NEC Corp said it developed the world's smallest transistor, which could allow chips powerful enough to build a supercomputer the size of a personal computer.
NEC's design is one-eighteenth the size of current transistors, Mitsumasa Fukumoto, a spokesman for the Tokyo-based company said, confirming an earlier report by the Asahi newspaper.
Transistors are electronic circuits that form the basic building block for most semiconductors, a market worth US$155 billion last year. Gaining some of that revenue with the new transistor is still some ways off for NEC, said John Yang, an analyst at Standard & Poor's in Tokyo.
"The development itself is impressive, but the real challenge for NEC is building an effective business model," Yang said.
"Japanese companies are not good at putting technological developments into some marketable form."
NEC was awarded the fourth-highest number of patents from the US Patent and Trademark Office last year as it sought to gain a competitive advantage. IBM Corp led with 3,288 patents, edging second-place Canon Inc. Micron Technology Inc, the world's second-largest maker of memory chips, finished third.
Armonk New York-based IBM produces processors such as the PowerPC chip used in Apple Inc's computers. Santa Clara, California-based Intel Corp, the world's biggest maker of computer chips, had semiconductor sales of US$22.3 billion last year.
NEC was to introduce the transistor at an international convention that was set to begin yesterday in the US, Fukumoto said.
The Chien Feng IV (勁蜂, Mighty Hornet) loitering munition is on track to enter flight tests next month in connection with potential adoption by Taiwanese and US armed forces, a government source said yesterday. The kamikaze drone, which boasts a range of 1,000km, debuted at the Taipei Aerospace and Defense Technology Exhibition in September, the official said on condition of anonymity. The Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology and US-based Kratos Defense jointly developed the platform by leveraging the engine and airframe of the latter’s MQM-178 Firejet target drone, they said. The uncrewed aerial vehicle is designed to utilize an artificial intelligence computer
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday decided to shelve proposed legislation that would give elected officials full control over their stipends, saying it would wait for a consensus to be reached before acting. KMT Legislator Chen Yu-jen (陳玉珍) last week proposed amendments to the Organic Act of the Legislative Yuan (立法院組織法) and the Regulations on Allowances for Elected Representatives and Subsidies for Village Chiefs (地方民意代表費用支給及村里長事務補助費補助條例), which would give legislators and councilors the freedom to use their allowances without providing invoices for reimbursement. The proposal immediately drew criticism, amid reports that several legislators face possible charges of embezzling fees intended to pay
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Renewed border fighting between Thailand and Cambodia showed no signs of abating yesterday, leaving hundreds of thousands of displaced people in both countries living in strained conditions as more flooded into temporary shelters. Reporters on the Thai side of the border heard sounds of outgoing, indirect fire yesterday. About 400,000 people have been evacuated from affected areas in Thailand and about 700 schools closed while fighting was ongoing in four border provinces, said Thai Rear Admiral Surasant Kongsiri, a spokesman for the military. Cambodia evacuated more than 127,000 villagers and closed hundreds of schools, the Thai Ministry of Defense said. Thailand’s military announced that
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