Applied Materials Youth Talent Camp 2008

Company Introduction
Applied Materials, a company based in Santa Clara, Silicon Valley is a company that is creating and commercializes nanotechnology manufacturing technique in the production of semiconductor, thin film and crystalline photovoltaic energy, flat panel display and glass coatings for residents and buildings.

My Story
This summer, Applied Materials Taiwan held an innovation camp called "Applied Materials Youth Talent Camp 2008". Of course, this is a gold opportunity for me. Besides a wonderful prize visiting Silicon Valley, United States for a week, the grand prize is a NT10,000 cash for two winning teams in the camp. Wow, i think that this will be an important milestone of my life, because i haven't got the chance to visit the States.
The preliminary stage of this competition is to write a 1,500 words of essay about your premonition of solar cell(Photovoltaic) and semiconductor industry in the future.And fortunately, I've been recruited to join the semifinal stage of this competition, that is a 4 day 3 night camp in Lake Resort Hotel, Hsinchu, Taiwan.
Below are my experience in the innovation camp:
1st day:
We should gather in Hsinchu Railway Station at 13.30, but i've arrived soon, so I went to local KFC to have my lunch and after that I went to SOGO lower ground to eat ice cream of the Switz, Movenpick. During lunch, I continuously practice the interview questions that I've prepared before.
I should go now, edited later...^^

Who are winners, losers in IC rankings?

Source: IC Insights

Shakeups Rock 1H08 Top 20 Semiconductor Supplier Ranking
Qualcomm, Broadcom make biggest leaps; NXP, AMD register biggest falls

IC Insights' recent research for its Strategic Reviews Online IC company database uncovered a big shakeup in the 1H08 top 20 semiconductor supplier ranking (Figure 1). There are eight U.S. companies in the top 20 (including three fabless semiconductor suppliers), six Japanese, three European, two South Korean, and one Taiwanese company (IC foundry supplier TSMC) in the ranking. As shown, it required at least $2.1 billion in 1H08 sales to make the top 20 ranking. Although the top four ranked companies remained the same, there were a number of "movers and shakers" up and down the remainder of the 1H08 ranking as compared to their full-year 2007 positions.

Climbers

• Cell phone IC supplier Qualcomm used a 29% year-over-year 1H08 growth rate to jump four spots and rank as the 10th largest semiconductor supplier in 1H08.
  
  
• The third largest fabless supplier, Broadcom, jumped three positions and is now positioned as the 20th largest semiconductor supplier in the world.
  
  
• Japanese consumer electronics powerhouse Panasonic (formerly Matsushita) and NEC were boosted by the strong Japanese yen versus the U.S. dollar. Each jumped three places and moved into the 18th and 12th positions, respectively, in the top 20 ranking.
  
  
• Moving up one place each in 1H08 were TSMC, Renesas, and Infineon.

"Descenders"

DRAM-supplier Qimonda's nightmare continued in 1H08 as the company dropped 12 positions from being ranked 18th overall in 2007 to 30th in 1H08. The company endured a 1H08/1H07 sales decline of 47% (which would have been worse if not for the strength of the euro) and suffered a loss of more than $2.2 billion in its first three quarters of fiscal 2008!


Despite a relatively flat 1H08/1H07 sales result, NXP fell four spots to 14th from 10th.


AMD posted a decent 9% increase in 1H08/1H07 sales, yet slid four positions from 11th to 15th.


Eighth-ranked memory supplier Hynix fell only one spot in the ranking although its 1H08/1H07 sales tumbled 23%, the only 1H08/1H07 sales decline of any top 20 semiconductor supplier!


ST fell one position in the ranking and now occupies the 6th spot. It should be noted that the company's 1H08 and 1H07 figures do not include FMG (flash memory group) sales, which are now part of Numonyx's sales. As shown, the company registered a solid 13% year-over-year growth rate in 1H08 and has a relatively positive outlook for its second half as well.


TI did not drop in the ranking but the company registered the second-worst growth rate of any top 20 semiconductor supplier in 1H08 (0%). TI has been a significant supplier to the cellular handset market segment for many years. However, in IC Insights' opinion, it would be wise not to extrapolate the company's weak 1H08 performance to the overall cell phone marketplace. Moreover, the excellent 1H08 performance of Qualcomm and ST, also major IC suppliers to the cell phone industry, appears to indicate that TI's poor 1H08 results are more a reflection of a TI-specific "problem" than an overall cell phone market issue.

Figure 1

Summary

With many of the major DRAM and flash suppliers (e.g., Qimonda, Elpida, Spansion, Powerchip, Nanya, etc.) no longer part of the top 20 ranking, the total 1H08/1H07 sales of the top 20 semiconductor suppliers displayed a very strong 10% increase as compared to the total worldwide semiconductor market increase of 6%. Among the top 20 semiconductor suppliers, there was a 58-point swing (Figure 2) from the company that showed the fastest growth (TSMC at +35%) to the company that registered the steepest decline (Hynix at -23%).

Figure 2

As shown in Figure 2, more than half of the top 20 companies had double-digit 1H08/1H07 growth rates. Moreover, seven companies registered 1H08 growth rates that were more than three times the 6% growth rate of the entire 1H08 semiconductor market (TSMC, Qualcomm, Panasonic, Nvidia, Samsung, Broadcom, and Infineon)! It goes to show that there are still "star" performers in a "slow" market.

As was mentioned in IC Insights' March Update to The McClean Report, currency fluctuations are playing a big part in the 2008 semiconductor market figures as the strong yen and euro are converted into U.S. dollars. With the yen and euro each increasing in value 13% in 1H08 as compared to 1H07, many Japanese and European companies' results are getting a "boost" when converted to U.S. dollars. Moreover, this currency effect will also serve to inflate the 2008 worldwide semiconductor market figures when reported in U.S. dollars.

Electronic Musical Instruments

Besides well-know keyboard, organ, etc...,electronic musical instrument has so many variations..I can hardly believe the power of science and engineering will make music much more interesting!
I introduce 3 electronic musical instruments here:
1. Theremin


2. Air piano


3. Laser harp



Enjoy!

Blackjack

I just watch the film "21" which is inspired by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Blackjack Team with their skill in card counting. It was really amazing knowing that MIT students are so ingenious..Indeed, it is the most prestigious university in the entire world.
The synopsis is (from: Wikipedia):
Ben Campbell is a young, highly intelligent, student at M.I.T. in Boston who strives to succeed. Wanting a scholarship to transfer to the Harvard School of Medicine with the desire to become a doctor, Ben learns that he cannot afford the $300,000 for the four to five years of school since he comes from a working-class background. But one evening, Ben is introduced by his unorthodox math professor Mickey Rosa into a small but secretive club of five students, Jill, Choi, Kianna, and Jimmy whom are being trained by Professor at the skill of card counting at blackjack. Intrigued by the desire to make money, Ben joins his new friends on secret weekend trips to Las Vegas where, using their skills of code talk and hand signals, they make hundreds of thousands of dollars in winning blackjack at casino after casino. Ben only wants to make enough money for the tuition to Harvard and then back out. But as fellow card counter, Jill Taylor, predicts, Ben becomes corrupted by greed and his arrogance at winning which lets his emotions get in the way, and it also puts Professor Rosa, as well as the group, on the radar of a brutal casino security enforcer, Cole Williams, who holds a personal grudge of some kind against Rosa which threatens to undo everything the students have learned and earned.

It was really inspiring me to learn more about Blackjack, although I find it is impossible to count cards in the real casino. Can it be considered a crime?? I don't think so.. This is the power of human brain that even a sophisticated biometrics software can't detect..lol
And still an interesting topic of this film is the Monty Hall problem, which is quite tricky but challenging!

How Do I Gain Weight?

Link: About.com

 To gain weight an be healthy you need to consume more calories every day from healthy foods and choose the right types of exercise.

How Can I Be Underweight?

The high prevalence of obesity and overweight problems in our culture means there is much more emphasis on losing weight rather than gaining weight. It is easy to forget about people who have the problem of being too thin.

Being underweight can result from eating disorders, chronic diseases, and it is also a concern for athletes and naturally thin people who wish to be bigger, stronger, and more muscular. Elderly people may become underweight. The gradual loss of taste and smell, or the inability to prepare healthy meals, results in becoming too thin.

While being overweight or obese is a well-known risk factor for chronic diseases, being too thin may also increase a person's risk of dying from diseases such as heart failure and cancer. Elderly women who are underweight may become frail, which means they are more likely to suffer from osteoporosis and hip fractures. Being underweight may also increase a man's chance of erectile dysfunction.

What To Eat To Gain Weight

Increasing your intake of junk foods and greasy foods is not a good way to gain weight. Junk foods usually contain unhealthy trans fats or saturated fats. Even though you need to increase your calorie consumption to gain weight, those calories should come from foods that are good for you.

Healthy fats include omega-3 essential fatty acids sources like tuna, salmon, flax, and walnuts. Good sources of protein include lean meats, fish, poultry, nuts, seeds and legumes. Healthy carbohydrate sources include fruits, vegetables and whole grains.

It may be easier to eat five or six smaller balanced meals per day rather than eating three large meals, especially if you are not used to eating much at one sitting.

Protein powders and nutritional supplement drinks such as Ensure can be added as in-between meal snacks if you still need more calories. Some protein powders are flavored and only need added water and some others can be blended with your choice of juice or milk to improve the taste.

It would also be a healthy idea to add a small amount of flax seed oil and some psyllium powder to add some omega-3 essential fatty acids and extra fiber.

Dietary Supplements and Gaining Weight

A high-quality multivitamin and mineral supplement is a good idea to make sure you are getting all of the vitamins and minerals you need. Some people find that their muscle mass increases with protein supplements that contain certain blends of amino acids such as creatine andglutamine. Some people who are very ill may need liquid nutritional preparations that are available through their doctors.

Resistive Exercise To Gain Weight

Exercise is also important for healthy weight gain. Resistance training exercises such as lifting weights will help to increase your muscle size. Aerobic exercises such as running and stationary bicycling are better for fat loss and excessive aerobic training may cause you to lose more weight. Resistance training can be done at a health club, gym or at home with the proper equipment.

Remember that it can take a while to gain the weight you need, but be patient and continue to choose healthy foods until you reach your goal weight.

Tools to Help You Gain Weight

Use these tips and tools to help gain weight:

• Start with this Calorie and Nutrition Guide to find out how many calories you will need to reach the weight you desire.
• Use a food diary to track your calorie intake to be sure you are getting all of the calories and foods that you need.
• You can also use an online program such as Calorie Count Plus to track your calorie intake, your exercise and your changes in weight. Calorie Count Plus has a large data base of nutrition information for almost any food you like to eat.
• Add healthy calories to breakfast with an extra slice of whole-grain toast and peanut butter.
• Mid-morning and afternoon snacks should be nutritious, not junk. Trail mixes contain healthy nuts, dried fruits and can add healthy calories to your diet.
• Don't add calories to your meals by choosing unhealthy fried foods such as french fries, chicken nuggets and fish sticks. Choose healthy foods such as baked potatoes, baked chicken and fish, just make your portions a bit bigger.
• Keep your meals balanced. One meal should have a healthy protein source such as fish, low fat meat, chicken or legumes plus two or three servings of vegetables. Green vegetables add lots of vitamins and phytonutrients while starchy potatoes and corn add extra calories.
• Drink healthy beverages such as milk and fruit juices to add calories. Don't choose sugary sodas, which only add calories and no nutrition.
• Design a weight training program with help from About.com's exercise site and our weight training site.

Top 10 Reasons Why Web Startups Fail

Source: GetHelp

#10 Marginal Niche
Web Startups fail by choosing a small, obscure niche in the hope of avoiding competition. If you make anything good, you’re going to have competitors, so you may as well face that. You can only avoid competition by avoiding good ideas.

#9 Copying Success
Web Startups fail by trying to duplicate a great idea. If it’s been done once then chances are others have tried, and failed. There can only be one amazon.com or ebay.com. Come up with your own unique and fresh concept.

#8 Inflexibility
Your business plan should be an organic document that can adapt to change. Web Startups fail because they refuse to deviate from the plan. Listen to others, get advice and keep your eyes open; adaptation is the mark of a successful business.

#7 Getting the Wrong Help
Good people demand good wages. Hiring the cheapest person is a recipe for Web Startup failure. Old sayings become old because they are true, the best example being “you get what you pay for”.

#6 Listening to an Un-Expert
Web Startups fail by acting on advice given by an unqualified person. Anyone can claim to be an expert at something and often we lack the knowledge necessary to determine their qualifications. To protect yourself from the Un-Expert get a second, third or fourth opinion. It never fails to ask around.

#5 Forgetting the User
Web startups fail because the websites are designed from the perspective of the business owner, not the user. In an entrepreneur’s excitement and passion for their idea, they can often lose sight of their customer’s accessibility needs. Focus groups and user trials can be a great way to improve customer interaction with your website.

#4 Running out of Runway
Web Startups fail by forgetting or downplaying funding. Every startup that isn’t profitable has a certain amount of time left before the money runs out and they have to stop. This is sometimes referred to as runway, as in “How much runway do you have left?” It’s a good metaphor because it reminds you that when the money runs out you’re going to be airborne or dead.

#3 Spending Too Much
Often caused by listening to the Un-Expert, Web Startups fail because they over spend needlessly. Unless your doing volume of business equal to chapters.ca you do not need a dedicated co-located IBM Xeon server when a $20.00 hosting account will suffice.

#2 Believing the Hype
The web is all about Hype; from get rich quick schemes to seemingly endless unsolicited emails claiming to have insider information. The reality is that the people who get rich quick from the internet put a lot of thought and energy into their projects, just like anything else. The internet is a great medium for scammers

#1 A Half-Hearted Effort
The failed startups you hear most about are the spectacular flameouts. Those are actually the elite of failures. The most common type is not the one that makes spectacular mistakes, but the one that doesn’t do much of anything—the one we never even hear about, because it was some project a couple guys started on the side while working on their day jobs, but which never got anywhere and was gradually abandoned. In other words, starting startups is just like everything else. The biggest mistake you can make is not to try hard enough.

What's New in Windows Vista SP1

Source: Microsoft

Security

• Provides security software vendors a more secure way to communicate with Windows Security Center.
• Includes application programming interfaces (APIs) by which third-party security and malicious software detection applications can work with kernel patch protection on x64 versions of Windows Vista. These APIs help ISVs develop software that extends the functionality of the Windows kernel on x64 computers without disabling or weakening the protection offered by kernel patch protection.
• Improves the security of running RemoteApp programs and desktops by allowing Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) files to be signed. Customers can differentiate user experiences based on publisher identity.
• Adds an Elliptical Curve Cryptography (ECC) pseudo-random number generator (PRNG) to the list of available PRNGs in Windows Vista.
• Enhances BitLocker Drive Encryption (BDE) to offer an additional multifactor authentication method that combines a key protected by the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) with a Startup key stored on a USB storage device and a user-generated personal identification number (PIN).

Reliability

• Improved reliability and compatibility of Windows Vista when used with newer graphics cards in several specific scenarios and configurations.
• Improved reliability when working with external displays on a laptop.
• Improved Windows Vista reliability in networking configuration scenarios.
• Improved reliability of systems that were upgraded from Windows XP to Windows Vista.
• Increased compatibility with many printer drivers.
• Increased reliability and performance of Windows Vista when entering sleep and resuming from sleep.

Performance

• Improves the speed of copying and extracting files.
• Improves the time to become active from Hibernate and Resume modes.
• Improves the performance of domain-joined PCs when operating off the domain; in the current release version of Windows Vista, users would experience long delays when opening the File dialog box.
• Improves performance of Windows® Internet Explorer® 7 in Windows Vista, reducing CPU utilization and speeding JavaScript parsing.
• Improves battery life by reducing CPU utilization by not redrawing the screen as frequently, on certain computers.
• Improves the logon experience by removing the occasional 10-second delay between pressing CTRL-ALT-DEL and the password prompt displaying.
• Addresses an issue in the current version of Windows Vista that makes browsing network file shares consume significant bandwidth and not perform as fast as expected.

Administration Experience

• BitLocker Drive Encryption encrypts extra local volumes. For example, instead of encrypting only drive C, customers can also encrypt drive D, E, and so on.
• Addresses problems with printing to local printers from a Windows® Terminal Services session.
• The Network Diagnostics tool will help customers solve the most common file sharing problems, in addition to the basic problems that it already diagnoses.
• Administrators can control the volumes on which to run Disk Defragmenter.

NOTE: SP1 will remove the Group Policy Management Console.

Emerging Hardware and Standards

• In the future, flash memory storage and consumer devices will use the exFAT file system. Windows Vista SP1 adds support for this file system to Windows Vista.
• The service pack will include support for Secure Digital (SD) Advanced Direct Memory Access (DMA), which will be on compliant SD host controllers soon, to improve transfer performance and decrease CPU utilization.
• x64 PCs can boot using the EFI. Windows Vista currently supports network boot by using Windows Deployment Services for x86, a PC's basic input/output system (BIOS) for x64 PCs, and EFI for IA-64 PCs. Windows Vista SP1 will add support for network boot by using x64 EFI.
• The service pack will add support for Direct3D 10.1, adding application programming interfaces (APIs) and features that enable 3-D applications, so game developers can better take advantage of a new generation of Direct3D graphics hardware.
• The Secure Socket Tunneling Protocol (SSTP) is a remote access tunneling protocol that will be part of the Routing and Remote Access Service (RRAS) platform. This protocol helps provide full-network virtual private network (VPN) remote access connections without challenges that other protocols face when traversing NATs, Web proxies, and firewalls. Windows Vista SP1 will include support for SSTP.