with an aggressive acquisition strategy and has agreed to acquire Siemens Electromechanical Components (EC) from Siemens for about $1.1bn in cash. Siemens EC is the leading provider of relays, and components and intelligent subsystems to communications, automotive, consumer and general industry sectors. It has about $900m in annual ...

Microsoft to lead industry initiative to boost broadband use Tom Foremski Microsoft is leading a broad industry initiative to boost broadband use with the development of broadband content in the hopes of speeding the development of a broadband infrastructure. Microsoft announced its Microsoft Windows Media Broadband Jumpstart initiative and said that 35 companies have joined in support. The key focus ...

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Motorola to expand mobile phone production in Scotland Richard Wilson Motorola is expanding production at its Scottish mobile phone plant and will create almost 1,000 new jobs at the factory. The company has been increasing production at the plant steadily through the year. In February it announced 400 new jobs at Easter Inch and in September an expansion of its ...

Taiwan backs recovery but rival fabs stand byTaiwan semiconductor industry confident of recovery; Rival countries express doubts. David MannersTaiwan’s semiconductor industry is making confident statements about its ability to recover quickly from the earthquake, but rival foundries in other countries report a flood of enquiries.TSMC says that 70 per cent of the production machinery at its five fabs is operational ...

Infineon in network pushDavid MannersInfineon Technologies is going head to head with IBM and Intel in launching a family of network processors based on the Tricore architecture to set a standard for global communications infrastructure.“Rather than making sweeping comments about intentions, we are saying: ‘Here are the products'” Prasad Sabada, product marketing manager for Harrier, told EW. Asked what advantage ...

Philips puts split-up speculation to restAlex Mayhew-SmithPhilips Electronics has said that it is not planning to sell any of its businesses following speculation that the firm is looking to divest some of its non-core units.“There has been speculation about a split-up but we are satisfied with our current seven divisions. We want to bring them to the top of their ...

MP advice discounted by mobile industryMelanie ReynoldsThe mobile phone industry has discounted a call by MPs to reduce UK mobile phone exposure limits because they already operate within the proposed lower EU limits.“It doesn’t make any difference for us,” said an Ericsson spokesman, “what England is doing is getting in line with the rest of Europe.” The Mobile Telecoms Advisory ...