03/30, 3:25pm
TSMC gets indirect connection to Apple
TSMC may have at least some involvement in Apple's device supply chain based on claims by Taiwan's Economic Daily News. The business newspaper asserted that the contract manufacturer had landed deals for power management parts designed by Dialog Semiconductor for future Apple hardware. TSMC had supposedly already involved itself with iPads and iPhones by manufacturing Broadcom, CSR, Cirrus Logic, and Qualcomm.
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03/31, 6:35pm
Google joins NFC Forum as Places goes NFC-only
Google made two big pushes towards NFC that culminated in its formal link to the technology on Thursday. It officially joined the NFC Forum as a principal member and now had the same importance as companies like CSR and Intel, which raised their statuses to the same level. The sign-up gave Google voting power for decisions on marketing, standards, and the technology involved in implementing NFC in the future.
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07/28, 11:40am
CSR SiRFstar IV GPS Chip
CSR's GPS division SiRF today introduced SiRFstar IV, a new generation of GPS chipsets ultimately intended for smartphones and other particularly low-power handhelds. It improves on the longstanding SiRFstar III used in many dedicated navigators by supporting a new very low-power state. Rather than have to shut off completely when not in use to save battery life, it can enter a near-sleep state that can acquire a position fix much faster than it would from a cold start.
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04/14, 8:00am
2009 iPhone Supplier Leak
The companies responsible for manufacturing parts in the next major iPhone release have potentially been named by industry contacts of DigiTimes that also predict ship dates and numbers. The Taiwan-area site reinforces its previous claim that OmniVision is making a 3.2-megapixel sensor for the Apple handset's camera and now says that Largan Precision is making the rest of the imaging unit. Infineon is continuing to provide the cellular baseband (likely upgraded to 7.2Mbps 3G) as well as the GPS chipset.
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02/12, 12:10pm
TZero ceases operations
A company that focused on developing a wireless HDMI technology and standard, TZero, is out of business, a Thursday EETimes post notes. The company has been developing wireless HDMI technology using ultra-wideband (UWB) but has been forced to close prematurely by the poor market conditions that began last year. TZero joins Intel and others that have stopped their own in-house development of UWB.
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02/11, 4:30pm
CSR buys SiRF for $136M
England's Bluetooth chip group CSR on Tuesday announced it is buying California-based GPS chip specialistSiRF for $136 million. The deal is expected to complete in the second quarter, after approval by SiRF and CSR shareholders as well as government approval. The buy-out sum represents a 91-percent premium on SiRF's shares after Monday's markets closed.
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