Sumner Lemon

Contract chip maker Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd. on Wednesday announced a three-year 300-millimetre manufacturing and technology development agreement with IBM Corp.

China

Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates has predicted that the Tablet PC, which was formally launched today, will account for the majority of PC sales within five years. Success for the new device is far from assured, however, and time will tell whether a change in the way we use computers is in our midst, analysts and industry insiders said.

A recent ruling by the U.S. International Trade Commission that Taiwanese chipset maker Silicon Integrated Systems Corp. has infringed on a manufacturing-process patent owned by United Microelectronics Corp. is unlikely to have a major impact on PC sales in the U.S.

Orders for semiconductor manufacturing equipment from North American vendors plunged in September as signs of a sustained recovery in the semiconductor market remained elusive and chip makers held off on capital spending, according to industry organization Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI).

Intel Corp. has begun producing samples of a chip, codenamed Manitoba, which incorporates an Xscale processor core, a digital signal processor (DSP) and flash memory on a single piece of silicon, said Ron Smith, senior vice president and general manager of the company's Wireless Computing and Communications Group, in a speech to hardware makers here at the Intel Developer Forum.

A senior Intel Corp. executive confirmed Tuesday that the company is working on a project code-named Nehalem but would not comment on details of the project or whether the code name refers to a successor for the company's Pentium 4 processor.

The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) ruled on Monday that Taiwanese chipset maker Silicon Integrated Systems Corp. (SIS) has infringed on a manufacturing-process patent owned by United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC).