http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/02/12/intel-to-sell-remaining-stake-in-apple-partner-mobile-gpu-maker-imagination-technologies
Once the sale is complete, the Intel Foundation and Intel Capital will no longer hold any shares in Imagination Technologies, according to J.P. Morgan Securities. Intel had been a licensee of the British chipmaker's 3D technology.
Apple, however, remains a shareholder and a licensee of Imagination Technologies, having renewed its agreement
with the company a year ago. Terms of that deal were not announced, but
Imagination did say in February 2014 that the agreement spans multiple
years and covers a variety of uses.
In late 2008, Apple bought a 3.6 percent stake
in Imagination Technologies, and has since upped its share to nearly 10
percent. The company's powerful PowerVR Series 6 chips have powered
every Apple "iDevice" since the third-generation iPhone 3GS.
The latest-generation A8 processor found in the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus boasts the PowerVR GX6450, a six-core
graphics processor that boasts a performance improvement of up to 84
times greater than the first iPhone released in 2007. And the A8X chip
found in the iPad Air 2 features even greater graphics performance, trouncing competing tablets on the market today.
Friday, February 13, 2015
Seagate and Micron Sign Multi-Year Agreement
http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomcoughlin/2015/02/12/seagate-and-micron-sign-multi-year-agreement/
Micron Technology and Seagate Technology, both significant players in flash memory and HDDs, announced a strategic agreement that according to the press release “…establishes a framework for combining the innovation and expertise of both companies.” This agreement may exceed in its scope prior agreements on flash memory technology by a HDD company.
Seagate and Western Digital, the two biggest HDD companies, have made acquisition of various companies involved in flash memory technology. These have included Seagate’s acquisition of LSI’s flash memory controller business as well as Western Digital’s acquisition of Skyera and before that Virident. In addition Seagate obtained some flash memory supply as part of its acquisition of Samsung’s HDD business, while HGST (a division of WD) has a multi-year agreement with Intel on design and supply of flash chips for enterprise SSDs.
Micron Technology and Seagate Technology, both significant players in flash memory and HDDs, announced a strategic agreement that according to the press release “…establishes a framework for combining the innovation and expertise of both companies.” This agreement may exceed in its scope prior agreements on flash memory technology by a HDD company.
Seagate and Western Digital, the two biggest HDD companies, have made acquisition of various companies involved in flash memory technology. These have included Seagate’s acquisition of LSI’s flash memory controller business as well as Western Digital’s acquisition of Skyera and before that Virident. In addition Seagate obtained some flash memory supply as part of its acquisition of Samsung’s HDD business, while HGST (a division of WD) has a multi-year agreement with Intel on design and supply of flash chips for enterprise SSDs.
The Micron-Seagate agreement will have
the two companies working on next-generation SAS SSDs and also supplies
Seagate a strategic NAND supply. The companies believe that this
agreement will lead to future collaboration on enterprise storage
solutions featuring Micron NAND flash memory. Note that Micron is the
third largest flash memory chip supplier after Samsung and
Toshiba/SanDisk (who have joint fabrication facilities).
Considering Seagate’s
recent announcements on storage systems (leveraging their acquisition of
Xyratex’s storage systems business in 2013) this might include future
offerings that combine SSDs and HDDs in interesting ways. The Seagate
release includes quotes from EMC and HP indicating support by enterprise
storage companies for joint development by Micron and Seagate for
enterprise flash memory solutions.
While
we are a few years away from SSD industry maturity, as the SSD industry
matures the profit margins will decline and the number of suppliers
will decrease. This will put pressure leading to vertical integration
of flash chip supplies (as well as flash controllers) with the SSD
suppliers. If the HDD companies are going to become leading SSD
suppliers they must have access to low cost flash memory supplies.
So it should not be
surprising to see additional partnerships and perhaps consolidation
between HDD and flash memory companies in the next few years. Digital
storage for enterprise applications will likely require multiple
technologies used together to create multi-tiered automated storage
solutions and providing the best combination of cost and performance.
Thursday, February 12, 2015
Massive $20B Components Waste Haunts Supply Chain
The electronics industry urgently needs an energetic components
exchange program to help address an inventory imbalance that is
distorting the supply chain and resulting in the wastage of parts valued
in excess of $20 billion annually, says a top industry executive. While
some companies are implementing programs for helping customers
individually address the problem it would be better resolved at an
industry level, according to an executive with a leading electronics
components distributor.
A large chunk of components that aren’t used annually by OEMs and contract manufacturers are proprietary parts that cannot be swapped into other devices but the majority are standard or commodity products that could be easily used but that are wasted simply because of inefficiencies in the supply chain, said Lindsley Ruth, senior VP at Future Electronics Inc. Oftentimes, component suppliers keep churning out new products unaware their inventories are piling up elsewhere unused. This development is contributing to the devastating impact of electronic components and equipment on the global environment, he said.
“Semiconductors have a significant impact on the environment,” Ruth said in an interview with Bolaji Ojo, editor-in-chief of Electronics Purchasing Strategies. “We’ve got to be careful that we only produce what’s needed and when there’s excess inventory that exists around the world, we move it to the right place where there is demand and not build more product and create environmental waste and landfills.”
Ruth said the industry as a body needs to develop a comprehensive strategy for raising the level of visibility managers have into the supply chain, especially with regard to the availability of components in certain areas where they might not be needed so as to facilitate the transfer of such parts to where they might be required. Future Electronics is implementing an internal program for its customers to facilitate this, Ruth said.
To read more:
http://electronicspurchasingstrategies.com/2015/02/09/massive-20b-components-waste-haunts-supply-chain/
A large chunk of components that aren’t used annually by OEMs and contract manufacturers are proprietary parts that cannot be swapped into other devices but the majority are standard or commodity products that could be easily used but that are wasted simply because of inefficiencies in the supply chain, said Lindsley Ruth, senior VP at Future Electronics Inc. Oftentimes, component suppliers keep churning out new products unaware their inventories are piling up elsewhere unused. This development is contributing to the devastating impact of electronic components and equipment on the global environment, he said.
“Semiconductors have a significant impact on the environment,” Ruth said in an interview with Bolaji Ojo, editor-in-chief of Electronics Purchasing Strategies. “We’ve got to be careful that we only produce what’s needed and when there’s excess inventory that exists around the world, we move it to the right place where there is demand and not build more product and create environmental waste and landfills.”
Ruth said the industry as a body needs to develop a comprehensive strategy for raising the level of visibility managers have into the supply chain, especially with regard to the availability of components in certain areas where they might not be needed so as to facilitate the transfer of such parts to where they might be required. Future Electronics is implementing an internal program for its customers to facilitate this, Ruth said.
To read more:
http://electronicspurchasingstrategies.com/2015/02/09/massive-20b-components-waste-haunts-supply-chain/
Attacking Alzheimer’s with Ultrasound
http://www.mdtmag.com/news/2015/02/attacking-alzheimers-ultrasound?et_cid=4411098&et_rid=490548696&type=headline
For the first time, researchers have reversed some of the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease in mice using magnetic resonance (MR) imaging-guided focused ultrasound.
MR imaging-guided focused ultrasound has been shown to temporarily open the blood-brain barrier (BBB), which allows for more effective delivery of drugs to the brain. In order to accomplish this, researchers use a microbubble contrast agent. The microbubbles vibrate when they pass through the ultrasound beam, temporarily creating an opening in the BBB for the drugs to pass through. In addition, this combination of ultrasound and microbubbles has been shown to increase the number of new neurons and the dendrite length.
In this study, Kullervo Hynynen, Ph.D., a medical physicist at Sunnybrook Research Institute in Toronto, and his collaborators studied the effects of using MR imaging-guided focused ultrasound on the hippocampus of transgenic (TgCRND8) mice. Mice with this genetic variant have increased plaque on their hippocampus, the part of the brain that helps convert information from short-term to long-term memory; they also display symptoms similar to Alzheimer’s such as memory impairment and learning reversal. Thus, transgenic mice are used as an animal model for Alzheimer’s disease.
The researchers used MR imaging-guided focused ultrasound with microbubbles to open the BBB and treat the hippocampus of the mice. The researchers treated each side separately to be as accurate as possible in their focus of the ultrasound beam. They found the treatment led to improvements in cognition and spatial learning in the transgenic mice, potentially caused by reduced plaque and increased neuronal plasticity due to the focused ultrasound treatment. They found no tissue damage or negative behavioral changes in the mice due to the treatments in either the transgenic mice or the control (nontransgenic) mice. Both groups of mice benefited from increased neuronal plasticity, which confirms the previous research on the effects of MR imaging-guided focused ultrasound on plasticity in healthy mice.
An estimated 5.2 million Americans suffer from Alzheimer’s. It is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States and there is currently no treatment for the disease. “The results are an exciting step in the search for Alzheimer’s treatments,” said Steven Krosnick, M.D., Program Director for Image-Guided Interventions at the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering at NIH, “but there is more to be done. There are limitations on the memory tests that can be done on mice, and human cognition is significantly more complex. Hopefully these results will open doors to more research on how MR imaging-guided focused ultrasound could benefit cognition and perhaps be magnified by using other therapeutics in conjunction with this method.”
For the first time, researchers have reversed some of the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease in mice using magnetic resonance (MR) imaging-guided focused ultrasound.
MR imaging-guided focused ultrasound has been shown to temporarily open the blood-brain barrier (BBB), which allows for more effective delivery of drugs to the brain. In order to accomplish this, researchers use a microbubble contrast agent. The microbubbles vibrate when they pass through the ultrasound beam, temporarily creating an opening in the BBB for the drugs to pass through. In addition, this combination of ultrasound and microbubbles has been shown to increase the number of new neurons and the dendrite length.
In this study, Kullervo Hynynen, Ph.D., a medical physicist at Sunnybrook Research Institute in Toronto, and his collaborators studied the effects of using MR imaging-guided focused ultrasound on the hippocampus of transgenic (TgCRND8) mice. Mice with this genetic variant have increased plaque on their hippocampus, the part of the brain that helps convert information from short-term to long-term memory; they also display symptoms similar to Alzheimer’s such as memory impairment and learning reversal. Thus, transgenic mice are used as an animal model for Alzheimer’s disease.
The researchers used MR imaging-guided focused ultrasound with microbubbles to open the BBB and treat the hippocampus of the mice. The researchers treated each side separately to be as accurate as possible in their focus of the ultrasound beam. They found the treatment led to improvements in cognition and spatial learning in the transgenic mice, potentially caused by reduced plaque and increased neuronal plasticity due to the focused ultrasound treatment. They found no tissue damage or negative behavioral changes in the mice due to the treatments in either the transgenic mice or the control (nontransgenic) mice. Both groups of mice benefited from increased neuronal plasticity, which confirms the previous research on the effects of MR imaging-guided focused ultrasound on plasticity in healthy mice.
An estimated 5.2 million Americans suffer from Alzheimer’s. It is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States and there is currently no treatment for the disease. “The results are an exciting step in the search for Alzheimer’s treatments,” said Steven Krosnick, M.D., Program Director for Image-Guided Interventions at the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering at NIH, “but there is more to be done. There are limitations on the memory tests that can be done on mice, and human cognition is significantly more complex. Hopefully these results will open doors to more research on how MR imaging-guided focused ultrasound could benefit cognition and perhaps be magnified by using other therapeutics in conjunction with this method.”
SFU Lab Creates Potentially Life Saving Heart Cells
http://www.mdtmag.com/news/2015/02/sfu-lab-creates-potentially-life-saving-heart-cells?et_cid=4411098&et_rid=490548696&location=top
A group of Simon Fraser University researchers’ cultivation of dozens of beating heart cells in Petrie dishes could one day save or improve the lives of patients with inherited heart arrhythmias. They are genetic mutations that cause irregular heartbeats that can be lethal.
Elham Afshinmanesh and Sanam Shafaattalab, graduate students in SFU’s molecular cardiac physiology lab, have created the heart cells, also known as cardiomyocytes, beating in unison. They’ve been crafted from the skin of heart arrhythmia patients.
Because the beating heart cells share the same genomes as the patients, these cells also mimic the patients’ diseases, permitting scientists to experiment with potential drug therapies and interventions.
The students are working under the supervision of Glen Tibbits, an SFU professor and Canada Research Chair in Molecular Cardiac Physiology. They are collaborating with cardiologists, who specialize in inherited cardiac arrhythmias, at B.C. Children’s and St. Paul’s hospitals.
Their research is key to developing one of the first laboratories capable of testing cardiomyocytes in vitro and then recommending customized treatment for individuals who have these inherited heart diseases.
“It’s often very challenging for clinicians to assess risk in these patients,” explains Tibbits.
“It is frequently difficult to determine whether a patient has a high likelihood of suffering from cardiac arrest or will be okay by simply taking a beta blocker and/or other medications.
“The idea behind our work is to test, with the patient’s own cells, what therapies might work, or not.”
The research is new and complex, and they are optimizing the methods by which a patient’s blood cells can be reprogrammed into induced pluripotent stem cells, which can then become any kind of cell. They have already mastered the ability to turn skin cells into this type of stem cell (iPSC), but would prefer to work with the patient’s blood, since this is more efficient and less invasive than using skin biopsies.
Says Afshinmanesh, “When we convert the blood and skin cells to stem cells not all of them can be further differentiated into heart cells. So we’re looking for markers that will predict which stem cells are good prospects for becoming heart cells.”
Tibbits expects that within the next few months his lab will be ready to begin testing the beating heart cells with therapeutic interventions to determine the efficacy of individual treatments.
“We have grants to support our work right now, but eventually we hope that these tests will become part of the Medical Services Program,” explains Tibbits. “Then we will isolate the skin or blood cells, convert them, determine the appropriate patient therapy and then be reimbursed.”
The Canadian Institutes for Health Research is funding the research.
As Canada's engaged university, SFU is defined by its dynamic integration of innovative education, cutting-edge research and far-reaching community engagement. SFU was founded almost 50 years ago with a mission to be a different kind of university—to bring an interdisciplinary approach to learning, embrace bold initiatives, and engage with communities near and far. Today, SFU is a leader amongst Canada's comprehensive research universities and is ranked one of the top universities in the world under 50 years of age. With campuses in British Columbia's three largest cities—Vancouver, Surrey and Burnaby—SFU has eight faculties, delivers almost 150 programs to over 30,000 students, and boasts more than 130,000 alumni in 130 countries around the world.
A group of Simon Fraser University researchers’ cultivation of dozens of beating heart cells in Petrie dishes could one day save or improve the lives of patients with inherited heart arrhythmias. They are genetic mutations that cause irregular heartbeats that can be lethal.
Elham Afshinmanesh and Sanam Shafaattalab, graduate students in SFU’s molecular cardiac physiology lab, have created the heart cells, also known as cardiomyocytes, beating in unison. They’ve been crafted from the skin of heart arrhythmia patients.
Because the beating heart cells share the same genomes as the patients, these cells also mimic the patients’ diseases, permitting scientists to experiment with potential drug therapies and interventions.
The students are working under the supervision of Glen Tibbits, an SFU professor and Canada Research Chair in Molecular Cardiac Physiology. They are collaborating with cardiologists, who specialize in inherited cardiac arrhythmias, at B.C. Children’s and St. Paul’s hospitals.
Their research is key to developing one of the first laboratories capable of testing cardiomyocytes in vitro and then recommending customized treatment for individuals who have these inherited heart diseases.
“It’s often very challenging for clinicians to assess risk in these patients,” explains Tibbits.
“It is frequently difficult to determine whether a patient has a high likelihood of suffering from cardiac arrest or will be okay by simply taking a beta blocker and/or other medications.
“The idea behind our work is to test, with the patient’s own cells, what therapies might work, or not.”
The research is new and complex, and they are optimizing the methods by which a patient’s blood cells can be reprogrammed into induced pluripotent stem cells, which can then become any kind of cell. They have already mastered the ability to turn skin cells into this type of stem cell (iPSC), but would prefer to work with the patient’s blood, since this is more efficient and less invasive than using skin biopsies.
Says Afshinmanesh, “When we convert the blood and skin cells to stem cells not all of them can be further differentiated into heart cells. So we’re looking for markers that will predict which stem cells are good prospects for becoming heart cells.”
Tibbits expects that within the next few months his lab will be ready to begin testing the beating heart cells with therapeutic interventions to determine the efficacy of individual treatments.
“We have grants to support our work right now, but eventually we hope that these tests will become part of the Medical Services Program,” explains Tibbits. “Then we will isolate the skin or blood cells, convert them, determine the appropriate patient therapy and then be reimbursed.”
The Canadian Institutes for Health Research is funding the research.
As Canada's engaged university, SFU is defined by its dynamic integration of innovative education, cutting-edge research and far-reaching community engagement. SFU was founded almost 50 years ago with a mission to be a different kind of university—to bring an interdisciplinary approach to learning, embrace bold initiatives, and engage with communities near and far. Today, SFU is a leader amongst Canada's comprehensive research universities and is ranked one of the top universities in the world under 50 years of age. With campuses in British Columbia's three largest cities—Vancouver, Surrey and Burnaby—SFU has eight faculties, delivers almost 150 programs to over 30,000 students, and boasts more than 130,000 alumni in 130 countries around the world.
Monday, February 9, 2015
Clifton's NJ Micro-Electronic Testing sued over bad plane brakes
http://www.northjersey.com/news/clifton-s-nj-micro-electronic-testing-sued-over-bad-plane-brakes-1.1265108
CLIFTON — An electronics testing lab is for a second time the subject of a lawsuit that alleges the company produced false test reports for products that it said were properly working.
New Jersey Micro-Electronic Testing Inc. of Clifton is being sued by a distributor in Dover that sold thousands of airplane brake parts judged by the lab to be functional but that later proved to be defective.
Electrospec, the parts distributor, claims in its suit that the testing lab improperly tested the brake parts or never performed the tests, and that it falsified the test reports. A similar claim was made in 2005 by a former lab employee who said his superiors directed him to fabricate test reports, but the company said those allegations were not proved.
In the new case, none of the flawed brake parts were installed in airplanes, but the fallout for Electrospec was massive, said Darren Summer, the company's vice president. After an investigation by federal inspectors, he said, the company lost millions of dollars in business and was forced to shrink its workforce of 30 employees to eight.
Summer said he hopes the lawsuit, filed in March 2014 in Passaic County Superior Court, will vindicate his business and shine a light on the testing lab's practices.
"The damage is done on my end," Summer said. "Others that have used testing from NJMET, they need to know this. These parts could be in aircraft, in equipment that could fail."
The testing lab's attorney, Jerry Gallagher, said the company denied the new allegations and was "completely confident that it properly tested and thoroughly tested these parts."
Electrospec bought the brake parts from a Chinese supplier in 2008 and sent them for testing to ensure that they were authentic, new and functional, Summer said. The lab said 13,000 of the 20,000 parts passed its tests, and Electrospec sold them to Hydro-Aire, a California-based company that installs aircraft brake systems.
But Hydro-Aire's parent company performed tests of its own, revealing that some of the parts were not working and that they likely had been used and refurbished, said Richard Vrhovc, Electrospec's attorney.
The Federal Aviation Administration sent an alert to the airline manufacturing industry about the faulty parts in 2012 that said they were "not properly tested and could be counterfeit."
Vrhovc said the FAA laid the blame on Electrospec when it should rest with the testing lab.
"NJMET has been skating free on this for three years with no repercussions," he said.
Based on recent testimony from a lab test engineering manager, Vrhovc said, Electrospec plans to amend its suit this month to include an allegation that the lab violated the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act.
The manager, Thomas Farinella, said in a deposition that he either could not or did not test at least two of the criteria that the lab agreed to review for the brake parts. Test reports show that the parts passed in those areas anyway.
Vrhovc also questioned whether it was possible for the tests to be performed as quickly as the lab reports said they were. One showed that a single worker tested 6,000 parts one day and 2,500 on another, he said.
Gallagher said the lab was reviewing Farinella's testimony. He said the untested areas would not have made a difference in determining whether the parts were faulty. He also said the tests were performed in three to five seconds and often by multiple operators.
Gallagher said Electrospec was using the lab as a "scapegoat" and that Electrospec never represented that the bake parts came from China, where counterfeits often originate. The company could have asked for a specific authenticity test, but it did not do so, he said.
"When you buy parts like this, they can pass today and fail tomorrow," Gallagher said. "If they had disclosed the source of the parts, it really would have been a game changer."
The testing lab was sued in 2005 by a former employee, Mark Williams, who also was represented by Vrhovc. Williams said he was instructed to falsify product-testing reports and that company engineers told him they could not or did not know how to test parts the company agreed to test for clients.
Gallagher denied Williams' allegations and contended that Williams' claims were never proved. The case was resolved in a confidential settlement in 2007.
CLIFTON — An electronics testing lab is for a second time the subject of a lawsuit that alleges the company produced false test reports for products that it said were properly working.
New Jersey Micro-Electronic Testing Inc. of Clifton is being sued by a distributor in Dover that sold thousands of airplane brake parts judged by the lab to be functional but that later proved to be defective.
Electrospec, the parts distributor, claims in its suit that the testing lab improperly tested the brake parts or never performed the tests, and that it falsified the test reports. A similar claim was made in 2005 by a former lab employee who said his superiors directed him to fabricate test reports, but the company said those allegations were not proved.
In the new case, none of the flawed brake parts were installed in airplanes, but the fallout for Electrospec was massive, said Darren Summer, the company's vice president. After an investigation by federal inspectors, he said, the company lost millions of dollars in business and was forced to shrink its workforce of 30 employees to eight.
Summer said he hopes the lawsuit, filed in March 2014 in Passaic County Superior Court, will vindicate his business and shine a light on the testing lab's practices.
"The damage is done on my end," Summer said. "Others that have used testing from NJMET, they need to know this. These parts could be in aircraft, in equipment that could fail."
The testing lab's attorney, Jerry Gallagher, said the company denied the new allegations and was "completely confident that it properly tested and thoroughly tested these parts."
Electrospec bought the brake parts from a Chinese supplier in 2008 and sent them for testing to ensure that they were authentic, new and functional, Summer said. The lab said 13,000 of the 20,000 parts passed its tests, and Electrospec sold them to Hydro-Aire, a California-based company that installs aircraft brake systems.
But Hydro-Aire's parent company performed tests of its own, revealing that some of the parts were not working and that they likely had been used and refurbished, said Richard Vrhovc, Electrospec's attorney.
The Federal Aviation Administration sent an alert to the airline manufacturing industry about the faulty parts in 2012 that said they were "not properly tested and could be counterfeit."
Vrhovc said the FAA laid the blame on Electrospec when it should rest with the testing lab.
"NJMET has been skating free on this for three years with no repercussions," he said.
Based on recent testimony from a lab test engineering manager, Vrhovc said, Electrospec plans to amend its suit this month to include an allegation that the lab violated the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act.
The manager, Thomas Farinella, said in a deposition that he either could not or did not test at least two of the criteria that the lab agreed to review for the brake parts. Test reports show that the parts passed in those areas anyway.
Vrhovc also questioned whether it was possible for the tests to be performed as quickly as the lab reports said they were. One showed that a single worker tested 6,000 parts one day and 2,500 on another, he said.
Gallagher said the lab was reviewing Farinella's testimony. He said the untested areas would not have made a difference in determining whether the parts were faulty. He also said the tests were performed in three to five seconds and often by multiple operators.
Gallagher said Electrospec was using the lab as a "scapegoat" and that Electrospec never represented that the bake parts came from China, where counterfeits often originate. The company could have asked for a specific authenticity test, but it did not do so, he said.
"When you buy parts like this, they can pass today and fail tomorrow," Gallagher said. "If they had disclosed the source of the parts, it really would have been a game changer."
The testing lab was sued in 2005 by a former employee, Mark Williams, who also was represented by Vrhovc. Williams said he was instructed to falsify product-testing reports and that company engineers told him they could not or did not know how to test parts the company agreed to test for clients.
Gallagher denied Williams' allegations and contended that Williams' claims were never proved. The case was resolved in a confidential settlement in 2007.
Monday, November 10, 2014
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