Rockwell to spin-off its chip unit Tom Foremski As expected, Rockwell yesterday announced a sweeping reorganisation with plans to spin-off its chip unit and reduce its staff by 3,800 jobs and take a pretax charge of $625m against third quarter earnings. The Rockwell Semiconductor Systems business, which manufactures modem and communications chips, will be spun off to Rockwell shareholders. The ...

Acer and IBM in chip joint venture Tom Foremski Acer is striving to lessen its reliance on DRAM sales and has entered into an agreement with IBM to pursue more profitable chip markets. The Taiwan based firm’s chip subsidiary, Acer Semicon, will use IBM logic chip technology and designs to manufacture system chip products in its fabs using a 0.25-micron ...

DRAM market ‘waits for something to happen’ says analyst David Manners DRAM manufacturers need a ‘de-tox’ clinic to wean them off the product, said Malcolm Penn, chairman of Future Horizons, at his company’s annual strategic analysis and forecast of the European semiconductor industry in London last week. “The industry is in a hole but it won’t stop digging,” said Penn, ...

Government urges industry to do more R&D as DTI Scoreboard disappoints Melanie Reynolds The government is urging companies to invest more in R&D as the latest DTI report shows UK firms lagging behind their international competitors in R&D spending. According to the DTI’s R&D scoreboard, the total R&D expenditure by the UK electronics and electrical industry exceeded ?1.223bn in 1997, ...

US government against Hyundai deal Tom Foremski Adaptec has called off its $775 million acquisition of Hyundai’s Symbios subsidiary, saying that the US government was against the deal. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) indicated that it would probably not approve the deal because of antitrust concerns. Hyundai was betting on the deal to generate much needed cash to help finance ...

Rival wireless camps squabble over wide-band standards Tom Foremski A squabble over next generation wireless standards has broken out in the US with 12 American and Canadian GSM supporters crying foul over the actions of rival CDMA supporters. The North American GSM Alliance says that CDMA supporters are lobbying the State Department and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) not to ...

Micron Technology to acquire Rendition Tom Foremski Micron Technology is to acquire US graphics chip maker Rendition, following closely on the heels of its deal for Texas Instruments’ DRAM business. The $88 million stock swap deal with Rendition will give Micron a chance to lessen its reliance on DRAM chips over the long term and compete in the fast growing ...

Alarm bells ring for DRAM firms David Manners Texas Instruments (TI) has exited the DRAM business and intends to shed 3,500 jobs. Hitachi has denied Japanese press reports that it will pull out of the DRAM market. It is crunch-time for the semiconductor industry. TI has exited the market after coming to an agreement with US firm Micron Technology. TI ...

DECT phones to be technology of choice Alex Mayhew-Smith DECT cordless phones will replace analogue standard phones in the next six years, according to a report by marketing consultants Frost & Sullivan. The company predicts that the cordless telephone market will rise steadily, as customers replace their wired phones, and that digital cordless phones will be the technology of choice. ...

RFI claims first with cellular test lab Steve Bush Radio Frequency Investigation (RFI) has opened what it claims is the first dual-band cellular test lab. Following a ?1m investment, the Basingstoke-based company is anticipating the widespread adoption of GSM mobile phones that can roam between 900MHz and 1.8GHz networks. Until now, RFI has only been able to type-approve GSM1800 equipment. ...