Lewis brought in two programmers from his old chip company and imposed a design process akin to one for building a chip, focusing on small components to deliver their complex product.

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By 2003 Illumina scientist Kevin Gunderson invented a chemical process that allowed Illumina to get more-accurate results, even as it packed more DNA on a chip. (Instead of the lithography that Affymetrix uses, Illumina affixes DNA to tiny glass beads packed in the chip.) "I've been in the analytical sciences for 30 years, and I've never seen anything this accurate, " says John W. Hooper, chief executive of Quebec gene-finding firm Genizon, an Illumina customer.

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In an October 19th interview, Andreas Olofsson, CEO, told me that Adapteva is working on a chip that uses much less power to process information.

FORBES: Adapteva Saves Tablet Power

The Tegra 4 (codenamed Wayne) will apparently offer the same power-efficient 28nm process found on its Snapdragon rival and according to the slide from Chip Hell, there's a dizzying 72-core graphics setup.

ENGADGET: NVIDIA Tegra 4 processor details leaked: 4-plus-1 cores, 28nm, six times the power of Tegra 3

Synopsys, Inc. (Nasdaq: SNPS), a global leader providing software, IP and services used to accelerate innovation in chips and electronic systems, today announced that its multi-year collaboration with Samsung on FinFET technology has achieved a critical milestone: the successful tapeout of the first test chip on Samsung's 14LPE process.

ENGADGET: Samsung reveals its first 14nm FinFET test chip, should offer substantial power improvements in future silicon