Whither China? DigiTimes reports that Chinese foundries, with the exception of SMIC, have trimmed their investments in leading edge capacity, even as they exceed 90% utilization of older technologies. This may be a wise decision, as the leading edge is a challenging and expensive place to be, but is certainly good news for companies like TSMC.

Already, an update to last week's post about software tools... HyperClipper is a nifty little extended clipboard, but not $30 worth of nifty, which is what it costs after the 15 day trial. I am now trying M8 Software's Multi Clipboard, which has a free basic version.

Blinkx Pico has also been de-installed, after it failed to produce any useful links in about a week of use. A nifty idea, but either the algorithm isn't smart enough or the database isn't big enough for the fairly specialized material I'm interested in.

I thought I mentioned this at the time, but Google says otherwise.... The September issue of IEEE Spectrum has a good article on the outlook for flexible electronics. The article is a little confusing because it doesn't always make clear the difference between low cost, low performance devices being considered for organic electronics, and technologies to make high performance electronics with silicon on flexible substrates. Still, well worth a look if you're interested in the subject.