Most 7-inch tablets' prices have dropped significantly during October with several first-tier vendors' 8GB models even dropping to as low as US$99. Meanwhile, 8-inch tablets also seen their prices decrease with stable panel supply and vendors expanding their investments in related products. Among the vendors, Lenovo was the most aggressive about price cuts.Lenovo has taken the initiative to lower retail prices for its A7-40 entry-level 7-inch tablet to US$99 and A8-50 entry-level 8-inch tablet to US$125, down from US$149. Lenovo also announced its second-generation Yoga tablets earlier in October, according to Digitimes Research's findings.Amazon released its fourth-generation Fire series tablets in September 2014 and introduced the first 6-inch model. The company adopted MediaTek's solutions and ODM business model for its new tablets to reduce costs.Since the company's Fire HD 7's hardware specifications did not have any significant improvements from the previous-generation model with the price remaining at US$139, Digitimes Research believes the Fire series tablets are unlikely to continue enjoying good demand as in the past and may enter into price competition in the future since most of Amazon's cloud computing services are also available for Android and iOS platforms.Compared to their competitors, which adopt WSVGA-level (1,024 by 800) TN panels for their devices, Acer's B1-730HD tablet uses a WXGA-level (1,280 by 800) IPS panel and priced at US$99, while Lenovo's A7-40 also adopts a similar level panel and MediaTek's quad-core A7 processor. Both tablets are expected to create strong threat against their competitors and Lenovo is also set to launch a new wave of price cuts for the year-end holidays.As for the 8-inch tablet market, the sector is also seeing a fierce price competition as in the 7-inch one. In addition to Lenovo, Asustek has also cut the price for its ME181 from US$199 in June to US$154 recently.

Following the passing of Japan's 2014 amendment of financial instruments and exchange act, etc. on May 23, 2014, unlisted companies in Japan are now allowed to raise funds through the Internet and the move is expected to prompt Japan's crowd funding platforms to include investment projects, which is expected to help expand the related market.The success of smartwatch Pebble prompted many entrepreneurs to try crowd funding platforms. The platforms not only provide entrepreneurs a chance to expand their businesses internationally, they also help the market to develop actively. US-based research firm Massolution found that crowd funding platforms worldwide together raised US$2.66 billion in 2012, up 81% on year with most projects located in North America and Kickstarter being the largest. Such a trend has also started occurring in Japan.Japan's crowd funding platforms started operating after the earthquake on March 11, 2011 as non-profit organizations used the platforms to help raise funds for rebuilding.But since IT products usually involve complicated R&D, manufacturing and launch processes, which is then amplified by the lack of experience of the creators, a common trend of many projects has been that backers become dissatisfied by the end of the process due to changed specifications, missing features, or huge delays between when the products was originally scheduled for delivery at the time they pledged their money and when the product actually shipped. Therefore most projects on Japan's crowd funding platforms have been non-IT products, and those successful at raising funding have been mostly enterprises and schools. Some well-known vendors have even created projects motivated to advertise and increase awareness of upcoming products, rather than raise cash.Compared to the US, Japan lacks IT-related entrepreneurs and Japan's large IT vendors also only place limited investment on entrepreneurs. Although many IT companies such as Internet service players and telecom carriers have budgeted corporate venture capital to for emerging companies, the emerging companies are mostly unable to benefit due to the long application and approval process.Because crowd funding platforms offer high flexibility and low thresholds to entry, as well as the Japan government's new policies, Digitimes Research expects the platforms to become an attractive fund raising channel for Japan's entrepreneurs.

Cavendish Kinetics, a provider of high-performance RF tuning solutions for mobile devices, and nubia, a smartphone brand of ZTE Corporation, recently announced that nubia's new Z7 includes a third generation smart antenna that is powered by Cavendish Kinetics' SmarTune antenna tuning solution.The SmarTune antenna tuning solution controls the electrical characteristics of the antenna and optimizes its performance by shifting its resonating frequency, so that it is always optimally matched to the operating frequency, indicated Paul Dal Santo, CEO of Cavendish Kinetics.According to Cavendish this allows smartphone vendors to design devices with smaller antennas while achieving a level of radio performance previously reserved for much larger structures.The solution is based on Cavendish's MEMS SmarTuners, which have a near zero insertion loss, and enable antennas to tune across all LTE frequencies. Cavendish's SmarTuners have proven their accuracy and reliability in over 50 billion cycles of testing. In addition, the SmarTuners are only 2 mm2 in size and do not require other components, which makes them easy to implement.

Synapse Design recently announced its Cloud hardware platform based on a Freescale T4240 network processor and natively running OpenStack Icehouse.The cloud hardware platform is a configurable design targeted at medium to high performance cloud appliance storage and compute markets.According to Synapse, the implementation provides 50% lower power for the same compute performance while enabling increased networking throughput with advanced hardware techniques. Deploying this solution at scale will save power when compared to competing architectures with equivalent compute performance.The Synapse Design platform is configurable, with the initial reference platform having 24 processing threads, four 10GbE channels, eight 1GbE channels and supporting 96TB of SSD storage with currently available drive technology. Compute and storage instantiations with a large variety of configurations can be enabled easily and a variety of host and drive side interfaces are available.

Integrated Device Technology recently announced it has expanded its system-on-chip (SoC)-friendly PCI Express timing family with the addition of 1.5 V clock generators and clock multiplexers. The new devices join the previously introduced 1.5 V buffers to provide enterprise-level performance for space- and power-constrained designs. The chips offer up to a 90% reduction in power and board space compared to standard 3.3 V current-mode HCSL devices.The 9FGU clock generator family delivers two, four, six or eight outputs and is offered with and without internal terminations, giving the designer a choice of a flexible termination, or minimal board space with integrated terminations, for 100 ohm transmission lines. All devices are pin-compatible with IDT's 1.8 V 9FGV PCIe G123 clock generator family.The 1.5V 9DMU and pin-compatible 1.8V 9DMV clock multiplexers are two-input devices with either one or four outputs. These clock multiplexers are offered with a choice of external terminations or integrated 100-ohm terminations, and feature a choice of switchover modes. The user can choose between asynchronous switching or synchronous switching modes.The entire family supports PCIe Gen1, Gen2, and Gen3 (Gen 1-2-3) phase jitter requirements. The chips are ideal for use in DSLR cameras, multi-function printers, solid state drives, vehicle infotainment systems, servers, micro-servers, set-top boxes, PCIe-based storage arrays, and a variety of other PCIe-based applications.

Global DRAM bit demand growth will be higher that of bit supply growth in the fourth quarter of 2014, easing pressure on the prices of DRAM chips in the quarter, according to Digitimes Research.However, DRAM chip prices still may face a downward correction in the second half of the fourth quarter on concerns of global economic growth momentum and the impact of the off-peak season in the first quarter of 2015.In addition to a lack of capacity ramps by major players, the world's top-three suppliers, Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Micron Technology, have also shifted part of their DRAM production capacity to the production of NAND flash chips, resulting in a three-year consecutive decline in 12-inch DRAM wafer output since 2011.Samsung migrated to a 25nm process in the second quarter of 2013 and ramped up the ratio of 25nm process products significantly in 2014, driving up DRAM bit supply in the year.Led by Samsung, global DRAM bit supply growth will reach 24.2% in 2014 compared to a growth of 23.1% a year earlier. But DRAM bit supply is set for slow growth in the future as current bit supply growth has been driven by upgrades of manufacturing processes rather than by the installation of new production, Digitimes Research commented.

Average retail pricing for LCD monitors in the US, UK, Germany, Japan and China will all see declines on month in October 2014, with 27-inch units dropping 5% to US$341, 24- and 23-inch units 1% to US$264 and US$259, respectively, and 22-inch units 2.8% to US$175, according to Digitimes Research.From July 2013-January 2014 global average pricing for 23-inch units was higher than for 24-inch units. However, for six consecutive months leading into October 24-inch unit pricing has exceeded that of 23-inch LCD monitors, largely driven by 24-inch units from Samsung Electronics that come equipped with touch panels and wide-angle viewing, noted Digitimes Research.

Third-quarter 2014 global notebook shipments are estimated at 45.198 million units (not including 2-in-1 models), increasing 6.4% sequentially and 2.6% on year, according to Digitimes Research.HP accounted for 21% of the global shipments, followed by Lenovo (20.9%), Dell (12.5%), Acer (9.7%), Apple (8.5%), Asustek Computer (8.3%) and Toshiba (6.2%), Digitimes Research indicated.Taiwan-based ODMs shipped 36.958 notebooks in the quarter, accounting for 81.77% of global shipments with their shipments growing 6.1% sequentially but slipping 2.9% on year.Quanta Computer was the largest ODM accounting for 34.6% of the shipments, Compal Electronics 32.2%, Wistron 15.7%, Inventec 6.7% and Pegatron 5.7%.Of the ODM shipments, 8.2% were sub-12-inch models, 2.9% 12-inch ones, 13% 13-inch ones, 22.7% 14-inch ones, 47.2% 15-inch ones, 6.1% 16-inch and above ones.

GT Advanced Technologies' (GTAT) move to seek bankruptcy protection on October 6 came as a surprise to the IT industry especially because the maker was a major supplier of Apple for sapphire screens.The related supply chain in general, Digitimes Research believes, will feel the impact, such as seeing tight supplies of LED-use sapphire ingots and smartphone vendors reconsidering plans to adopt sapphire for their devices' screens.There had been already many signs showing that GATA had been in trouble before it filed for Chapter 11 protection: The mass production schedule of the company's sapphire had seen a long delay until August 2014; its sapphire yield rate was only 30%; the company's sapphire production ramp up costs in 2014 were expected to reach as high as US$100 million; Apple's prepayments for orders had been delayed; and the company had reduced its capex and revenue target for 2014.In August 2014, Digitimes Research estimated that GTAT would only be able to supply 1.35-2.25 million 5.5-inch sapphire screens in 2014, far lower than what Apple would have required.Although GTAT is hoping to be able to maintain its operation after filing bankruptcy protection, Digitimes Research believes the chance that Apple will adopt its sapphire for products is slim, because GTAT's sapphire production yield rates remain low.As a result, Apple is expected to turn to other sapphire suppliers for components used in cameras, home bottons, and Apple Watch's protective covers. Apple's orders are expected to impact these suppliers' capacities assigned for LED-related applications.On the other hand, some other smartphone vendors originally planned to follow Apple's step to adopt sapphire screens for their devices, but GTAT's difficulties are likely to deter them from doing so now.As makers in China have turned aggressive about expanding their sapphire capacities since early 2014 with the major application being smartphone-use sapphire screens, how these sapphire makers are going to find downstream partners that will use their products could become another issue. At the same time, existing first-tier sapphire makers' expansion plans for smartphone-use sapphire screen capacities may need to be postponed.

September average retail price for 7W LED light bulbs (equivalent to 40W incandescents) in the China market increased 11% on month to CNY33.9 (US$5.50), while 9W models (equivalent to 60W) fell 7.3% to CNY41.70, according to Digitimes Research.Average retail prices for 40W- and 60W-equivalent LED light bulbs in Japan in September stood at JPY1,667 (US$15) and JPY3,073, respectively, with the former slipping 2% on month and the latter rising 11.9%, Digitimes Research indicated.September average retail prices for 40W- and 60W-equivalent LED light bulbs in other markets were: KRW12,462 (US$12.50, flat on month) and KRW14,591 (flat) in South Korea; US$19.4 (down 4.4%) and US$19.8 (down 3.9%) in the US; EUR13.20 (US$16.90, up 6.5%) and EUR12.70 (up 9.5%) in Europe.LG Electronics 40W-equivalent LED light bulbs for sale in South Korea and Samsung Electronics 60W-equivalent models available in Europe had the highest average lumen-price ratios of 67.8lm/US$ and 108.1lm/US$, respectively, in September. In terms of luminous efficiency, Sharp 40W-equivalent LED light bulbs and Toshiba 60W-equivalent models for sale in the Japan market had the highest average levels of 77.6lm/W and 100.5lm/W, respectively.