This is the final entry on this site for 2006, a year in which WiMAX stuttered, UWB faltered, Near Field Communication struggled to establish itself, RFID established itself, WiFi strengthened strongly and extended its scope, cellular telephony garnered oodles of dosh but lacked direction as high-end phones failed to find market favour, AMD and Texas Instruments flourished, and Intel wilted.
It was a year in which the private equity funds reared their heads paying, according to some, extravagant amounts of money, particularly the Blackstone-led bid for Freescale Semiconductor.
It was a good year for DRAM, a bad year for ASICs as design starts continued to decline, a tough year for microprocessors and a bad year for flash in which prices declined at over 60 per cent while investment in new capacity from Intel, Micron, Toshiba, Sandisk and Hynix soared.
The CEO of HP resigned amid scandal. The CEOs and other senior officers of countless companies got into trouble over stock options. Price-fixing allegations moved from DRAM to SRAM and LCDs.
It was another typical, totally unpredictable year, turbulent for the high-tech industry. The follies of 2006, if follies there were, will find their
However 2006 was for you, may you have good luck in 2007.
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