Samsung's PRAM promises battery boost

Samsung has begun producing a new chip that may one day replace flash memory and is expected to increase cellphone battery life by more than 20%, reports CNET News.

The world's largest maker of memory chips said it is now manufacturing phase-change random access memory (PRAM) in 512Mb capacities.

In phase change memory chips, a medium called chalcogenide - the same stuff as used in CD-RW rewritable discs - gets heated up to very high temperatures, the heat changes the physical state, and the two resulting states become the ones and zeros used by computers for data storage.

Processor intellectual property licensor ARM Holdings is in talks with the foundry chip manufacturer Globalfoundries, according to reports, says EE Times UK.

The manufacturing capacity of Globalfoundries, majority owned by Abu Dhabi's Advanced Technology Investment, is based on the wafer fabs formerly owned by Advanced Micro Devices in Dresden, Germany.

However, the company has wafer fab under construction in New York and plans to take over Singapore's Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing.

Manufacturing technology is an integral part of all industries that produce goods or hardware, says The Economic Times. The manufacturing processes at a facility are entirely performed on its shop floor-the most important unit in the entire product development chain, which largely defines the productivity and quality aspects of a manufacturing firm.

SMEs in the Indian manufacturing industry can enhance their competence by deploying low-cost automation tools across their shop floors.

For example, SMEs in the manufacturing domain can implement various low-cost servo-mechanisms to achieve automatic motion control in terms of position, force and flow rate.