What caught your eye this week? (Indian fab, AVR microcontrollers, Android Fairphone)

The Electronics Weekly team share some fingerposts – their picks of the week, in terms of announcements, developments, product releases, quotes or anything else in the wider world that caught their eye…

David Manners, components editor

What caught my eye this week was a jv (between Intel subsidiary Tower Semiconductor and Orbit Ventures of Abu Dhabi) to build a $3 billion fab for analogue ICs in the Indian state of Karnataka.

Steve Bush, technology editor

Microchip announced a family of 8bit AVR microcontrollers (AVR-DD) this week with a variable voltage IO interface that I had entirely missed when it first appeared in the earlier ‘DB’ family. This port removes the need for external level shifters, and includes serial interfaces – neat. It is explained in depth here.

Alun Williams, Web editor

An Android specialist I follow on twitter has been trialing the use of a Fairphone 4, the more environmentally friendly Android phone, where you can replace displays and batteries, and such like, without being in danger of voiding any warranty – reparability is built in. His basic overall summary so far? It’s good and the compromises are worth it!