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Toshiba To Offer A 20-megapixel Image Chip
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Toshiba is gearing up for to offer a 20-megapixel image sensor for digital cameras that it says will be the highest resolution of its kind.
The Tokyo-based firm said the new chips will be able to support capturing 30 frames per second at full resolution. They will also be able to shoot video at 60 frames per second at 1080P or 100 frames at 720P.
Toshiba said it will begin shipping samples of the new CMOS chips in January, with mass production to begin in August of 300,000 units monthly. Toshiba is best known in components for its NAND flash memory, which it develops with partner SanDisk, but is also a major manufacturer of LSI and other semiconductors.
Digital point-and-shoot cameras are steadily falling in price, squeezed between brutal competition among manufacturers and the increasing threat of smartphones and mobile devices. While the number of pixels a camera can capture is not always a direct measure of the overall quality of its images, it is a key selling point to consumers.
The image resolution of top-end smartphones now often meets or exceed that of digital cameras. The Nokia 808 PureView launched earlier this year has a 41-megapixel image sensor.
The Japanese manufacturer said it has increased the amount of information pixels in the new chip can store compared to its previous generation of CMOS, producing better overall images. It has also reduces the size of pixels – the new 20-megapixel version has individual pixels that measure 1.2 micrometers, down from 1.34 micrometers in its 16-megapixel product.
Will Sharp Collapse?
November 13, 2012 by admin
Filed under Consumer Electronics
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Japanese troubled telly maker, Sharp, has warned that if it can’t do something radical soon, its business could go the way of the dodo and T-Rex.
Despite being a major supplier of LCD displays to Apple and other manufacturers, the company has admitted that it can’t survive in its current form. According to Computerworld the company said that there is “material doubt” about its ability to continue operating. The company thinks that it can cut costs and secure enough credit to survive and much of its plan for recovery is based on its IGZO technology for mobile displays. This technology uses less battery power than existing screens.
Sharp is also carrying out a restructuring plan in which it has reduced headcount, slashed employee salaries and mortgaged its buildings and factories. The company is booking a net loss of $5.6 billion for the year mostly to cover its restructuring costs. Its stock has been downgraded to junk status by ratings agencies and apparently its executives have been seen around Apple and Intel HQ’s with their cloth caps in their hands looking for bail outs, or investments, depending on who you talk to.
Sharp President Takashi Okuda said the company is continuing its negotiations with Hon Hai, even though so far these have not been going that well. Sharp made a mistake in that it thought that the world wanted LCD panels for large-screen TVs. It is now trying to switch over to the booming market for tablets and smartphones.
Sharp Electronics Gets Downgraded
Sharp has had its credit rating cut to junk status by the Standard and Poor’s rating agency.
Sharp, which invested heavily during the LCD television boom in the mid 2000s, is now paying the price as demand for televisions slumps across the board. Now Standard and Poor’s has bestowed the ignominy of lowering Sharp’s credit rating to BB+, putting it into what’s called junk status.
Standard and Poor’s also warned that Sharp has weak cash flow and is facing worsening market conditions, two things that will not endear it to investors. It said, “Sharp’s liquidity position has weakened, and the company is highly dependent on short-term borrowings in light of weak internal cash flow and a less favourable funding environment.”
Sharp has had a troubled year and earlier this week announced that it will lay off 2,000 employees in Japan, as its LCD business simply cannot support itself. Standard and Poor’s said that unless Sharp’s fortunes improve, the firm could be hit with another credit rating downgrade.
Standard and Poor’s said, “We may consider lowering the ratings if Sharp’s earnings in (the year to March 2013) and prospects for its recovery deteriorate even further or the company’s financing environment and relationships with credit banks and strategic partners worsen.”
Toshiba Cancels Windows Tablet
Toshiba on Tuesday officially confirmed what Microsoft recently hinted at: It won’t be delivering a Windows RT-based tablet anytime soon.
“Toshiba has decided not to introduce Windows RT models due to delayed components that would make a timely launch impossible,” the Japanese electronics company said in a statement to Bloomberg earlier today. “For the time being, Toshiba will focus on bringing Windows 8 products to market. We will continue to look into the possibility of Windows RT products in the future while monitoring market conditions.”
Last June, Toshiba showed two Windows RT-based concepts — a tablet with a docking station and a “clamshell” design that resembled a keyboard-equipped ultralight notebook — at Computex. The devices were not operational, however.
Based on those concept devices, most had included Toshiba in the slowly-growing list of OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) that were believed to be preparing Windows RT hardware for launch this year or early next.
Sharp To Pay Fine In Price Fixing Settlement
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Sharp said on Monday it has agreed to pay Dell and two other firms $198.5 million to settle a lawsuit for fixing LCD panel prices in Europe and North America.
The company agreed to settle the civil lawsuit, which was first filed in November of 2009 against a group of companies including Sharp, Epson, Hitachi and Toshiba for collusion on prices of LCD panels sold to Dell. A Sharp spokeswoman said the company made the decision independent of the other firms involved in the lawsuit, and the payment would settle the suit with Dell. Sharp did not name the two other companies besides Dell.
“After broadly considering factors such as the U.S. civil lawsuit system and the facts of this case, Sharp has determined that agreeing to a settlement is the best policy,” the company said in a statement.
Dell sought damages to recover funds it paid for LCD panels purchased at inflated prices. The lawsuit involved TFT (thin film transistor) panels, widely used in TVs, laptops and handheld gadgets.
Seagate Gobbles Up Lacie
Seagate has signed a deal to buy consumer storage vendor Lacie that values the firm at $186m.
Seagate, which recently completed the acquisition of Samsung’s hard disk unit and swiftly cut warranties on most of its drives to just one year, has now announced that it will buy hard drive packager Lacie. Seagate has signed an agreement with Philippe Spruch, Lacie’s chairman and CEO, to purchase his 63.5 percent stake in the company at $7.05 per share in cash, which values the firm at $186m.
According to Seagate the purchase should help the firm grow in Europe and Japan. The firm also announced that Spruch will be employed by Seagate and run its consumer products division.
Steve Luczo, Seagate chairman, CEO and president said, “Lacie has built an exceptional consumer brand by delivering exciting and innovative high end products for many years. This transaction would bring a highly complementary set of capabilities to Seagate, significantly expand our consumer product offerings, add a premium branded direct attached storage line, strengthen our network-attached storage business line and enhance our capabilities in software development.”
Lacie’s fancy portable hard drives are popular among those who like fancy cases wrapped around bog-standard consumer hard disks. Seagate’s purchase of Lacie should see the firm not only become the sole supplier of hard drives in Lacie products but make a renewed push in the consumer portable hard drive market following last year’s floods in Thailand that affected the three big hard drive manufacturers.
Seagate said the deal should be completed by the third quarter of 2012 pending regulatory approval in the US, France and Germany.
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Dell Intros Ivy Bridge Xeon Servers
Dell has become the first to announce servers using Intel’s latest Ivy Bridge Xeon E3 processors.
Intel launched its single socket Ivy Bridge Xeon E3 processors a month after it wowed everyone with its dual-core Sandy Bridge Xeon E5 processors, and it has taken Dell only another month to announce the first servers to make use of Intel’s latest nearline server chip. Dell’s Poweredge C5220 microserver uses Xeon E3 1200 series processors that have thermal design power (TDP) down to 17W.
Dell is pitching its Poweredge C5220 servers towards high performance computing, cloud deployments and content delivery networks. While Dell calls the Poweredge C5220 a microserver, that really isn’t a reference to its size or density, but rather the fact that it is a single socket server.
Dell offers the Poweredge C5220 with either 17W or 45W TDP Intel processors supporting DDR3-1600 memory. The firm claims close to double the performance over previous generation single socket servers, mainly due to a 50 per cent increase in density.
Global Semiconductors On the Rise
Global semiconductor revenue is expected to rise at faster and force bigger chipmakers to acquire smaller rivals to increase their market share, according to bean counters at research outfit IDC.
In an industry report, IDC predicts that revenue may expand by between six percent and seven percent this year. Global semiconductor sales rose 3.7 percent to $301 billion in 2011, as orders for chips used in wireless devices offset declining revenue for computing-related chips, IDC said.
But it thinks all this will coase nergers and acquisitions among chipmakers will continue. Already Qualcomm bought Atheros and Texas Instruments took over National Semiconductor. But IDC thinks that industry consolidation may allow bigger chipmakers to offer products that are used in a wider range of applications.
SanDisk Hurt By Weak Demand, Supply Glut
April 10, 2012 by admin
Filed under Around The Net
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Flash-memory maker SanDisk Corp warned that tepid demand from mobile phone manufacturers and a glut in supply that has led to lower prices are putting a dent its revenue margins.
The maker of NAND chips — used as storage memory in smartphones and tablets — has recently seen demand taper with some of its key customers scaling back orders.
Smartphones and tablets have caused a boom in NAND production, but SanDisk’s customers have not all done equally well from the explosion in mobile gadgets.
“Anybody who is not a Samsung or an Apple is burning through some (mobile) handset inventory,” RBC Capital Markets analyst Doug Freedman said.
“Until we get the PC market, tablet market and handset market back buying, we’ll see an oversupply situation.”
SanDisk’s weak outlook mirrors warnings from rival flash-memory makers, who have also blamed weak prices and demand for their disappointing results.
Late last month, Micron Technology said it was facing persistently low prices for memory chips and posted a wider loss. Toshiba Corp, Japan’s biggest chip maker, also posted a drop in quarterly sales at its electronics devices business, which includes semiconductors, hit by lower prices for memory chips.
SanDisk in January expressed concerns about weaker demand weighing on sales in the first half of this year and forecast lower-than-expected revenue for the first quarter.
The Milpitas, California-based company, which is set to report results later this month, said its gross margins for the January-March quarter will come in below its prior expectations of 39-42 percent, hurt by lower prices for its chips.
Windows 8 Tablet Being Developed By ASUS
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Chinese newspapers have indentified Asustek as one of five international PC brands that will work with Microsoft on the “Windows on ARM” (WOA) architecture.
Microsoft is to release its first operating system that supports chips from Arm next year. Only five PC brands have been invited by Microsoft to join WOA, a development project that shows its aggressiveness in tapping the burgeoning tablet PC market. Asustek is the latest announcement. So far Samsung, Toshiba, HP and Lenovo have been identified as working with Microsoft to develop notebooks and tablets that run on WOA architecture.