Samsung Electronics, Co., Ltd., a world leader in advanced semiconductor technology solutions, announced foundry production of STMicroelectronics' leading products using 32/28nm High-K Metal Gate (HKMG) process technology. Samsung Electronics' foundry business has been selected by STMicroelectronics to provide it with products at the 32/28nm process node. The relationship has already resulted in taping-out of a dozen ST advanced system-on-chip (SoC) devices for mobile, consumer and network applications.

"We have successfully started production of STMicroelectronics' new-generation 32/28nm SoC products," said Kwang-Hyun Kim, executive vice president of Foundry business, Device Solutions, Samsung Electronics. "A foundry relationship with ST demonstrates our commitment to advanced process technology and our 32/28nm HKMG process-technology leadership. We have aggressively ramped 32/28nm capacity and will continue to deliver the most advanced process solutions to our customers."

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, today announced its new lineup of high-performance SSDs designed for use in personal computers. The new series supporting SATA 6.0 gigabit-per-second (Gb/s) interface comes in two tracks; one for general computing purposes and another, an advanced lineup dubbed 'PRO' for serious users.

Samsung's tiered offering for professional and general user environments provides consumers a broader choice of SSDs to best suit their personal requirements.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, today announced that it has begun volume production of 128-gigabyte (GB) embedded memory for next-generation smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices. Samsung started producing the new 128GB eMMC (embedded multimedia card) Pro Class 1500 in late August, which is only one month after it started delivering eMMC Pro products in 16-, 32- and 64-GB densities, rapidly completing the industry's widest line-up of eMMC products.

"By doubling the highest density of its previous eMMC products, Samsung expects to contribute significantly to a timely release of leading-edge mobile devices," said Wanhoon Hong, executive vice president, Memory Sales & Marketing, Samsung Electronics. "The higher data storage and faster data transmission will bring a range of benefits to users that compare to those of ultra-slim notebook PCs."

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a global leader in advanced semiconductor technology solutions, has begun mass producing the industry's first two gigabyte (GB), low power double-data-rate 3 (LPDDR3) memory, using 30 nanometer (nm) class* technology, for next-generation mobile devices.

Samsung started mass production of the industry's most advanced mobile DRAM (dynamic random access memory) chip, only 10 months after it began producing the industry's first 30nm-class based 2GB LPDDR2 memory in October, 2011. The new LPDDR3, which marks the first time a 2GB LPDDR3 density is available in one space-saving package, utilizes four LPDDR3 chips stacked together. LPDDR3 is needed for fast processors, high resolution displays and 3D graphics in tablets and smartphones.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a global leader in memory semiconductor technology, today held a groundbreaking ceremony for a major new memory fabrication line in Xi'an, China. Once completed, the new facility will make use of advanced 10-nanometer (nm)-class technology in producing NAND flash memory chips, a critical component powering IT and mobile applications for high-speed and large-density data storage.

Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman and CEO Dr. Oh-hyun Kwon hosted the event, which welcomed 600 attendees including government dignitaries such as Zhao Leji, secretary of provincial party committee and director of provincial People's Congress Standing Committee, and Kyu Hyung Lee, Ambassador of the Republic of Korea to China. Other honored attendees included Sang-Jick Yoon, vice minister for Industry and Technology at the Ministry of Knowledge Economy, as well as hundreds of Samsung suppliers and customers.

Following last Friday's Q3 outlook lowering by Intel, market punters such as Merrill Lynch cut estimates. Vivek Arya, an analyst with the firm, cut its Q3 and Q4 estimates for Intel, while remaining optimistic about upcoming processes in the company's pitched battle with ARM in the lightweight SoC segment. Arya believes that with upcoming technologies, Intel has a fighting chance against ARM heavyweights. Said Arya in his report:

Next-gen chip manufacturing has become a 3-horse race between Intel, TSMC and Samsung, with Intel holding a 1 to 4 year lead, in our view. As we saw in 1H12, foundries were unable to ramp 28nm capacity, leading to product delays. Rising costs/ complexity (tri-gate) could further widen this gap. We believe this could enable Intel to gain a foothold (vs. zero today) in mobile over the next 2 years, as smartphone/tablet vendors look to Intel as a second or even primary source […] We firmly believe in Intel's ability to reliably produce the lowest cost and highest performance silicon can help it maintain a dominant position in servers/data centers (20% of sales, 10-15% CAGR), and transition from legacy PCs to next-gen smartphones, tablets, Ultrabooks and other converged devices in the next 1-2 years. Investors, meanwhile, benefit from a 3.6% div yield, $7.5bn in available buybacks (6% of mkt cap) and <10x PE.

Today the Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA) Foundation announced six new members. The HSA Foundation is pleased to welcome Apical, Arteris Inc., MulticoreWare Inc., Sonics, Symbio and Vivante Corporation to the membership roster. Each company adds expertise to the HSA ecosystem by assisting with research, development, production, manufacture, use, and the sale of HSA IP and heterogeneous computing software and solutions.

These new members have joined at different levels including: supporter, contributor and associate. Working closely with the founder members of AMD, ARM, Imagination Technologies, MediaTek Inc., Samsung Electronics and Texas Instruments (TI), the new members will contribute to the growing adoption of HSA in heterogeneous computing.

-Samsung Electronics America Inc., a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd, today announced its new Series 5 and Series 7 Slate PCs. The new products can easily transform from a traditional clamshell PC to a Slate device with just the click of a button, maximizing both productivity and mobility. Designed for Windows 8 with Samsung's advanced engineering and a ten-point touchscreen, users can easily stay connected and productive from everywhere. Additionally, Samsung today announced a new touchscreen version of its popular 13-inch Series 5 ULTRA laptop.

"With the introduction of our new Slate PCs, we are providing customers with greater choice while maintaining the power of a traditional PC," said Todd Bouman, vice president of marketing at Samsung's Enterprise Business Division. "We created our Slate PCs with a focus on beautiful design, powerful performance and ease of use, attributes that our customers have come to expect in their Samsung computing experience. Our mobile PC business has grown significantly over the past year, which is a testament to our ability to meet customer needs in this space, and we expect strong growth to continue with our new Slate PCs."

Samsung Electronics America Inc., a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd, today announced at IFA 2012 its new Series 7 and Series 5 All-In-One (AIO) PCs. Engineered to provide high-performance computing power in a sleek form factor, the new AIO PCs build on the premium qualities of Samsung's existing PC line. Each of the new models features a high-resolution, ten-point touch, slim bezel display on an elegant metal base, as well as a third generation Intel Core processor. The products are designed to run Windows 8, resulting in a PC that is just as powerful as it is eye-catching.

"Our new Series 7 and Series 5 All-In-One PCs are designed to meet a range of consumer needs across the home, all within highly stylized form factors that users will be proud to put on display," said Todd Bouman, vice president of product marketing at Samsung's Enterprise Business Division. "The expansion of our AIO line speaks to the success we've had in the PC market over the past year. Both of these new models take Samsung's convergence technologies to the next level, completing the home computing experience by connecting the PC to other devices in the home environment."

Samsung Electronics announced the availability of innovative 1:1 ratio LED square display (UD22B) and transparent display (NL22B), accelerating its leadership in the commercial B2B display market in the second half of this year.

Samsung's distinctive 1:1 ratio square display and all-in-one transparent display showcase provide business owners with extraordinary solutions for creating entirely new types of promotional displays in retail, commercial and public locations.

Intel plans to standardize SSD specifications for its Ultrabook platform, which would steer it toward slimmer, faster Ultrabooks. The company plans to invite a large number of industry players, including NAND flash memory makers SanDisk, Micron, and Samsung, for discussions into what is known as Next Generation Form Factor (NGFF), a new SSD form-factor derived from mSATA (think Apple's SSD form-factor found in the MacBook Air).

Intel is in a bit of a hurry with its NGFF SSD plans because the current mSATA form-factor poses limitations, including limited PCB area, in which a limited number of ONFI channels can be wired out. NGFF most likely is mSATA with greater PCB area, allowing the same number of ONFI channels as 2.5-inch SSDs, with the latest generation of controllers and toggle-NAND flash memory. NGFF doesn't increase the thickness of the SSD compared to mSATA, but merely elongates it (again, similar in form to Apple's SSD specifications). Five length standards are being discussed between Intel and Ultrabook partners.

Futuremark is proud to announce that Acer Incorporated, Intel, Qualcomm Incorporated and SingTel-Optus have joined its Benchmark Development Program to create a new 3DMark gaming benchmark for Android-based tablets and smartphones. The Futuremark Benchmark Development Program gathers input and expertise from the world's best and most technologically advanced companies to create industry standard benchmarks for performance measurement. 3DMark for Android is expected to be released later this year.

Jukka Makinen, Futuremark CEO said, "For more than 10 years, we have worked with the world's leading PC hardware manufacturers to create 3DMark and PCMark. As a result, Futuremark benchmarks are the industry standard for PC performance measurement used by hundreds of press publications and millions of end-users. As we bring 3DMark to a new OS for the first time, we are excited to expand our cooperation to include Acer, Intel, Qualcomm and SingTel-Optus, technology leaders who will bring unparalleled insight, experience and vision to the development of 3DMark for Android."

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, today announced that it has now begun volume production of an ultra-fast embedded memory for smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices in 16-, 32- and 64-gigabyte (GB) densities.

The new Samsung eMMC (embedded multimedia card) Pro Class 1500 delivers the industry's fastest speeds for an embedded memory device, reading data sequentially at up to 140 megabytes per second (MB/s) and writing it at up to 50 MB/s. For random reading and writing, it can process up to 3500/1500 IOPS (inputs and outputs per second), four times the speed of previous eMMC solutions.

AMD (NYSE:AMD) today announced revenue for the second quarter of 2012 of $1.41 billion, net income of $37 million, or $0.05 per share, and operating income of $77 million. The company reported non-GAAP net income of $46 million, or $0.06 per share, and non-GAAP operating income of $86 million.

"Overall weakness in the global economy, softer consumer spending and lower channel demand for our desktop processors in China and Europe made the closing weeks of the quarter challenging," said Rory Read, AMD president and CEO. "We are taking definitive steps to improve our performance and correct the issues within our control as we expect headwinds will continue in the third quarter as the industry sets a new baseline. We remain optimistic about our core businesses as well as future opportunities with our competitively differentiated next-generation Accelerated Processor Units (APUs). Our recently launched Trinity APU continues to gain traction with customers. We are committed to driving profitable growth."

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, today announced that it has begun sampling the industry's first 16-gigabyte (GB) double data rate-4 (DDR4), registered dual inline memory modules (RDIMMs), designed for use in enterprise server systems.

"By launching these new high-density DDR4 modules, Samsung is embracing closer technical cooperation with key CPU and server companies for development of next-generation green IT systems," said Wanhoon Hong, executive vice president, memory sales & marketing, Samsung Electronics. "Samsung will also aggressively move to establish the premium memory market for advanced applications including enterprise server systems and maintain the competitive edge for Samsung Green Memory products, while working on providing 20 nanometer (nm) class based DDR4 DRAM in the future."

Samsung Display Co., Ltd., a global leader in display panel technologies and products, announced today that it has begun conducting business as a newly merged corporation with Samsung Mobile Display and S-LCD corporations.

Samsung Display is the world's largest display manufacturer, now with 39,000 employees and seven production facilities worldwide. Oh-hyun Kwon, vice chairman and CEO of Samsung Electronics, was elected CEO of Samsung Display at the general meeting of stockholders and board of directors.

Samsung Electronics America Inc., a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd, today announced that it is now shipping its award-winning Series 9 LED desktop monitor. The culmination of over five years of global market leadership in monitors, the new 27-inch Series 9 incorporates the best that Samsung has to offer, including its exclusive Natural Color Expert technology, which provides a richer viewing experience for graphic artists, photographers, designers and anyone else with a sense of style working with photos and video content.

Starting at $1,199.99, the Series 9 will be available through an exclusive prelaunch with NewEgg from June 1 - June 28 and then through Tiger Direct, MicroCenter, CDW, Buy.com and others from June 29 onwards.

A little earlier, Samsung refreshed its Series 5 line of performance notebooks with Intel Core "Ivy Bridge" processors. It created a new branch, powered by AMD "Trinity" accelerated processing units (APUs), which pack up to four x86-64 cores, Radeon HD 7600M series graphics, and dual-channel DDR3 IMCs. Samsung currently has two models that are Trinity-powered, the Series 5 13.3-inch (NP535U3C-A01US), which is driven by AMD A6-4455M quad-core APU (2.10 GHz); and the Series 5 14-inch (NP535U4C-A01US), driven by AMD A10-4655M quad-core APU (2.80 GHz). Both models come with 4 or 8 GB dual-channel DDR3 memory and 500 or 750 GB HDD standard, with other features being identical to those of its Ivy Bridge cousins. The 13.3-inch A6 model starts at $699, while the 14-inch A10 model starts at $849.

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., a world leader in advanced semiconductor solutions, today announced plans to build a new fabrication line in Hwaseong, South Korea, to meet the growing demands for logic products. Samsung will invest 2.25 trillion Korean won in the new fabrication line, which will break ground this month with a target timeline for completion by the end of 2013.

The new fabrication line will mainly produce highly advanced mobile application processors on 300mm wafers at 20nm and 14nm process nodes. Along with Lines 9 and 14, which have been converted to System LSI fabrication earlier this year, the new line will help supply to the expanding need for smart mobile solutions.

Samsung Electronics America, Inc., a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd, today announced two additions to its mobile PC line: the 15.6-inch Series 5 notebook and the 14-inch Series 5 500 notebook. Both products feature a 3rd generation Intel Core processor and top-of-the-line entertainment features, including JBL stereo speakers and NVIDIA GeForce Graphics. Additionally, Samsung announced that its Series 9, Series 5 and Series 3 models will feature Intel's new, more powerful processors.

"Our latest Series 5 notebooks offer a premium computing experience, thanks to Samsung's advanced engineering and Intel's new processors, as well as enviable entertainment features including JBL audio speakers to provide a home theater experience in a mobile PC, whether you're using it in your office, home or at a hotel," said Todd Bouman, vice president of marketing at Samsung Enterprise Business Division. "The power and speed of Intel's latest processors have enabled us to create even faster, more efficient laptops, and we're excited to have begun integrating them into these new models and several of our existing designs as well."

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a global leader in digital media and digital convergence technologies, revealed today its cloud-based gaming service: "Samsung Cloud Gaming". Samsung Cloud Gaming, developed in partnership with Gaikai, a leading cloud-based video game platform provider, will stream a mix of family-friendly and AAA video games directly to owners of 2012 Samsung LED 7000 series and up Smart TVs in the U.S.

Samsung Cloud Gaming gives Smart TV users instant access to some of the video game industry's biggest titles, without any need to download, install or patch/update games. In under a minute, consumers can find and start playing some of the most popular game titles on the market.

Samsung Electronics America, Inc., a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd, today announced two new products featuring the Google Chrome OS operating system: the Samsung Series 5 Chromebook laptop and the Samsung Series 3 Chromebox desktop.

"The new Samsung Series 5 Chromebook and Series 3 Chromebox provide the rapid, convenient and ever-improving computing experience that was so well-received in our first Chromebook," said Todd Bouman, vice president of marketing at Samsung Enterprise Business Division. "As the world's first Chromebox, the Series 3 provides users with the Chromebook's ease-of-use in a compact desktop product, which easily integrates with their existing accessories. The second generation Chromebook features powerful components housed in a slim, lightweight body, thanks to Samsung's advanced hardware engineering."Image courtesy of The Verge.

Samsung Electronics has just launched (in South Korea first) a brand new, high-grade consumer monitor, the Premium Smart Monitor 970 aka the S27B970. Seen below, this 27-inch display features a PLS (Plane to Line Switching) panel with 178/178 degree viewing angles, a native resolution of 2560 x 1440 pixels, a 5 ms response time, 300 cd/m2 maximum brightness, DVI, HDMI (with MHL support) and DisplayPort connectors, a 2-port USB hub, plus built-in speakers.

The S27B970 comes with a three-year warranty and costs about $1,177 (in South Korea).

Microsoft Corp. today announced the return of its successful student offer that allows students buying a qualifying Windows 7-based PC to also get a free Xbox 360 4GB console. The offer is available for current students while supplies last, starting May 20 at participating retailers in the U.S.; a similar offer will be available starting May 18 at participating retailers in Canada. Terms and conditions will vary by participating retailer.

Together, a Windows 7-based PC and an Xbox 360 console provide students the functionality they need for school while also helping them stay connected to friends and family far away. To take advantage of this offer, students or their parents must provide valid student identification as defined by the participating retailer. Participating retailers may change over the course of the promotion, but will include Best Buy, Fry's Electronics, Dell.com, HPDirect.com, Microsoft Stores and NewEgg.com in the U.S., and Best Buy, Dell.ca, Future Shop, Staples and The Source in Canada.

Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology, the core R&D incubator for Samsung Electronics, has developed a new transistor structure utilizing graphene, touted as the "miracle material." As published online in the journal Science on Thursday, 17th May, this research is regarded to have brought us one step closer to the development of transistors that can overcome the limits of conventional silicon.

Currently, semiconductor devices consist of billions of silicon transistors. To increase the performance of semiconductors (the speed of devices), the options have to been to either reduce the size of individual transistors to shorten the traveling distance of electrons, or to use a material with higher electron mobility which allows for faster electron velocity. For the past 40 years, the industry has been increasing performance by reducing size. However, experts believe we are now nearing the potential limits of scaling down.Image courtesy of Sammy Hub