They must now repay these loans despite a devalued currency and loss-making chip operations.
In late 2002, Microsoft approached IBM about making the chip for Microsoft's rival game console, the (as yet unnamed) Xbox 360.
The idea was to be so much better than Intel by making a chip that could run a computer very fast but use very little power.
Chicory came up with a way to embed this software trick directly into a half-millimeter-square section of a silicon chip, making an otherwise slow-witted cell phone chip act like a genius.
Chicory came up with a way to embed this software trick directly into a half-millimeter-square section of a silicon chip, making an otherwise slow-witted cell phone chip behave like a genius.
One example is the nanolithography used in chip making, which eliminates process chemicals that are hazardous to the environment.
Bigger, financially sound companies do have access to cheaper capital, which is indeed a competitive advantage in memory-chip making.
Small machines do this by borrowing all the attributes of silicon chip making and applying them to the mechanical world.
FORBES: Exponential Growth in Small Machines - Don't Fear, They're Here to Protect You
That's apparently possible by making the entire chip nonvolatile, as opposed to many current chips that only use nonvolatile merged memory.
ENGADGET: Integrated circuits with no standby power could be in use by year's end
Lee's the sort who needs someone standing over him, making him hit chip after chip and telling him what he's doing wrong.
The pity is that South Korea already has rules that could sort out chip making and most other industries without Mr Kim's good offices.
The industries of both countries face higher costs for imported chip-making equipment, which comes mostly from Japan and represents the lion's share of a chip maker's costs.
The new chip-making technology may allow Moore's Law--that the number of transistors on a chip doubles every 18 months--to continue on its trajectory even when silicon transistors cannot be made any smaller.
But new chip-making technologies are emerging that should make them cheaper (see article).
There are some major changes coming to chip-making land over the next few years.
SEIPI, the Philippines' electronics-industry association, the country retains a critical mass in the chip-making business.
ECONOMIST: Relocating factories to China is not always a good idea
But several other chip-making techniques will need to be modified if his radical new approach is to succeed.
What is more, according to Dr Hergenrother, all of this is possible using current chip-making equipment and processes.
These are rough times to be in the business of selling chip-making gear.
Invariably it was governments, rather than markets, that kick-started the move into chip-making.
Stocks in the chip-making sector recovered slightly from the panic earlier in the week over their closed plants in Japan.
The resulting silicon can be treated with the usual chip-making processes to make transistors that are small, flexible and reasonably fast.
Any suggestion of making them a bargaining chip unsettles those in Poland and elsewhere who doubt the durability of America's security relationship with Europe.
Intel and the semiconductor equipment maker ASML this afternoon announced an unusual deal intended to help accelerate the development of next-generation chip-making technologies.
FORBES: Intel To Take Stake In ASML; Help Fund Their R&D Program
However, the long-term prospects for growth in chip-making look unpromising.
This company was among the hardest hit by the collapse in chip prices last year and four months ago entered into talks with America's Micron Technology for the sale of much of its chip-making business.
And because the gate and the insulation layer are formed right at the end of the chip-making process, after the high-temperature steps have been completed, it is possible to choose from a wider range of materials for the insulation layer.
Tuning the design of the chip to match this specific application, but making it reconfigurable, means that phones based around the chip will be able to adapt to different network standards.
At the end of the year, Bank of America sent some of its BlackBerry-using customers in New York a memory card with an NFC chip capable of making a wireless payment when waved in front of special terminals found in subway stations, drug stores and taxi cabs.
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