DailyDirt: Introduction To Semiconductors

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Semiconductors are all around us, everyday. They make our phones and computers work, and sometimes we don't realize they're also in our cars and fancy toasters and refrigerators, etc, etc. It's likely that the majority of the Techdirt audience has taken an electrical engineering class, but if you're not in that group (and you're curious about what a semiconductor does), check out these links on what goes into the chips that run the modern world.

• If you wanted to know what the basic parts of a processor are, here's an answer from Quora. You'll need to be able to figure out an AND gate, an exclusive OR gate, a flip-flop circuit, a multiplexer, a full adder... and some time to remember any Boolean logic you might have learned once. [url]
• How does a transistor work, and how does anyone make these things? Anandtech has a not-so-brief introduction to transistors and lithography, explaining a bit how past, present (and future) processors (will) work. [url]
• Ask most folks to name a chip manufacturer, and they'll name Intel. However, companies that use enormous amounts of computing power are looking for alternatives to X86 chip designs. ARM and OpenPower chip designs can be licensed more freely than X86, so there could be more kinds of chips running our Google searches and Facebook feeds someday. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: arm, boolean logic, chips, lithography, openpower, processors, semiconductors, transistors, x86
Companies: intel, quora

Intel Up In One Measure, Down In Another

from the turning-silicon-green dept

On Wall Street, there's a constant battle between growth and margins. Ideally, a company can show good growth and healthy margins, but often one gets sacrificed for the other. Last night, Intel came out with quarterly earnings that were up by 44% over the year-ago period -- perfectly respectable, particularly considering the headwinds facing the industry. But in order to keep sales high and keep AMD at bay, the company had to fall on its sword with respect to pricing, which proved a disappointment to investors. The company says it foresees continued growth, but it's hard to imagine that it could keep up this clip at the same time everyone else in the industry is suffering. Still, the fact that it managed to grow while remaining quite profitable is a further indication of how badly the company is drubbing AMD right now.

Filed Under: semiconductors
Companies: amd, intel

Chips Continue To Fall For Semiconductor Industry

from the chip-up dept

Last month, The Semiconductor Industry Association put out an ominous forecast for the chip sector, slashing growth estimates from 10% to 1.8% over the coming year. Not surprisingly, the carnage in the industry seems to be spreading. An industry group for the makers of semiconductor equipment says sales will only rise by 1% this year, following growth of 23% last year, and a turnaround doesn't look likely over the next few years, as gains are expected to be anemic. This industry is cyclical, so many of these companies have seen downturns like this in the past, but taken with other bits of evidence, a broader downturn may be in the offing.

Filed Under: semiconductors