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


Toshiba Corp. has cancelled plans to sell (ARM-based processor) computers …bad news for Toshiba, TI and the end user

Toshiba Corp. has cancelled plans to sell (ARM-based processor) computers …bad news for Toshiba, TI and the end user
by Eric Esteve on 08-31-2012 at 11:55 am

This news announced two weeks ago is not really good news for those expecting to see this new generation of computers, running Windows RT OS and no more based on x86 processor but on ARM CPU core, coming on the market. The reason invoked by Toshiba was “delays in getting adequate supplies of components” and, even if Toshiba did not specifically… Read More


Apple’s Victory Will Re-Shuffle the Semi Industry

Apple’s Victory Will Re-Shuffle the Semi Industry
by Ed McKernan on 08-27-2012 at 2:00 pm

Apple’s legal victory over Samsung has been analyzed in thousands of articles and TWEETs since last Friday’s announcement and surely more will follow. Most of the commentary has focused on the first order impact to handset manufacturers. It is not entirely clear how it will all settle but there are sure to be secondary ramifications… Read More


Qualcomm Acquires Intel’s Playbook

Qualcomm Acquires Intel’s Playbook
by Ed McKernan on 08-10-2012 at 12:00 pm

The Mobile Tsunami wave has yet to crest and the surfers strong enough to mount it are dwindling fast to the dismay of market watchers and experienced analysts. The distraction of these past few days is the courtroom drama being played out between the sumo wrestlers, Apple and Samsung, which in the end will not result in a cessation… Read More


The Coming Battle for AMD’s x86 Hidden Cache

The Coming Battle for AMD’s x86 Hidden Cache
by Ed McKernan on 07-30-2012 at 10:58 am

Not yet a year into Rory Read’s term and the AMD board must be considering that the value of the x86 patents and engineering talent is worth much more than the stocks $3B valuation and easier to fathom putting on the auction block than continuing to sell $25 processors into the back channels of China and the Developing World. As I read… Read More


Jasper Customer Videos

Jasper Customer Videos
by Paul McLellan on 07-25-2012 at 2:28 pm

Increasingly at DAC and other shows, EDA companies such as Jasper are having their customers present their experiences with the products. Everyone has seen marketing people present wonderful visions of the future that turn out not to materialize. But a customer speaking about their own experiences has a credibility that an EDA… Read More


Intel Goes Vertical to Guarantee PC Growth

Intel Goes Vertical to Guarantee PC Growth
by Ed McKernan on 07-07-2012 at 8:30 pm

A Bloomberg article from early July caught my eye as it portends further changes in the competitive mobile market landscape. Intel is now in the business of paying Taiwanese panel suppliers to ensure the supply of touch-screen panels for PC ultrabooks. In essence it says that to win in the PC market, Intel has to mimic Apple and go … Read More


Finding RTL Bugs Live Using Formal Techniques

Finding RTL Bugs Live Using Formal Techniques
by Daniel Payne on 06-24-2012 at 8:10 pm

Most of what you see at DAC is canned PowerPoint presentations, however on Tuesday afternoon I spotted a company called Oski Technology that was doing something almost unheard of – they had an engineer debugging a digital design from Nvidia using formal tools live. I later found out the engineer found 4 bugs in just three days… Read More


Will Microsoft Go Thermonuclear?

Will Microsoft Go Thermonuclear?
by Ed McKernan on 06-21-2012 at 8:20 pm

Microsoft is in trouble. Many of you already know that. Steve Ballmer has one last opportunity to set the company on a growth path or they will retreat into IBM legacy mode… ala the post 1990s Lou Gerstner era. And so they introduce a large tablet-convertible in direct competition with their PC partners Dell and HP. The End Game is coming… Read More


The Black Swan that Catapulted Intel into 2012

The Black Swan that Catapulted Intel into 2012
by Ed McKernan on 06-14-2012 at 7:30 pm

Black Swan Events are not to be embraced, they are to be feared, if conventional wisdom holds true. And yet, the 2011 Black Swan that slammed the PC market (i.e. the Thailand Floods that wiped out a large part of the disk drive market) has turned out to be the key catalyst for reshaping the semiconductor industry in 2012 and 2013. Instead… Read More