Apple and Samsung Take All the Profit

Apple and Samsung Take All the Profit
by Paul McLellan on 10-29-2012 at 4:07 pm

I’ve talked before about how Apple and Samsung make most of the money in the handset business (and also about how Nokia…er…doesn’t). Now there is a report from Canaccord Genuity makes it clear just how much of the profit they make: 106%. And that is down from second quarter when they made 108%.

How can they… Read More


iPhone5 Versus Samsung S3: the Key Question

iPhone5 Versus Samsung S3: the Key Question
by Paul McLellan on 10-18-2012 at 8:29 am

In all the discussion about iPhone versus Samsung, the profit leader and the volume leader in the handset business, there is way too much discussion about boring stuff like how many MIPS the A6 chips has and whether the maps are any good on iPhone (no) and is there enough 28nm capacity for Qualcomm. Boring.

The real question that everyone… Read More


Apple and The Road Ahead to Building an x86 Processor

Apple and The Road Ahead to Building an x86 Processor
by Ed McKernan on 10-15-2012 at 9:00 am


A small blurb last week announced that Apple had hired Jim Mergard away from Samsung after just 15 months on the job. Previously to that he was a 16-year AMD veteran who headed up their low power x86 Brazos processor team. In near synchronicity, AMD hired Famed Apple Designer Jim Keller to be its chief microprocessor architect. When… Read More


Dear Meg, HP is Still a Goner

Dear Meg, HP is Still a Goner
by Ed McKernan on 10-11-2012 at 9:30 pm


A year ago, Meg Whitman decided it was time to venture back into the business world by grabbing onto the HP CEO baton from a badly wounded Leo Apotheker. What for? My best guess is to enter the Pantheon of Great Turnaround CEOs of failing companies, best exemplified by the work of Lou Gerstner with IBM in the early 1990s. It comes too late… Read More


User Review: iOS 6 on iPad

User Review: iOS 6 on iPad
by Daniel Payne on 10-01-2012 at 11:11 am

Much has been written about the new iPhone 5 and iOS 6 in terms of the features, specifications, bill of materials, and chips used in the design. Today I’ll share my experiences of actually using the new iOS 6 on iPad as an EDA blogger.

Upgrading to iOS6
Clicking the On button and noticing that the App Store icon has something new,… Read More


Will Paul Otellini Convince Tim Cook to Fill Intel’s Fabs?

Will Paul Otellini Convince Tim Cook to Fill Intel’s Fabs?
by Ed McKernan on 09-27-2012 at 8:30 pm

An empty Fab is a terrible thing to waste, especially when it is leading edge. By the end of the year Intel will, by my back of the envelope calculation, be sitting with the equivalent of one idle 22nm Fab (cost $5B). What would you do if you were Paul Otellini?

Across the valley, in Cupertino, you have Tim Cook, whose modus operandi is … Read More


Samsung going vertical Qualcomm cry CEVA laugh

Samsung going vertical Qualcomm cry CEVA laugh
by Eric Esteve on 09-27-2012 at 11:09 am

These last days have been full of Apple related stories; maybe it’s time to discuss a new topic? Like for example Samsung, direct competitor for Apple in the smartphone market, and take a look at the company move toward more vertical integration. Everybody working in the SC industry knows that Samsung is ranked #2 behind Intel, even… Read More


Over-under: Apple, 52M iPhones in 4Q

Over-under: Apple, 52M iPhones in 4Q
by Don Dingee on 09-20-2012 at 8:15 pm

I’m in a Twitter conversation with some friends, with the subject: how many phones can Apple ship in the 4th quarter?

A respected analyst said 52M is “an easy mark” for Apple; others are saying 58M is the target for just the iPhone 5 in 4Q. However, the start for the iPhone 5 has been anything but easy. Oh, the orders… Read More


Damn! Cramer Figured It Out

Damn! Cramer Figured It Out
by Ed McKernan on 09-20-2012 at 8:04 pm

As an investor, one has to always be aware when Jim Cramer informs the world of the investment scenario you have been playing comes out of the shadows and sees the light of day. Soon the herd will follow which is positive, but now one has to figure how long to ride the roller coaster. In an article posted on thestreet.com entitled “TechRead More


SemiWiki? There’s an App for that

SemiWiki? There’s an App for that
by Paul McLellan on 09-18-2012 at 7:20 pm

The iPhone version of the SemiWiki App is now available. Download it from the iTunes store, it’s free. The App allows you to look at similar things to the website but much more conveniently adapted to fit the small screen. When you first start up the App you can log in (assuming you are a SemiWiki registered user and why would you… Read More