Intel has announced between 5,000 and 6,000 job losses in a reorganisation of manufacturing operations.

In a short statement on Wednesday, Intel said it is closing down two existing assembly and test facilities: one in Penang, Malaysia, and one in Cavite, in the Philippines. It also said it will also stop production at Fab 20, an older 200mm wafer fabrication facility in Hillsboro, Oregon.

Silicon-wafer production operations will also end at the D2 facility in Santa Clara, California.

The move will affect “between 5,000 and 6,000 employees worldwide” Intel said in the statement. The company added that “not all employees will leave Intel”, and some may be offered positions at other facilities.

The actions will take place between now and the end of 2009, Intel said.

The news comes just over a week after Intel announced poor fourth-quarter results.

(Full article ‘6,000 jobs threatened at Intel’)

The Doom video game from id Software has always been a cult since this was not only one of the first three-dimensional video games, but also one of the first titles capable of playing via local area network. While the Doom 3 title was rather popular, it became clear that to get the franchise working going forward, a new idea will be needed. According to a fantasy writer, he is working on that idea.

“I’ll also be working on the computer game Doom 4 for id Software. I’ve been playing Doom for some years. Okay, here’s a secret: I don’t actually tickle the keyboards into simulating lines of deathless prose for the full eight hours per day. No.

(Full article ‘IN BRIEF: Professional Writer Hired to Write a Plot Behind “Doom 4″ Video Game’)

Apple, a maker of personal computers and a leading supplier of portable digital media players, is reportedly working on a device based on Intel Corp.’s Atom processor as well as Nvidia Corp.’s Ion platform. No details are available at this time, but it can be expected that Apple is preparing a new Apple TV, Apple Mac Mini or Apple Mac netbook.

A news-story by Tom’s Hardware web-site claims that a partner of Nvidia Corp. said that “Apple was the first to receive samples of Nvidia’s Ion platform”, which is designed to support Intel Atom processors, and that Apple got prototypes of Ion “long before” other partners of Nvidia.

(Full article ‘Apple Interested in Nvidia’s Ion Platform, Intel Atom Processors - Media Report’)

Nvidia Corp. has begun shipments of its new graphics card that features two graphics processing units (GPUs) to offer extreme levels of performance. Unlike in previous times, the new graphics board does not carry incredible price-tag as due to economic slump few people would invest over $500 into a new accelerator for video games on the PC.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 295 graphics card is powered by two code-named G200b chips each featuring 240 shader processors (SPs), 80 texture units (TUs), 30 render back ends (RBEs) and 448-bit memory interface. Nvidia recommends its partners to clock the GPU at 576MHz with stream processing operating at 1242MHz and also set the memory’s frequency to 1998MHz.

(Full article ‘Nvidia Begins to Ship New Dual-Chip GeForce GTX 295 Graphics Card’)

The European Commission has carried out a number of unannounced inspections of smartcard firms in various European Union member states as part of an investigation into anti-competitive behaviour.

The raids of “several” European semiconductor companies occurred on 21 October, 2008, according to a Commission statement on Wednesday.

Inspectors were looking for evidence of price-fixing, customer allocation and exchange of commercially sensitive information between manufacturers of chips used in telephone SIM cards, bank cards and identity cards.

Dutch semiconductor company NXP told UK on Wednesday that it had been one of the companies approached by Commission inspectors. “We have received questions from the Commission,” said an NXP spokesperson.

(Full article ‘EC raids smartcard firms in cartel investigation’)