IBM reported that they will be getting out of the chip making business in order to give more attention to cloud computing and big data analytics.

The company will pay Globalfoundries $1.5 million over the next three years to take control of chip operations.

“They need to narrow their focus, get their A-game on, and any distractions from a core business perspective, such as this deal, need to be put in the rear-view mirror,” FBR Capital Markets analyst Daniel Ives told Reuters.

This is not the first notion of IBM reducing its presence in the hardware industry. Earlier this month, the company sold its x86 server business to Lenovo Group Ltd. For $2.1 billion.

This from Reuters:

Globalfoundries Chief Executive Sanjay Jha said the company would invest $10 billion between 2014 and 2015 to develop 10 nanometer, 14 nanometer and radio-frequency technologies.

Read the full article here.

What does the future hold for IBM? Connect with us to join us in the discussion.

The researchers discovered that two flat semiconductor materials can be connected edge-to-edge with crystalline perfection.
Credit: University of Washington

Current member of ECS, Xiaodong Xu, has made a huge contribution to the field of electrochemical science with the creation of atomically seamless, thinnest-possible semiconductor junctions.

Xu, along with the scientists at the University of Washington, believe their semiconductor – coming in at only three atoms thick – is the most slender possible, a new class of nanoscale materials.

This from the University of Washington:

The University of Washington researchers have demonstrated that two of these single-layer semiconductor materials can be connected in an atomically seamless fashion known as a heterojunction. This result could be the basis for next-generation flexible and transparent computing, better light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, and solar technologies.

Read the full article here.

“Our experimental demonstration of such junctions between two-dimensional materials should enable new kinds of transistors, LEDs, nanolasers, and solar cells to be developed for highly integrated electronic and optical circuits within a single atomic plane,” Xu said.

The research was published online this week in Nature Materials.

Find more research from Xu published in our Digital Library.

Plan now to participate at CSTIC 2015, one of the largest and the most comprehensive annual semiconductor technology conferences in China.

We invite you to submit your papers now for the China Semiconductor Technology International Conference 2015, one of the largest and the most comprehensive annual semiconductor technology conferences in China. CSTIC is organized by SEMI and IEEE, co-organized by China’s High-Tech Expert Committee (CHTEC). It is co-sponsored by ECS, MRS and China Electronics Materials Industry Association. CSTIC 2015 will be held on March 15-16, 2015 at the SHICC, Shanghai, China, in conjunction with SEMICON China 2015. It will cover all the aspects of semiconductor technology and manufacturing, including devices, design, lithography, integration, materials, processes, manufacturing as well as emerging semiconductor technologies and silicon material applications. Hot topics, such as 3D integration, III-V semiconductors, carbon nanoelectronics, LEDs, and MEMS. And CPTIC 2015 has joined CSTIC 2015 as Symposium XII : Si Materials and Photovoltaic Technology.

We are soliciting papers from authors around the world on all aspects of semiconductor and photovoltaic technology and manufacturing, including semiconductor design, Frond-End-of-Line (FEOL), Back-End-of-Line (BEOL), packaging, testing, as well as emerging semiconductor technologies; photovoltaic market, policy, power grid, device, design, process, tooling, materials, and fundamental study between China and the rest of the world with a focus on industrial applications.

Submit your abstract online.