By Ed Sperling

It was a good week for those companies—and countries—with cash.

The Abu Dhabi government’s $5.6 billion bid for Chartered Semiconductor took top billing this week as the deal to watch. The Advanced Technology Investment Company made the bid, but the company is entirely owned by the government. This is the same group that set up a joint venture with AMD to create Globalfoundries.

Synopsys also announced that it would repurchase $500 million in stock, which is what companies do when they want to boost the price of their shares. It’s simple math. The fewer shares, the more they’re worth. IBM has been doing this for years.

Meanwhile, back at the foundries, Cadence announced a broad multi-year technology agreement with Globalfoundries for design, verification and manufacturing. Well, at least we know there’s plenty of money to pay for the tools.

There’s also more money in the works for Magma. The company’s offer to exchange outstanding convertible notes was greeted positively by the majority of bondholders. To paraphrase Mark Twain, news of this company’s death are greatly exaggerated.

So with all this positive activity going on, why did TSMC’s sales drop last month? The top foundry’s numbers show sales in August 2009 were $887 million (U.S.), versus $922 million in August 2008. Sales were down year over year for the first eight months, as well. Aren’t all signs supposed to be pointing to the end of a protracted downturn?

Synopsys introduced DDR3 PHY and digital controller IP with support for the newest 2133 Mbps data rates from JECEC and the anticipated new low-power 1.35 volt standard (compared with the existing 1.5 volts). The company is the first to get there—even ahead of the new standards—but it certainly won’t be the only one.

Also on the IP front, Cypress licensed a broad array of ARM’s intellectual property for its programmable line. Expect to see a lot more in the programmable space in coming months as business concerns begin infiltrating what formerly were technology-only decisions.

By Ed Sperling

Mountain View, Calif –Dec. 17, 2008—Solar cells may be one of the ultimate system-level design challenges.

While it’s well understood how to make solar cells far more efficient—gallium arsenide, for example would make solar cells 35% to 40% efficient compared with CMOS, which is about 20% to 22% efficient—the problem has to be overlaid on a cost vs. efficiency equation. Gallium arsenide would increase the cost of solar cell chips by about 10 times, rendering it completely useless to commercial adoption of the technology, according to T.J. Rodgers, CEO of Cypress Semiconductor and chairman of the board at SunPower.

The dark horse material is cadmium telluride, which is currently being researched as a possible replacement for CMOS. Unlike CMOS, which has an indirect bandgap, cadmium telluride has the same kind of direct bandgap as gallium arsenide, which makes it more efficient.

But the even bigger problem lies outside the packages of solar cell arrays. Rodgers says it costs $750 per unit for the solar cells, and about the same amount of money to install it on a roof. He said the technology wrapped around the solar cell needs to be dramatically simplified to bring down the cost.

“The installation is too high and electronics are too expensive,” he said. “All of those things will be improved. By 2012, the goal is to match PG&E’s cost for producing electricity. In a couple of years, the price of solar will be cheaper and you will start seeing exponential growth.”

National Semiconductor claims to have solved one piece of the puzzle. Brian Halla, chairman and CEO of National, showed off a battery management device this week that he claims will greatly improve the efficiency of existing solar installations.

“A string of solar panels today works like the batteries in a Maglite flashlight,” he said. “If one goes out, they’re all bad.”

He said the same applies to solar panels, where one may be partially shaded for part of the day and throws off the electricity generated by the others. By routing the power through the device, he said far more power is generated.

Both companies, as well as Actel, are experimenting with a number of new system-level designs that can either generate or conserve electricity. Among the technologies being tested:

1. Heat-generated electricity. A device being researched will wrap around the smokestack on diesel trucks is expected to produce 2Kw/hr. that currently is wasted. The same device can be applied to a hot exhaust pipe on a car to charge a battery. While it won’t fully run a hybrid car, it may increase the mileage by 10 percent.

2. Commercial fuel cells. These are expected to show up in commercial generating stations over the next several years.

3. Non-fixed solar farms. These are expected to begin operation over the next several years so they track the sun’s arc instead of fixed cells that can only produce electricity during part of the daylight.

John East, president and CEO of Actel, noted that the total savings from eliminating imported oil and avoiding wars fought to preserve oil could amount to about $1.5 billion a year, making it likely that such projects will become increasingly attractive sources of research and development over the next four years.