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Tech Smorgasbord Archives - 19

RF Cafe University"Factoids," "Kirt's Cogitations," and "Tech Topics Smorgasbord" are all manifestations of my ranting on various subjects relevant (usually) to the overall RF Cafe theme. All may be accessed on these pages:

 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37

National Competitiveness Rankings for 2008

(source: Financial Times)

Here is the Global Competitiveness Index rankings as determined by the Geneva-based World Economic Forum.
Country 2008

2009

2007

2008

U.S. 1 1
Switzerland 2 2
Denmark 3 3
Sweden 4 4
Singapore 5 7
Finland 6 6
Germany 7 5
Netherlands 8 10
Japan 9 8
Canada 10 13
Hong Kong 11 12
Britain 12 9

Who would have guessed with all the U.S. bashing that we would still be in the #1 slot?

12-25-2008

 

Patent Prowess 2007

(source: IEEE Spectrum)

IEEE uses a variety of metrics to determine ranking in its patent survey. Total number of patents awarded weighs highly, but other factors like how often your patents are referenced by other patents also factors in.

718 Honeywell Int'l
463 Lockheed Martin
402 Boeing
97 Airbus
96 Hamilton Sundstrand
82 Northrop Grumman
68 Rockwell Collins
64 BAE Systems
56 EADS NV
56 Raytheon

12-18-2008

Top FLOPers of 2008

(source: IEEE Spectrum)

Here is the latest list of the world's top 10 supercomputers. It is a very dynamic list.
1 DOE/NNSA/LANL Roadrunner
2 Oak Ridge National Laboratory Jaguar XT-5
3 NASA/Ames Research Center/NAS Pleiades
4 DOE/NNSA/LLNL BlueGene/L
5 Argonne National Laboratory Blue Gene/P
6 Texas Advanced Computing Center/Univ. of Texas Ranger
7 NERSC/LBNL Franklin
8 Oak Ridge National Laboratory Jaguar XT-4
9 NNSA/Sandia National Laboratories Red Storm
10 Shanghai Supercomputer Center Dawning 5000A

RF Cafe: Map of the world's supercomputers in 2008Here is a cool map by NY Times.

12-11-2008

 

Top 20 Semiconductor Suppliers of 2008

(source: iSuppli)

iSuppli released their preliminary list of the top IC producers in 2008.

#1-5 are the same as in 2007. Total revenue was $267M, which is down 2% from 2007.

1 Intel
2 Samsung
3 Texas Instruments
4 Toshiba
5 STMicroelectronics
6 Renesas
7 Sony
8 Qualcomm
9 Hynix
10 Infineon
See the complete list here.

12-4-2008

Top 10 Irritating Phrases

(source: Oxford U.)

This list has been compiled by researchers at Oxford University.

1 At the end of the day
2 Fairly unique
3 I personally
4 At this moment in time
5 With all due respect
6 Absolutely
7 It's a nightmare
8 Shouldn't of
9 24/7
10 It's not rocket science
Add your most hated phrase to the list here.

11-27-2008

10 Top Design Skills for Tough Times

(source: Electronic Design)

According to one man's opinion, these are the most desirable skills to possess in order to be competitive in these tough time. In order:

#1 Analog Design
#2 Radiation Hardening
#3 Programming
#4 RF ¬ ¬
#5 Optics
#6 DSP
#7 Emerging Power Tech
#8 Quantum Physics
#9 Nanotechnology
#10 Mechanical Design

11-2-2008

TIME's Best Inventions of 2008

(source: TIMES)

TIME just published their opinion of the 50 best inventions. Here are the top 10 of those.

1 OTC DNA Test
2 Tesla Roadster
3 Lunar Recon Orbiter
4 Hulu.com
5 Large Hadron Collider
6 Global Seed Vault
7 Chevy Volt
8 Bullets That Shoot Bullets
9 Orbital Internet
10 Roadrunner Supercomputer

11-13-2008

 

2008 Electronic Design Salary Survey

(source: Electronic Design)

ED just released its 2008 results based on nearly 3,000 responses. Here are numbers by age for total compensation.
24 $54,989
25-29 $73,445
30-34 $84,917
35-39 $93,666
40-44 $108,594
45-49 $109,218
50-54* $117,768
55-59 $114,739
60 $108,544
* This is my age group. Boy am I ever pulling the average down! My apologies.

11-6-2008

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