From Monday in the US, the One Laptop per Child project’s XO laptop will be available through the ‘Give One, Get One’ programme once more, this time facilitated by Amazon.com.

For $400 [263], the not-for-profit low-cost-laptop project will send one XO to the purchaser and one to a school-age child in a developing country.

One Laptop per Child (OLPC) said in September that it wanted to revive last year’s successful programme, but didn’t have the infrastructure to support the programme alone.

Microsoft has started making Windows available for the XO laptop in developing markets like Colombia and Peru. However, purchasers participating in the Give One, Get One programme will not have the option of Windows.

UK understands that the Give One, Get One scheme will operate from 17 November in the UK, but has received no official confirmation from OLPC.

The need for healthy holiday sales in a bear market, competitive pressure from movie download services, and media speculation about the future success of the Blu-ray disc (BD) format itself has resulted in falling Blu-ray player prices across a range of current and older models.

“Blu-ray vendors and dealers are starting to realize that for Blu-ray to become the next DVD, they need to lower player prices in order to generate interest and build volumes,” comments ABI Research principal analyst Steve Wilson.

Second tier players and older – 6-9 months – models are now widely available under $200. Amazon is offering a Samsung model bundled with four discs for that price. Holiday season prices may be in the $150-200 range.

(Full article ‘Prices of Blu-Ray Players to Drop In $150 - $200 Range - Research Firm’)

Fujitsu is to buy out Siemens’ stake in the companies’ joint venture, the PC manufacturer Fujitsu Siemens.

Under the terms of the deal, announced on Tuesday, Fujitsu will pay 450m (363m) for Siemens’ 50 percent stake in the business. Siemens will in future concentrate on its energy, industry and healthcare IT businesses.

"Fully integrating Fujitsu Siemens Computers into the Fujitsu Group fits perfectly into our global growth strategy," said Fujitsu president Kuniaki Nozoe in Tuesday’s statement. "We’re inheriting a strong customer base in [Europe, the Middle East and Africa] and [an R&D] capability that can support our global products development not to mention a tremendously talented group of employees who share our values and commitment to grow with our customers as their trusted business partner."

Pending regulatory approval, the buyout will conclude on 1 April, 2009, almost 10 years after Fujitsu and Siemens set up their joint venture in October 1999.

(Full article ‘Fujitsu to buy out Siemens’ stake in joint PC business’)

Advanced Micro Devices Tuesday announced the completion of the sale of its Digital TV (DTV) processor business to Broadcom Corp. For some reason, the company had to slash the price of its business unit by $51 million.

Instead of originally announced $192.8, AMD sold its DTV biz for approximately $141.5 million in cash subject to certain escrows and adjustments pursuant to the terms of the definitive asset purchase agreement.

AMD’s DTV product line includes all Xilleon integrated DTV processors and complete turnkey reference designs, as well as NXT receiver ICs, the Theater 300 DTV processor, and a line of panel processors that perform advanced motion compensation, frame rate conversion and scaling.

AMD got its DTV business unit when it acquired ATI Technologies back in late 2006.

(Full article ‘Broadcom Completes Acquisition of Ex-ATI’s Digital TV Division from AMD’)

News

UMC Manufactures Foundry Industry’s First Chips Using 28nm Process Technology.

UMC Announces Foundry Industry’s First 28nm SRAMs

[10/27/2008 10:40 PM]
by Anton Shilov

United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC), a leading contract maker of semiconductors, on Monday announced that it has manufactured the foundry industry’s first fully functional 28nm SRAM chips.

The chips are based on UMC’s independently developed low-leakage (LL) process technology. UMC utilized advanced double-patterning immersion lithography and strained silicon technology to produce the chips, which feature very small six-transistor SRAM cell sizes of approximately 0.122 micron².

UMC incorporates a dual approach for its 28nm technology to address different market applications.

(Full article ‘UMC Manufactures Foundry Industry’s First Chips Using 28nm Process Technology’)