ISA WINWire February 26 – March 5 2010

Seminar and outreach session by IEEE in Bangalore - March 9 -12

For more details and to register for the outreach sessions, please visit    standards.ieee.org

UIDAI gets Rs 1900 crore budget allocation; Nilekani to head Technology Advisory Group

Source: Srikanth RP, InformationWeek, February 26 2010    www.informationweek.in

One of India’s most ambitious projects, Unique Identification (UID)–where every Indian will be given a unique number–has received a huge boost with Dr Pranab Mukherjee, Minister of Finance, allocating Rs 1900 crore to the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) for 2010-11.

Solar attraction

Source: BV Mahalakshmi, Yahoo News, March 1 2010    in.news.yahoo.com

Having carved a niche in global software development and services outsourcing, India seemed all set to take on the rest of Asia in the chip manufacturing business. This is because semiconductor firms such as Intel, Advanced Micro Devices and Freescale Semiconductor have already tapped India for chip design. But manufacturing continues to be an elusive dream. However, ground reality is in sharp contrast to what was widely expected—manufacturing is yet to commence. Instead, focus is shifting towards solar cell and photo voltaic module production, with state governments of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Punjab and Gujarat announcing a slew of incentives.

January chip sales increase 0.3 percent from December

Source: SIA, March 1 2010    www.sia-online.org

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) today reported that worldwide semiconductor sales in January were $22.5 billion, an increase of 0.3 percent from December sales of $22.4 billion. Sales increased by 47.2 percent from January 2009 when sales were $15.3 billion. All monthly sales numbers represent a three-month moving average.

Group honors three women for contributions to tech

Source: EETimes, March 1 2010    www.eetimes.com

The Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology Monday (March 1) announced the three winners of the organization's Women of Vision Awards, which honor women making significant contributions to technology. The 2010 winners include Kristina M. Johnson, under secretary for energy at the U.S. Department of Energy, Kathleen R. McKeown, a professor of computer science at Columbia University, and Lila Ibrahim, general manager of Intel Corp.'s Emerging Markets Platform Group.

Defence offers opportunities to Indian electronics

Source: EETimes, March 1 2010    www.eetindia.co.in

For the first time ever in an electronics exhibition in India top defence officials came together to share the opportunities with private companies to serve the needs of indigenisation and transfer oftechnology. The event was the Electronics Next India 2010 exhibition for EMS, electronic components, production and materials which was inaugurated by director general, EME, Lt. General AKS Chandele PVSM, AVSM. Speaking on the occasion he said "This year's edition puts a spotlight on defence and strategic electronics and [the defence industry] has launched a series of initiatives to encourage and invite private firms to work in the field of defence electronics.

UID budget boost to drive smartcard technologies

Source: Manu Sharma, CXOToday, March 2 2010    www.cxotoday.com

The Unique Identification (UID) project has received a massive hike of Rs 1,900 crore in the budgetary allocation for 2010-11. The sum is likely to drive investments in smart card technologies, where chips, software and biometrics play a big role. Besides allocation of Rs 100 crore each for the financial inclusion fund and the financial inclusion technology fund is also expected to drive the demand for smart cards and identification technologies.

HCL Technologies receives QCI-DL Shah National award

Source: Bloomberg, March 2 2010    www.bloombergutv.com

HCL Technologies (HCL) has been felicitated with the prestigious QCI-DL Shah National award on economics of quality. The Quality Council of India (QCI) and the D.L. Shah Trust chose HCL for this award under the large scale units - service sector category.

Semico: Good times are here for ICs

Source: Mark LaPedus, EETimes, March 3 2010    www.eetimes.com

"Believe it or not, the good times are here!" That's the message delivered by Jim Feldhan, president of Semico Research Corp., who predicts a two-year growth cycle for ICs. During its conference here, Semico also raised its IC forecast. The IC market is expected to jump 24 percent in 2010 and grow by another 11.5 percent in 2011, according to Feldhan.

Mentor CEO: IC design costs to hit $100M  

Source: Mark LaPedus, EETimes, March 3 2010   www.eetimes.com

Chip design costs are expected to soar, but software--not hardware--is playing a much greater role in the problematic equation, according to the top executive of Mentor Graphics Corp. The shift in the equation will require a new type of EDA technology-- embedded software automation (ESA)--as a means to attack the problem, said Walden Rhines, chairman and chief executive of Mentor.

WSTS: January chip sales up 72% on a year ago  

Source: Peter Clarke, EETimes, March 4 2010   www.eetimes.com

January's global market for semiconductors was $22.38 billion according to "actual" data from the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) organization. This was slightly down on the figure for December 2009 of $23.48 billion, but exceeded the January 2009 actual sales figure of $13.02 billion by 71.9 percent.

TSMC, UMC lose production to quake  

Source: Peter Clarke, EETimes, February 4 2010   www.eetimes.com

Foundries Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (Hsinhcu, Taiwan) and United Microelectronics Corp. (Hsinchu, Taiwan) have reported on the impact of an earthquake that hit southern Taiwan at 8:18 am local time on March 4, 2010. Both foundries said the quake has lost them about 1.5 days of worth of wafers.