POWAY, Calif. — Cohu, Inc. (NASDAQ:COHU) today announced new solutions from its Semiconductor Equipment Group for use in testing mobile devices.

The company’s proprietary T-Core thermal technology is being integrated with its Delta EDGE handler, providing a production test handling solution for the ICs that power a wide range of smart phones, tablets, and other consumer devices. In addition, the T-Core thermal subsystem can be incorporated in burn-in and system level test equipment, for cost-effective, parallel testing of hundreds of ICs.

“We are excited to bring our active thermal control technology, long considered the benchmark for testing mid and high power processors, to new applications in the rapidly-expanding mobile market” said Luis Müller, President of Cohu’s Semiconductor Equipment Group. Read More

The Semiconductor Industry rallied last week after recent reports provided a positive outlook for the industry. Stocks received a boost Tuesday after Goldman Sachs raised its rating from “neutral” to “attractive” for the group. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) surged over 2 percent Tuesday. Five Star Equities examines the outlook for companies in the Semiconductor Industry and provides equity research on Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) and Texas Instruments Inc. (TXN).

Access to the full company reports can be found at:

www.FiveStarEquities.com/AMD

www.FiveStarEquities.com/TXN

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) last Friday reported that worldwide chip sales total $24.4 billion for the month of June, a 2 percent decrease from the a year ago. On the positive side, the drop was the smallest year-over-year decrease since October 2011. International Data Corporation in an update of the Semiconductor Applications Forecaster (SAF) forecasts that worldwide semiconductor revenues will increase 4.6 percent in 2012 to $315 billion.

“The semiconductor industry continues to navigate the turbulent global economy better than most sectors,” SIA President Brian Toohey said. “But macroeconomic uncertainties are limiting overall recovery and growth.” Read More

The Strategy Analytics Automotive Electronics Service (AES) report, “Automotive Semiconductor Demand Forecast 2010 – 2019”, predicts a surprising 11.5 percent growth in automotive semiconductor demand for 2012 – in view of more modest industry predictions for growth this year in the total global semiconductor market.

According to a release, the automotive industry megatrends of environment, safety, information and the need for affordable cars for emerging markets will continue to drive good growth opportunities for the automotive semiconductor market, despite the short term market uncertainties. With the global automotive semiconductor market worth $23.7 billion in 2011, these industry imperatives are expected to drive market revenue CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of 9.3 percent over the five year period 2011 to 2016.

Semiconductor demand from vehicle production growth in North America, Japan, Thailand and the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China), regions this year will more than compensate for the decline observed in Europe, resulting in revenues of $26.4 billion. Expanding adoption of electronically controlled features in both mature and emerging vehicle markets is contributing to the long term growth outlook. Read More

Physicists at The University of Texas at Austin, in collaboration with colleagues in Taiwan and China, have developed the world’s smallest semiconductor laser, a breakthrough for emerging photonic technology with applications from computing to medicine.

The scientists report their efforts in this week’s Science.

Miniaturization of semiconductor lasers is key for the development of faster, smaller and lower energy photon-based technologies, such as ultrafast computer chips; highly sensitive biosensors for detecting, treating and studying disease; and next-generation communication technologies.

Such photonic devices could use nanolasers to generate optical signals and transmit information, and have the potential to replace electronic circuits. But the size and performance of photonic devices have been restricted by what’s known as the three-dimensional optical diffraction limit.

“We have developed a nanolaser device that operates well below the 3-D diffraction limit,” said Chih-Kang “Ken” Shih, professor of physics at The University of Texas at Austin. “We believe our research could have a large impact on nanoscale technologies.” Read More