Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ: WDC) today announced that David Goeckeler has been appointed chief executive officer and a member of the Western Digital Board of Directors (“the Board”), effective March 9, 2020. Mr. Goeckeler currently serves as executive vice president and general manager of Cisco’s $34 billion Networking and Security Business. Mr. Goeckeler succeeds Steve Milligan, who previously announced his intended retirement.
New Study Presents Stretchable and Colorless Solar Cells, Using Si Microwire Composites
A research team, led by Professor Kyoung Jin Choi in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at UNIST has introduced a flexible and transparent solar cell, using silicon microwire composites. The new solar cell takes a structure in which cylindrical silicon rods are embedded in a flexible and transparent polymer material. As the visible lights passes between polymer materials without silicon rods, it appears entirely transparent to the human eye. It is also designed to control the sunlight reflected from the silicon rods, thereby increasing efficiency.
The Ink of the Future in Printed Electronics
A research group led by Simone Fabiano at the Laboratory of Organic Electronics, Linköping University, has created an organic material with superb conductivity that doesn’t need to be doped. They have achieved this by mixing two polymers with different properties. In order to increase the conductivity of polymers, and in this way obtain higher efficiency in organic solar cells, light-emitting diodes and other bioelectronic applications, researchers have until now doped the material with various substances.
Inphi Announces Third Generation, Low-Power Porrima PAM4 Platform for Hyperscale Data Center Networks
Inphi Corporation (NYSE: IPHI), a leader in high-speed data movement interconnects, today announced its new Porrima™ Gen3 Single-Lambda PAM4 platform, the third generation of its industry-leading PAM4 platform solution optimized for hyperscale data center networks. The Porrima Gen3 platform reduces the total module power consumption, lowers total cost of ownership and enables a wider range of lasers, enriching the ecosystem with the next generation of innovation.
Global Fab Equipment Spending Poised for 2021 Record High
Global fab equipment spending promises to rebound from its 2019 downturn and see a modest recovery this year before a sharp uptick drives record investments in 2021, SEMI reported today in the latest update of its World Fab Forecast report. The report shows a slow recovery in 2020 – 3% year-over-year (YoY) growth to US$57.8 billion – owing in large part to an 18% expected slump in the first half of 2020 from the second half of 2019. The picture should brighten in the second half of this year as a recovery starts to take hold.
Xilinx Launches Industry’s First SmartNIC Platform Bringing Turnkey Network, Storage and Compute Acceleration to Cloud Data Centers
Xilinx, Inc. announced the industry’s first SmartNIC platform delivering true convergence of network, storage and compute acceleration functions on a single device. The Alveo™ U25 SmartNIC is designed to bring the greater efficiency and lower TCO benefits of SmartNICs to cloud service providers, telcos, and private cloud data center operators struggling with increasing networking demands and rising costs.
AI Chipmaker Hailo Raises $60 Million in Series B Funding
Hailo, the leading AI chipmaker delivering unprecedented performance to edge devices, today announced it has raised $60 million in Series B funding. The round, led by existing investors, was joined by key strategic investors including ABB Technology Ventures (ATV) – the strategic VC arm of ABB, a global leader in industrial automation and robotics; NEC Corporation – a leader in the integration of IT and network technologies; and London-based VC firm Latitude Ventures.
Intel Announces 2019 Supplier Continuous Quality Improvement Awards
Today, Intel recognizes 37 suppliers for their exceptional commitment to quality and performance in 2019. These suppliers have collaborated with Intel to implement innovative process improvements and operate with the highest level of integrity while providing superior products and services.
A Filter For Cleaner Qubits
Researchers at the Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU), RIKEN, and the University of Tokyo propose an improved method for isolating the qubits in a quantum computer from the external environment, which may help usher in the era of practical quantum computing.
Samsung Adopts Synopsys’ Machine Learning-Driven IC Compiler II for its Next-Generation 5nm Mobile SoC Design
Synopsys, Inc. (Nasdaq: SNPS) today announced that Samsung has adopted the industry-leading IC Compiler™ II place-and-route solution, part of the Synopsys Fusion Design Platform™, for its next-generation 5nm mobile system-on-chip (SoC) production design. In order to meet the aggressive design goals of this complex SoC, Samsung employed IC Compiler II’s cutting-edge machine learning technologies resulting in significant QoR and productivity boosts of up to five percent higher frequency, five percent lower leakage power and faster TAT.
