memory chips

Bill Watkins, the outspoken former chief executive of Seagate, wants to make a thinner iPod.

Watkins, a Silicon Valley veteran, has joined the board of Vertical Circuits, a start-up that has come up with a technique for cramming large amounts of flash memory into a tight space. By using technology from Vertical Circuits, device makers can fit lots of high-speed memory into their products and leave more room for bigger displays and larger batteries.

SanDisk, a developer of flash storage cards, is ramping up to develop flash memory chips in collaboration with Toshiba. The companies announced at the 2009 International Solid State Circuits Conference in San Francisco that they will develop 32-nanometer, 32-gigabit flash memory chips based on SanDisk's X3 and X4 technology.

Milpitas, Calif.-based SanDisk's move toward multi-cell flash memory chips using 32nm technology came on the same day Intel announced a ramp-up to develop new processors using the same 32nm technology.

Samsung Electronics Co. announced a major restructuring Friday, consolidating business operations into two divisions as South Korea's most powerful and iconic corporation deals with the slowing global economy and expectations of looming red ink.

The new organization was included in an announcement of personnel changes at the company as well as at the broader Samsung Group of which it serves as flagship.

The U.S. semiconductor industry, notoriously volatile even without the shock of a global economic downturn, was badly hurt in 2008 as prices for memory chips continued their dizzyingly rapid fall and demand for PC microprocessors dropped off amid weaker demand.

There are more than 700 products on the market today that are touched, worn and used -- ranging from cosmetics to electronics -- that involve nanomaterials. In the next decade a number of products, including food and medical therapies, will also be derived from nanomaterials.

There's not enough funding, leadership and research being conducted to study the health and environmental risks that might come with products made from nanomaterials, according to a report released Wednesday by the National Research Council (NRC).

Micron Technology Inc. will cut about 15 percent of its global work force as part of a restructuring of its computer memory chip operations, the company said Thursday.

The bulk of the job losses will be in Boise, where the semiconductor company is headquartered.

A company statement said the cuts were a result of declining customer demand and product oversupply, which has driven the selling price for NAND flash memory below manufacturing costs. Micron will shut down the NAND flash memory plant in Boise it operates as part of a joint venture with Intel Corp., it said.

SanDisk could be worth $34 to $36 a share if Samsung Electronics were to sweeten its offer to reflect the value of royalties it pays to the U.S. flash memory maker, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter.

South Korea-based Samsung, the world's top maker of memory chips, made public an offer to buy SanDisk for $5.85 billion, or $26 a share, on Sept. 16, after SanDisk rebuffed the offer in private.

Kingston Technology Co. has teamed up with Intel Corp. to market flash memory-based drives to top makers of laptops and servers. The pact with chipmaker Intel is a shift for Fountain Valley-based Kingston, the leading maker of memory modules for computers.

Kingston traditionally has taken a "wait and see" approach to new products. It waited years to get into flash memory cards for consumer electronics, which now make up a quarter of Kingston's $4.5 billion in yearly sales.

A group led by Princeton University computer security researchers has found a startlingly simple way to breach encrypted data -- by chilling the computer memory chip that holds it. The technique only requires chilling the chip with a blast of cold air from a can of dust remover sold for a few dollars at major retailers.

Electronics said Friday its profit rose 37 percent in the first quarter as strength in mobile phones and liquid crystal displays offset weakness in semiconductors.

But Japanese electronics maker Toshiba Corp. said its profit plummeted 95 percent in the January-March quarter due to costs of its exit from next-generation video HD DVD business.

And Samsung memory chip rival Hynix Semiconductor Inc. said it swung to a quarterly loss on a sharp decline in chip prices amid oversupply in the industry.