IEEE Spectrum: Semiconductors

Nobel Controversy: Eugene Gordon Claims He Gave Smith The Idea for the CCD

"It really shouldn't be a physics award," says the IEEE Fellow and Edison Medal Recipient. "Most of the work has been in electrical engineering. There's no fundamental physics."

Nobel Controversy: Former Bell Labs Employee Says He Invented the CCD Imager

Who is the Real Inventor of the Digital Imager? Michael F. Tompsett Says It's Him

Digital Data Written in Stone

The "Digital Rosetta Stone" would store data and give wireless access to it for 1000 years

Report: Sun Micro to Scrap Big Chip Project

The ambitious Rock multicore processor may now be as fractured as the computer firm itself

Semicon Industry Group Sees Hope After 2009

Semiconductor Industry Association predicts better times nearing

A New Twist on Memristance

NIST researchers create flexible memory circuits that act like memristors

One-Billion-Year Carbon Nanotube Memory

A new approach to really long-lived electronic storage

Taiwan's Troubled DRAM Plan

laid off

Taiwanese workers protested in Taipei last December.

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The island's struggling memory makers aren't buying in

Slideshow: The Many Facets of Microchips

NOW WE’RE TALKING

The Speak & Spell was a learning toy that Texas Instruments created using its TMC0281, the first single-chip speech synthesizer. One of the hits of Christmas 1978, the toy was the brainchild of four TI engineers [from left]: Gene Frantz, Richard Wiggins, Paul Breedlove, and Larry Brantingham.

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A hand-drawn diagram, a long-forgotten memo, a photo of a Ferrari--intriguing images of chips and their creators

The Runners-up: More Earthshaking Chips

These 13 great little chips didn't make our list--mainly because we ran out of space in print. And, well, one isn't even a chip

Provisional Patents Are Quick, Cheap, and Worthless

Patience is a patent virtue

Thanks for the Memories

Laptops, workstations, PlayStations, iPhones--they would all be impossible without Robert Dennard's invention of DRAM

25 Microchips That Shook the World

A list of some of the most innovative, intriguing, and inspiring integrated circuits

Shrinking Possibilities

Lithography will need multiple strategies to keep up with the evolution of memory and logic

Spintronic Memristors

Researchers have made magnetic devices that act like the recently discovered fourth circuit element

Rambus Aims for New Ultralow-Power DRAM

New mobile-memory initiative aimed at high-bandwidth, low-power smart phones

Dream Jobs 09: Special Report

Building a solar-powered plane, creating stunning effects for Bollywood films, designing search-and-rescue robots--it's not just a job, it's engineering

Bailouts for Memory Makers

Germany's DRAM Bailout

The state of Saxony's risky rescue of European DRAM maker Qimonda

UPDATE: Germany's DRAM Bailout Hits a Snag as Qimonda Goes Bankrupt

DRAM maker files for insolvency, while the German government mulls a bigger rescue