World Region – America

Lockheed Martin has officially opened its Spacecraft Test, Assembly and Resource (STAR) Center, an advanced manufacturing facility to expand Orion spacecraft production. The STAR Center, says the company, will expand manufacturing, assembly and testing capacity for NASA’s Orion spacecraft programme and support future space exploration. The 55,000 square-foot space – in Titusville, Florida – will be a “digitally-transformed factory of ...

SEMI CEO Ajit Manocha has issued a statement on the support of funding incentives to expand U.S. semiconductor manufacturing and research by President Biden and a bipartisan group of members of Congress in a meeting at the White House on February 24, 2021. “We thank President Biden and bipartisan congressional leaders for their support of incentives for U.S. semiconductor manufacturing ...

Yesterday Intel CEO Bob Swan (pictured) committed the company to having advanced manufacturing in the USA. That would have gone without saying three years ago but, with TSMC’s rise to pre-eminence in process technology, there has been speculation that it might put leading edge product out to foundry. “We have a wonderful business model called the IDM,” said Swan, “we’re ...

It is being reported that SMIC, the China foundry, is about to be banned from buying US equipment because it supplies the Chinese military. SMIC denies it makes chips for the military. SMIC is already under a restricted import order from the US with all orders requiring US government clearance. SMIC has a capex budget of $4.2 billion for 2020 as ...

Foxconn’s plan to build an LCD factory in Wisconsin may be canned, reports Reuter’s.

Two criminal lawsuits initiated by US government prosecutors have been brought against Huawei in the USA The lawsuits allege that Huawei violated US sanctions on trade with Iran and with stealing trade secrets from one of its customers – T-Mobile. The lawsuits were brought just a couple of days before trade talks between the USA and China resume. The USA ...

Today another tranche of US tariffs on China imports into the USA takes effect. The 10% tariff is expected to apply to $200 billion worth of Chinese manufactured goods. The scope of the tariffs on electronics goods is confused. The government order imposing tariffs cites:  “Machines for the reception, conversion and transmission or regeneration of voice, images or other data, ...

Later today a group of tech and financial companies will meet US government representatives at the White House to discuss ways to drive the US effort in quantum computing. Quantum computing “will enable us to predict and improve chemical reactions, new materials and their properties, as well as provide new understandings of spacetime and the emergence of our universe,”  says ...

The US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is using twin robots to test reconfigurable 5G communications antennas. Among its capabilities, the system, called Large Antenna Positioning System (LAPS) can test transmissions to and from antennas located on fast-moving mobile devices – requiring coordination between the timing of communication signals and robot motion. “Measurements of antenna signals are a ...

President Barack Obama's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology forms a working group to strengthen the US semiconductor industry.