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

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a global leader in advanced semiconductor technology solutions, announced today that it has begun producing the industry's first four gigabit (Gb), low power double-data-rate 2 (LPDDR2) memory using 20 nanometer (nm) class* technology. The mobile DRAM (dynamic random access memory) chip, which went into mass production last month, will help the market to deliver advanced devices that are faster, lighter and provide longer battery life than today's mobile devices.

"Samsung began expanding the market for 4Gb DRAM last year with the first mass-produced 30nm-class DRAM, and now we are working on capturing most of the advanced memory market with our new 20nm-class 4Gb DRAM," said Wanhoon Hong, executive vice president, memory sales & marketing, Samsung Electronics. "In the second half of this year, we expect to strongly increase the portion of 20nm-class DRAM within our overall DRAM output to make the 4Gb DRAM line-up the mainstream product in DRAM production, and therefore keeping the leadership position in the premium market and strengthening our competitive edge."

Officially unveiled last month, Samsung's sleek and powerful 17-inch Series 7 CHRONOS Notebook has now begun to hit stores in the US. Priced at $1,500, this new mobile offering comes enclosed in a one inch thick brushed aluminum shell, and features a slim bezel Full HD (1920 x 1080) 300nit display, a Core i7-3615QM processor, 8 GB of RAM, a GeForce GT 650M 2 GB graphics card and a storage system made up of a 1 TB hard drive and 8 GB of ExpressCache NAND Flash memory.

The Series 7 laptop also has JBL stereo speakers, a subwoofer, a 1.3-megapixel webcam, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, Intel WiDi (Wireless Display) support, and a battery enabling up to 8 hours of operation. The 17-inch Series 7 CHRONOS runs Windows 7 Home Premium.

Relations between NVIDIA and its principal foundry partner, TSMC, have been unpredictable in recent times, with reports of NVIDIA expressing displeasure with it over 28 nm manufacturing capacity, which is denting its competitiveness; and later crediting collaboration with it, for the energy-efficiency of its latest Kepler family of GPUs. With NVIDIA threatening to find other foundry partners for bulk manufacturing, and reports of Samsung already preparing qualification samples for it, TSMC is responding by issuing NVIDIA a priority over other clients (such as Qualcomm, AMD) for manufacturing of 28 nm chips.

While being unsatisfied with TSMC's output, and its new policy of charging for wafers rather than working chips yielded, NVIDIA refuted rumors of it seeking other foundry partners such as Samsung and Global Foundries. When put on high-priority, TSMC will facilitate speedy launch of new NVIDIA GeForce SKUs towards the end of Q2, 2012. Supply prioritization isn't new, TSMC has, in the past, prioritized Qualcomm when it threatened to shift allocations to other foundries. It remains to be seen how AMD responds to the situation, as such a prioritization would come at the expense of its volumes, and could threaten its competitiveness.

Alliacense today announced that Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. has purchased a license for its CORE Flash Portfolio Licensing Program. The agreement resolves the ITC Investigation and District Court lawsuit recently filed against the Korean electronics giant. Samsung joins a rapidly growing list of CORE Flash Portfolio licensees, including Lexmark, ASUStek, Philips and Lenovo.

In order to protect the investments of the CORE Flash licensee community, the successful CORE Flash Licensing Program has been dramatically enhanced with aggressive enforcement activities -- including the filing of two separate waves of patent infringement complaints with the US International Trade Commission (ITC) and US District Court against nearly 40 companies in the past 9 months.

Wireless technology leaders Samsung and Qualcomm Incorporated have joined other technology leaders to form the Alliance for Wireless Power (A4WP), it was announced today.

The independently operated organization's mission is to promote global standardization of a wireless power transfer technology that offers spatial freedom, to develop product testing, certification and regulatory compliance processes, and to foster industry dialogue with regulators on wireless power policy development. The alliance is targeting a broad base of consumer electronic devices to establish a worldwide wireless power technology ecosystem.

Samsung UK has jumped the gun with Ivy Bridge-powered Ultrabooks, and posted the product page of its 15-inch Series 9 Ultrabook. Intel's Core "Ivy Bridge" processors for Ultrabooks won't be official till June. Pictured below is the Series 9 NP900X4C, with a 15-inch screen, that has 1600x900 pixels resolution, and a sleek wedge-shaped design. Under the hood is an Intel Core i5-3317U dual-core processor clocked at 1.70 GHz, with 2.60 GHz Turbo Boost speed, and Intel HD 4000 graphics; Intel HM75 Express chipset, 8 GB of dual-channel DDR3-1600 MHz memory, and a 128 GB SSD.

Connectivity/features include 802.11 b/g/n with WiDi support, Bluetooth 4.0, one USB 2.0 and two USB 3.0 ports, micro-HDMI display output, SD/MMC card-reader, and 1.3 megapixel webcam. The keyboad has backlit illumination, and the tracking device is a large multi-touch clickpad. The Series 9 body is made of an all-aluminum chassis, which could make it light, improve heat dissipation, but also step up its costs. Expect the Series 9 NP900X4C to start selling in June.

Samsung Electronics America Inc., a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd, today announced the Samsung Series 7 Gamer, the ultimate laptop for gaming enthusiasts. Designed with feedback from passionate PC gamers in mind, the Series 7 Gamer features a 17.3-inch full HD LCD display, high quality Dolby Home Theater surround sound, rich NVIDIA GeForce graphics and a 3rd generation Intel Core i7 processor, as well as a unique dial that allows users to easily transition between four modes for maximum performance at all times.

"The Series 7 Gamer offers all the elements of a high-powered gaming machine with the convenience of the mode-changing dial, which enables you to switch off components in order to save power and have a quieter experience when you're using it as a more traditional laptop," said Todd Bouman, vice president of marketing at Samsung Enterprise Business Division. "When the product is in gaming mode, it takes the experience to the next level by optimizing the graphics and sound, turning on a pulsating light in the speakers and highlighting the gaming keys in red, which truly allows users to immerse themselves in a game."

Solid manufacturing and strong pricing allowed Micron Technology Inc. and Hynix Semiconductor Inc. to post strong performances in the global NAND flash business in the fourth quarter, allowing them to narrow the gap in market share between them and the industry leaders, and setting the stage for further advances in 2012.

No. 3-ranked Micron Technology Inc. of the United States achieved 11.7 percent revenue growth in the fourth quarter compared to the third, according to a new IHS iSuppli Data Flash Market Tracker report from information and analytics provider IHS. Meanwhile, fourth-placed Hynix Semiconductor Inc. of South Korea expanded its revenue by 5.4 percent, as presented in the table below.

Worldwide semiconductor revenues increased more than 3.7% year over year to $301 billion in 2011, according to the latest version of the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Semiconductor Applications Forecaster (SAF). The industry weathered the macroeconomic uncertainties in the U.S and Europe, the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, China's slow down in the second half of the year, and floods in Thailand. Meanwhile, device applications, such as smartphones, media tablets and e-readers, automotive infotainment, notebook PCs, datacenter servers, and wireless and wired communication infrastructure drove robust consumption of semiconductors.

IDC's SAF tracks more than 100 semiconductor companies. Over 40 of these companies experienced year-over-year revenue growth greater than 5%, while about the same number of companies saw their revenue decline by more than 5%.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. today announced revenues of 45.27 trillion Korean won on a consolidated basis for the first quarter ended March 31, 2012, a 22-percent increase year-on-year.

For the quarter, the company's consolidated operating profit reached an all-time high of 5.85 trillion won representing a 98-percent increase year-on-year. Consolidated net profit for the January-March period was 5.05 trillion won.

Despite a decrease in sales of semiconductor chips and TVs due to seasonal factors, an increase in profitability in display panels and mobile phones pushed up quarterly operating profit margins by 1.7 percentage points to 12.9 percent.

Yesterday Samsung officially introduces the Ivy Bridge-based Series 7 CHRONOS 17 laptop but, through its Canadian website, it also exposed the 15-inch model of the same series. The notebook revealed by Samsung Canada is known as NP700Z5CH and it features a durable aluminum case, a 15.6-inch SuperBright 300nit (1600 x 900) LED-backlit display, a 2.3 GHz Core i7-3615QM processor, 8 GB of RAM, a GeForce GT 640M 1 GB graphics card, a DVD writer, and a 1 TB (5400 RPM) hard drive which is paired up with 8 GB of ExpressCache NAND memory.

The 15-inch Series 7 CHRONOS weights 2.4 kg and also features a 4-in-1 card reader, Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, a 1.3-megapixel webcam, 2 W x 2 speakers, a subwoofer, two USB 3.0 ports, and an 8-cell battery. The laptop's price tag has yet to be announced.

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., a world leader in advanced semiconductor solutions, today introduced the industry's first quad-core application processor built on the High-k Metal Gate (HKMG) low-power process technology. With unprecedented performance capabilities exceeding 1.4GHz based on the ARM CORTEX A9 quad-core, the powerful, yet energy-efficient Exynos 4 Quad, allows system-level architects to integrate maximized power efficiencies into smartphones and tablets which enables double the processing power at a 20 percent lower power bill over its predecessor, the 45nm process-based Exynos 4 Dual.

"The quad-core processor offers phenomenal multitasking abilities surpassing any single or dual application processor. Since all the cores must share a single battery, the power management and efficiency in the limited battery capacity are indispensable for mobile computing devices," said Taehoon Kim, vice president of System LSI marketing, Device Solutions, Samsung Electronics. "Given the diverse functionalities consumers are demanding from their mobile devices today, the Exynos 4 Quad meets those high-performance needs while keeping power consumption very low."

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd, a global leader in digital media and digital convergence technologies, today announced its new Notebook Series 7 CHRONOS 17-inch model.

Encased in a premium compact and light aluminum chassis, the high-performance multimedia-ready Series 7 CHRONOS 17 with Intel's 3rd generation Core i7 and ExpressCache represents the perfect desktop replacement. The innovative ExpressCache technology developed by Diskeeper provides 8 GB of flash memory on the motherboard, enabling a faster start-up as well as increasing the PC's overall performance; web browsing is two times faster (based on Microsoft Internet Explorer) while the device takes just two seconds to wake up.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a worldwide leader in digital consumer electronics and information technology, announced today its new slim external DVD writer, the SE-218BB optical disc drive (ODD) that sets the industry standard for ultra portable drives.

Built to accompany a new generation of ultrabook and slim laptop designs, the SE-218BB features a compact size that is 18% thinner than conventional DVD writers and is the world's thinnest external optical disc drive with a 14 mm height. The drive is 8% lighter than Samsung's conventional DVD writer and built to accommodate today's mobile lifestyle.

NVIDIA is formulating a long-term chip manufacturing strategy that will see its interests secure by the time chip manufacturing has moved on to 14 nm (which follows 20 nm and today's 28 nm), which could arrive around 2015. Chip manufacturing by foundry partners is a potentially major irritant for NVIDIA, which wants to see wafer sizes getting increased from the current 300 mm manufacturing at TSMC, to 450 mm, and fast. TSMC will achieve 450 mm (18-inch) wafer manufacturing capability only by 2015. Another irritant for NVIDIA is TSMC's change in business model, which charges fabless customers "per wafer manufactured", rather than "per working chip yielded", giving them what they perceive to be the shorter end of the stick. NVIDIA is thus rigorously evaluating other foundry partners. We know from a slightly older report that Samsung has sent NVIDIA test chips manufactured at its Austin, Texas facility. There is talk that NVIDIA could also seek partnerships with GlobalFoundries, of which AMD recently relinquished all its stakes on. NVIDIA needs reliable, high-volume foundry partners that can keep it competitive not just with its main business of GPUs, but also a potential gold mine that is application processors.

NVIDIA, along with Qualcomm, is reportedly in talks with foundries other than TSMC, for manufacturing of its new 28 nm chips. Despite the fact that TSMC is ramping up its 28 nm capacity at a breakneck pace, NVIDIA is seeing a shortage of production that could affect its competitiveness. An interesting revelation here is that NVIDIA has begun sampling its GPUs on Samsung's 28 nanometer fab process. Samsung uses this process for contract-manufacturing of ARM application processors. Other foundries with proven 28 nm manufacturing capability include UMC.

With over-production, swelling-inventories, and cutthroat competition that doesn't allow even subtle price-increases, DDR3 is a lost-cause for DRAM makers such as Samsung. It is hence hedging its bets on the early arrival of DDR4, and the only company that can make that happen is Intel. Samsung is not only a major supplier of DRAM memory, but also a big player in server memory. It had its first DDR4 UDIMM ready as early as in January 2011. Reports of Intel slating DDR4-equipped platforms in 2013 has Samsung perturbed. Samsung and Hynix are the only two DRAM majors with developed DDR4 products. According to DigiTimes' analysis, DRAM vendors see DDR4 as the only way they can pull themselves out of their ailing situation.

JEDEC Solid State Technology Association, the global leader in standards development for the microelectronics industry, today announced that its JC-64 Committee for Embedded Memory Storage and Removable Memory Cards has formed a Subcommittee focused on the standardization of non-volatile wireless memory. To be chaired by Nokia and vice-chaired by Micron Technology and Samsung Semiconductor, the JC-64.9 Subcommittee for Wireless Memory welcomes interested companies worldwide to participate by joining JEDEC or calling 703-907-7560 for more information.

Wireless memory is rapidly emerging as the next generation in data transfer technology, and is intended to enable fast, wireless connectivity with read/write capability between mobile devices (Wireless Memory Hosts) and battery-free memory tags (Wireless Memory Tags).

Samsung Display is almost ready with high-resolution AMOLED panels for use in computing devices of all shapes and sizes, its family is named "Youm". Shown first to the worl at last year's CES, Youm is ready to be mass-produced, and Samsung Display could open up to orders. It is also possible that Samsung Electronics could work on flagship products that demonstrate the capabilities of Youm. At last year's CES, a 4.5-inch variant of Youm was shown to the public, with 800x480 (WVGA) resolution. The pixel densities have since gone up significantly. Practical applications of Youm are numerous, including high-end ebook readers, augmented reality (AR) devices, and 3D-capable tablet PCs.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, today announced that it is now mass producing Ultra High Speed-1 (UHS-1) interface microSD cards that support the highest performance levels required on advanced LTE (Long Term Evolution) smartphones and tablets.

"MicroSD cards with a UHS-1 interface offer users an extremely high level of performance on their LTE smartphones and for other advanced mobile applications. This allows consumers to enjoy high-quality images and video playback directly from the memory cards, which fully support the advanced performance features of diverse digital gadgets," said Wanhoon Hong, executive vice president, memory sales & marketing, Samsung Electronics. "Our UHS-1 card demonstrates how Samsung plans to continually expand its line-up of memory cards in accommodating the market need for higher densities and greater performance."

Samsung Display Co., Ltd, a global leader in display panel technologies and products, announced today that it has been officially launched as a new corporation, spun off from Samsung Electronics. Samsung Display held its inauguration ceremony yesterday and will begin business operations in earnest after carrying out incorporation registration on April 3.

Donggun Park, executive vice president and head of the former Samsung Electronics' LCD Business was elected CEO of Samsung Display. The company, which recorded 22.7 trillion KRW (approximately 20 billion U.S. dollars) in annual revenue in 2011 as Samsung Electronics' LCD Business, became the world's largest display manufacturer overnight, based on its 20,000 employees and five production facilities worldwide.

Futuremark, the world leader in performance benchmarking software, today released the first benchmark results for the new iPad using Peacekeeper, its free to use browser speed test. While web pages may look sharper on the new iPad's improved display, the benchmark results show that the browsing performance of the new iPad is the same as the iPad 2, suggesting that the computational processing power in both devices is near identical. http://peacekeeper.futuremark.com/results?key=stats

Peacekeeper is an HTML5 based browser performance test that can be used to measure and compare the performance of any browser on any Internet capable device, from desktops and notebooks, to tablets and smartphones. What's more, as a device's browser performance is strongly linked to the power of its CPU, Peacekeeper offers a straightforward way to compare the performance of competing devices regardless of differences in operating system.

With the advent of highly-complex 28 nm discrete PC graphics processors, and ARM designers lined up with their increasingly powerful SoCs, TSMC is bound to see a pile up of orders for chips built on its newest bulk manufacturing process. In view of this, the "messiah of the fabless" is planning an expansion of its 28 nm manufacturing facility. This expansion is set to occur a little later in 2012. TSMC reportedly is running at full capacity at its 12-inch fabs because of strong demand for 28 nm as well as 40 nm and 65 nm. Due to this, some designers are approaching TSMC's competitors UMC and Samsung for 28 nm bulk manufacturing, according to sources. The expansion will follow a revision of TSMC's capex target for 2012, up from US $6 billion.