Ob River
The Ob River Ob', is a major river in western Siberia, is the world's seventh-longest river. It forms at the confluence of the Biya and Katun Rivers which have their origins in the Altay Mountains, it is the westernmost of the three great Siberian rivers. The Gulf of Ob is the world's longest estuary; the internationally known name of the river is based on the Russian name Обь. From Proto-Indo-Iranian *Hā́p-, "river, water". Katz proposes Komi ob'river' as the immediate source of derivation for the Russian name. Katz's proposal of a common Finno-Ugric root, loaned early on from a pre-Indo-Iranian source related to Sanskrit ambhas-'water' is deemed improbable by Rédei, who prefers to analyze this as a loan from a descendant of the non-nasal root form *Hā́p-; the Ob is known to the Khanty people as the As, Yag and Yema. The Ob forms 25 km southwest of Biysk in Altai Krai at the confluence of the Katun rivers. Both these streams have their origin in the Altay Mountains, the Biya issuing from Lake Teletskoye, the Katun, 700 kilometres long, bursting out of a glacier on Mount Byelukha.
The Ob's entire main course is within Russia, though its tributaries extend into Kazakhstan and Mongolia. The river splits into more than one arm after joining the large Irtysh tributary at about 69° E. From the source of the Irtysh to the mouth of the Ob, the river flow is the longest in Russia at 4,248 kilometers. Other noteworthy tributaries are: from the east, the Tom, Ket and Vakh rivers; the Ob zigzags west and north until it reaches 55° N, where it curves round to the northwest, again north, wheeling eastwards into the Gulf of Ob, a 1,000-kilometre-long bay of the Kara Sea, separating the Yamal Peninsula from the Gydan Peninsula. The combined Ob-Irtysh system, the fourth-longest river system of Asia, is 5,410 kilometres long, the area of its basin 2,990,000 square kilometres; the river basin of the Ob consists of steppe, swamps and semi-desert topography. The floodplains of the Ob are characterized by many lakes; the Ob is ice-bound at southern Barnaul from early in November to near the end of April, at northern Salekhard, 150 km above its mouth, from the end of October to the beginning of June.
The Ob River crosses several climatic zones. The upper Ob valley, in the south, grows grapes and watermelons, whereas the lower reaches of the Ob are Arctic tundra; the most comfortable climate for the rest on the Ob are Biysk and Novosibirsk. The Ob provides irrigation, drinking water, hydroelectric energy, fishing. There are several hydroelectric power plants along the Ob river, the largest being Novosibirskaya GES rated at 460 MW; the navigable waters within the Ob basin reach a total length of 15,000 km. The importance of navigation in the Ob basin for transportation was great before the completion of the Trans-Siberian Railway, despite the general south-to-north direction of the flow of Ob and most of its tributaries, the width of the Ob basin provided for transportation in the east-west direction as well; until the early 20th century, a important western river-port was Tyumen, located on the Tura River, a tributary of the Tobol. Reached by an extension of the Ekaterinburg-Perm railway in 1885, thus obtaining a rail link to the Kama and Volga rivers in the heart of Russia, Tyumen became an important railhead for some years until the railway extended further east.
In the eastern reaches of the Ob basin, Tomsk on the Tom River functioned as an important terminus. Tyumen had its first steamboat in 1836, steamboats have navigated the middle reaches of the Ob since 1845; the first steamboat on the Ob, Nikita Myasnikov's Osnova, was launched in 1844. Steamboats started operating on the Yenisei on the Lena and Amur in the 1870s. In 1916 there were 49 steamers on the Ob. In an attempt to extend the Ob navigable system further, a system of canals, utilizing the Ket River, 900 km long in all, was built in the late 19th-century to connect the Ob with the Yenisei, but soon abandoned as being uncompetitive with the railway; the Trans-Siberian Railway, once completed, provided for more direct, year-round transportation in the east-west direction. But the Ob river-system still remained important for connecting the huge expanses of Tyumen Oblast and Tomsk Oblast with the major cities along the Trans-Siberian route, such as Novosibirsk or Omsk. In the second half of the 20th century, construction of rail links to Labytnangi and the oil and gas cities of Surgut, Nizhnevartovsk provided more railheads, but did not diminish the importance of the waterways for reaching places still not served by the rail.
A dam built near Novosibirsk in 1956 created the then-largest artificial lake in Siberia, called Novosibirsk Reservoir. From the 1960s through 1980s, Soviet engineers and administrators contempl
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. Nominally a union of multiple national Soviet republics, its government and economy were centralized; the country was a one-party state, governed by the Communist Party with Moscow as its capital in its largest republic, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. Other major urban centres were Leningrad, Minsk, Alma-Ata, Novosibirsk, it spanned over 10,000 kilometres east to west across 11 time zones, over 7,200 kilometres north to south. It had five climate zones: tundra, steppes and mountains; the Soviet Union had its roots in the 1917 October Revolution, when the Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, overthrew the Russian Provisional Government which had replaced Tsar Nicholas II during World War I. In 1922, the Soviet Union was formed by a treaty which legalized the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian and Byelorussian republics that had occurred from 1918. Following Lenin's death in 1924 and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920s.
Stalin committed the state's ideology to Marxism–Leninism and constructed a command economy which led to a period of rapid industrialization and collectivization. During his rule, political paranoia fermented and the Great Purge removed Stalin's opponents within and outside of the party via arbitrary arrests and persecutions of many people, resulting in at least 600,000 deaths. In 1933, a major famine struck the country. Before the start of World War II in 1939, the Soviets signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, agreeing to non-aggression with Nazi Germany, after which the USSR invaded Poland on 17 September 1939. In June 1941, Germany broke the pact and invaded the Soviet Union, opening the largest and bloodiest theatre of war in history. Soviet war casualties accounted for the highest proportion of the conflict in the effort of acquiring the upper hand over Axis forces at intense battles such as Stalingrad and Kursk; the territories overtaken by the Red Army became satellite states of the Soviet Union.
The post-war division of Europe into capitalist and communist halves would lead to increased tensions with the United States-led Western Bloc, known as the Cold War. Stalin died in 1953 and was succeeded by Nikita Khrushchev, who in 1956 denounced Stalin and began the de-Stalinization; the Cuban Missile Crisis occurred during Khrushchev's rule, among the many factors that led to his downfall in 1964. In the early 1970s, there was a brief détente of relations with the United States, but tensions resumed with the Soviet–Afghan War in 1979. In 1985, the last Soviet premier, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform and liberalize the economy through his policies of glasnost and perestroika, which caused political instability. In 1989, Soviet satellite states in Eastern Europe overthrew their respective communist governments; as part of an attempt to prevent the country's dissolution due to rising nationalist and separatist movements, a referendum was held in March 1991, boycotted by some republics, that resulted in a majority of participating citizens voting in favor of preserving the union as a renewed federation.
Gorbachev's power was diminished after Russian President Boris Yeltsin's high-profile role in facing down a coup d'état attempted by Communist Party hardliners. In late 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union met and formally dissolved the Soviet Union; the remaining 12 constituent republics emerged as independent post-Soviet states, with the Russian Federation—formerly the Russian SFSR—assuming the Soviet Union's rights and obligations and being recognized as the successor state. The Soviet Union was a powerhouse of many significant technological achievements and innovations of the 20th century, including the world's first human-made satellite, the first humans in space and the first probe to land on another planet, Venus; the country had the largest standing military in the world. The Soviet Union was recognized as one of the five nuclear weapons states and possessed the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, it was a founding permanent member of the United Nations Security Council as well as a member of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the World Federation of Trade Unions and the leading member of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance and the Warsaw Pact.
The word "Soviet" is derived from a Russian word сове́т meaning council, advice, harmony and all deriving from the proto-Slavic verbal stem of vět-iti, related to Slavic věst, English "wise", the root in "ad-vis-or", or the Dutch weten. The word sovietnik means "councillor". A number of organizations in Russian history were called "council". For example, in the Russian Empire the State Council, which functioned from 1810 to 1917, was referred to as a Council of Ministers after the revolt of 1905. During the Georgian Affair, Vladimir Lenin envisioned an expression of Great Russian ethnic chauvinism by Joseph Stalin and his supporters, calling for these nation-states to join Russia as semi-independent parts of a greater union, which he named as the Union of Soviet Republics of Europe and Asia. Stalin resisted the proposal, but accepted it, although with Lenin's agreement changed the name of the newly proposed sta
United States dollar
The United States dollar is the official currency of the United States and its territories per the United States Constitution since 1792. In practice, the dollar is divided into 100 smaller cent units, but is divided into 1000 mills for accounting; the circulating paper money consists of Federal Reserve Notes that are denominated in United States dollars. Since the suspension in 1971 of convertibility of paper U. S. currency into any precious metal, the U. S. dollar is, de facto, fiat money. As it is the most used in international transactions, the U. S. dollar is the world's primary reserve currency. Several countries use it as their official currency, in many others it is the de facto currency. Besides the United States, it is used as the sole currency in two British Overseas Territories in the Caribbean: the British Virgin Islands and Turks and Caicos Islands. A few countries use the Federal Reserve Notes for paper money, while still minting their own coins, or accept U. S. dollar coins. As of June 27, 2018, there are $1.67 trillion in circulation, of which $1.62 trillion is in Federal Reserve notes.
Article I, Section 8 of the U. S. Constitution provides that the Congress has the power "To coin money". Laws implementing this power are codified at 31 U. S. C. § 5112. Section 5112 prescribes the forms; these coins are both designated in Section 5112 as "legal tender" in payment of debts. The Sacagawea dollar is one example of the copper alloy dollar; the pure silver dollar is known as the American Silver Eagle. Section 5112 provides for the minting and issuance of other coins, which have values ranging from one cent to 100 dollars; these other coins are more described in Coins of the United States dollar. The Constitution provides that "a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time"; that provision of the Constitution is made specific by Section 331 of Title 31 of the United States Code. The sums of money reported in the "Statements" are being expressed in U. S. dollars. The U. S. dollar may therefore be described as the unit of account of the United States.
The word "dollar" is one of the words in the first paragraph of Section 9 of Article I of the Constitution. There, "dollars" is a reference to the Spanish milled dollar, a coin that had a monetary value of 8 Spanish units of currency, or reales. In 1792 the U. S. Congress passed a Coinage Act. Section 9 of that act authorized the production of various coins, including "DOLLARS OR UNITS—each to be of the value of a Spanish milled dollar as the same is now current, to contain three hundred and seventy-one grains and four sixteenth parts of a grain of pure, or four hundred and sixteen grains of standard silver". Section 20 of the act provided, "That the money of account of the United States shall be expressed in dollars, or units... and that all accounts in the public offices and all proceedings in the courts of the United States shall be kept and had in conformity to this regulation". In other words, this act designated the United States dollar as the unit of currency of the United States. Unlike the Spanish milled dollar, the U.
S. dollar is based upon a decimal system of values. In addition to the dollar the coinage act established monetary units of mill or one-thousandth of a dollar, cent or one-hundredth of a dollar, dime or one-tenth of a dollar, eagle or ten dollars, with prescribed weights and composition of gold, silver, or copper for each, it was proposed in the mid-1800s that one hundred dollars be known as a union, but no union coins were struck and only patterns for the $50 half union exist. However, only cents are in everyday use as divisions of the dollar. XX9 per gallon, e.g. $3.599, more written as $3.599⁄10. When issued in circulating form, denominations equal to or less than a dollar are emitted as U. S. coins while denominations equal to or greater than a dollar are emitted as Federal Reserve notes. Both one-dollar coins and notes are produced today, although the note form is more common. In the past, "paper money" was issued in denominations less than a dollar and gold coins were issued for circulation up to the value of $20.
The term eagle was used in the Coinage Act of 1792 for the denomination of ten dollars, subsequently was used in naming gold coins. Paper currency less than one dollar in denomination, known as "fractional currency", was sometimes pejoratively referred to as "shinplasters". In 1854, James Guthrie Secretary of the Treasury, proposed creating $100, $50 and $25 gold coins, which were referred to as a "Union", "Half Union", "Quarter Union", thus implying a denomination of 1 Union = $100. Today, USD notes are made from cotton fiber paper, unlike most common paper, made of wood fiber. U. S. coins are produced by the United States Mint. U. S. dollar banknotes are printed by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and, since 1914, have been issued by t
Schlumberger
Schlumberger Limited is the world's largest oilfield services company. Schlumberger employs 100,000 people representing more than 140 nationalities working in more than 85 countries. Schlumberger has four principal executive offices located in Paris, Houston and the Hague. Schlumberger is incorporated in Willemstad, Curaçao as Schlumberger N. V. and trades on the New York Stock Exchange, Euronext Paris, the London Stock Exchange, SIX Swiss Exchange. Schlumberger is a Fortune Global 500 company, ranked 287 in 2016, listed in Forbes Global 2000, ranked 176 in 2016. Schlumberger was founded in 1926 by Alsatian German brothers Conrad and Marcel Schlumberger from the Alsace region in France as the Electric Prospecting Company; the company recorded the first-ever electrical resistivity well log in Merkwiller-Pechelbronn, France in 1927. Today Schlumberger supplies the petroleum industry with services such as seismic acquisition and processing, formation evaluation, well testing and directional drilling, well cementing and stimulation, artificial lift, well completions, flow assurance and consulting, software and information management.
The company is involved in the groundwater extraction and carbon capture and storage industries. The Schlumberger brothers had experience conducting geophysical surveys in countries such as Romania, Serbia, South Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the United States; the new company sold electrical-measurement mapping services, recorded the first-ever electrical resistivity well log in Merkwiller-Pechelbronn, France in 1927. The company expanded, logging its first well in the U. S. in 1929, in Kern County, California. In 1935, the Schlumberger Well Surveying Corporation was founded in Houston evolving into Schlumberger Well Services, Schlumberger Wireline & Testing. Schlumberger invested in research, inaugurating the Schlumberger-Doll Research Center in Ridgefield, Connecticut in 1948, contributing to the development of a number of new logging tools. In 1956, Schlumberger Limited was incorporated as a holding company for all Schlumberger businesses, which by now included American testing and production company Johnston Testers.
Over the years, Schlumberger continued to expand its acquisitions. In 1960, Dowell Schlumberger, which specialized in pumping services for the oil industry, was formed. In 1962, Schlumberger Limited became listed on the New York Stock Exchange; that same year, Schlumberger purchased Daystrom, an electronic instruments manufacturer in South Boston, Virginia, making furniture by the time the division was sold to Sperry & Hutchinson in 1971. Schlumberger purchased 50% of Forex in 1964 and merged it with 50% of Languedocienne to create the Neptune Drilling Company; the first computerized reservoir analysis, SARABAND, was introduced in 1970. The remaining 50% of Forex was acquired the following year. In 1979, Fairchild Camera and Instrument became a subsidiary of Schlumberger Limited. In 1981, Schlumberger established the first international data links with e-mail. In 1983, Schlumberger opened their Cambridge Research Center in Cambridge, England and in 2012 it was renamed the Schlumberger Gould Research Center after the company's former CEO Andrew Gould.
The SEDCO drilling rig company and half of Dowell of North America were acquired in 1984, resulting in the creation of the Anadrill drilling segment, a combination of Dowell and The Analysts' drilling segments. Forex Neptune was merged with SEDCO to create the Sedco Forex Drilling Company the following year, when Schlumberger purchased Merlin and 50% of GECO. In 1987, Schlumberger completed their purchases of Neptune and Cori, Allmess; that same year, National Semiconductor acquired Fairchild Semiconductor from Schlumberger for $122 million. In 1991, Schlumberger acquired PRAKLA-SEISMOS, pioneered the use of geosteering to plan the drill path in horizontal wells. In 1992, Schlumberger acquired software company GeoQuest Systems. With the purchase came the conversion of SINet to TCP/IP and thus internet capable. In the 1990s Schlumberger bought out the petroleum division, AEG meter, ECLIPSE reservoir study team Intera Technologies Corp. A joint venture between Schlumberger and Cable & Wireless resulted with the creation of Omnes, which handled all of Schlumberger's internal IT business.
Oilphase and Camco International were purchased. In 1999, Schlumberger and Smith International created a joint venture, M-I L. L. C; the world's largest drilling fluids company. The company consists of 60% Smith International, 40% Schlumberger. Since the joint venture was prohibited by a 1994 antitrust consent decree barring Smith from selling or combining their fluids business with certain other companies, including Schlumberger, the U. S. District Court in Washington, D. C. found Smith International Inc. and Schlumberger Ltd. guilty of criminal contempt and fined each company $750,000 and placed each company on five years probation. Both companies agreed to pay a total of $13.1 million, representing a full disgorgement of all of the joint venture's profits during the time the companies were in contempt. In 2000, the Geco-Prakla division was merged with Western Geophysical to create the seismic contracting company WesternGeco, of which Schlumberger held a 70% stake, the remaining 30% belonging to competitor Baker Hughes.
Sedco Forex was spun off, merged with Transocean Drilling company in 2000. In 2001, Schlumberger acquired the IT consultancy company Sema plc for $5.2 billion. The company was an Athens 2004 Summer Olympi
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive geographical region spanning much of Eurasia and North Asia. Siberia has been a part of modern Russia since the 17th century; the territory of Siberia extends eastwards from the Ural Mountains to the watershed between the Pacific and Arctic drainage basins. The Yenisei River conditionally divides Siberia into two parts and Eastern. Siberia stretches southwards from the Arctic Ocean to the hills of north-central Kazakhstan and to the national borders of Mongolia and China. With an area of 13.1 million square kilometres, Siberia accounts for 77% of Russia's land area, but it is home to 36 million people—27% of the country's population. This is equivalent to an average population density of about 3 inhabitants per square kilometre, making Siberia one of the most sparsely populated regions on Earth. If it were a country by itself, it would still be the largest country in area, but in population it would be the world's 35th-largest and Asia's 14th-largest. Worldwide, Siberia is well known for its long, harsh winters, with a January average of −25 °C, as well as its extensive history of use by Russian and Soviet administrations as a place for prisons, labor camps, exile.
The origin of the name is unknown. Some sources say that "Siberia" originates from the Siberian Tatar word for "sleeping land". Another account sees the name as the ancient tribal ethnonym of the Sirtya, an ethnic group which spoke a Paleosiberian language; the Sirtya people were assimilated into the Siberian Tatars. The modern usage of the name was recorded in the Russian language after the Empire's conquest of the Siberian Khanate. A further variant claims; the Polish historian Chyliczkowski has proposed that the name derives from the proto-Slavic word for "north", but Anatole Baikaloff has dismissed this explanation. He said that the neighbouring Chinese and Mongolians, who have similar names for the region, would not have known Russian, he suggests that the name might be a combination of two words with Turkic origin, "su" and "bir". The region has paleontological significance, as it contains bodies of prehistoric animals from the Pleistocene Epoch, preserved in ice or in permafrost. Specimens of Goldfuss cave lion cubs and another woolly mammoth from Oymyakon, a woolly rhinoceros from the Kolyma River, bison and horses from Yukagir have been found.
The Siberian Traps were formed by one of the largest-known volcanic events of the last 500 million years of Earth's geological history. Their activity continued for a million years and some scientists consider it a possible cause of the "Great Dying" about 250 million years ago, – estimated to have killed 90% of species existing at the time. At least three species of human lived in Southern Siberia around 40,000 years ago: H. sapiens, H. neanderthalensis, the Denisovans. In 2010 DNA evidence identified the last as a separate species. Siberia was inhabited by different groups of nomads such as the Enets, the Nenets, the Huns, the Scythians and the Uyghurs; the Khan of Sibir in the vicinity of modern Tobolsk was known as a prominent figure who endorsed Kubrat as Khagan of Old Great Bulgaria in 630. The Mongols conquered a large part of this area early in the 13th century. With the breakup of the Golden Horde, the autonomous Khanate of Sibir was established in the late 15th century. Turkic-speaking Yakut migrated north from the Lake Baikal region under pressure from the Mongol tribes during the 13th to 15th century.
Siberia remained a sparsely populated area. Historian John F. Richards wrote: "... it is doubtful that the total early modern Siberian population exceeded 300,000 persons."The growing power of Russia in the West began to undermine the Siberian Khanate in the 16th century. First, groups of traders and Cossacks began to enter the area; the Russian Army was directed to establish forts farther and farther east to protect new settlers from European Russia. Towns such as Mangazeya, Tara and Tobolsk were developed, the last being declared the capital of Siberia. At this time, Sibir was the name of a fortress at Qashlik, near Tobolsk. Gerardus Mercator, in a map published in 1595, marks Sibier both as the name of a settlement and of the surrounding territory along a left tributary of the Ob. Other sources contend that the Xibe, an indigenous Tungusic people, offered fierce resistance to Russian expansion beyond the Urals; some suggest. By the mid-17th century, Russia had established areas of control; some 230,000 Russians had settled in Siberia by 1709.
Siberia was a destination for sending exiles. The first great modern change in Siberia was the Trans-Siberian Railway, constructed during 1891–1916, it linked Siberia more to the industrialising Russia of Nicholas II. Around seven million people moved to Siberia from European Russia between 1801 and 1914. From 1859 to 1917, more than half a million people migrated to the Russian Far East. Siberia has extensive natural resources. During the 20th century, large-scale exploitation of these was developed, industrial towns cropped up throughout the region. At 7:15 a.m. on 30 June 1908, millions of trees were felled near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in central Siberia in the Tunguska Event. Most scientists believe this resulted from the air burst of a comet. Though no crater has been found, the landscape in the area still bears the scars of this event. In the early decades of the Soviet Union (
Intel
Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, in the Silicon Valley. It is the world's second largest and second highest valued semiconductor chip manufacturer based on revenue after being overtaken by Samsung, is the inventor of the x86 series of microprocessors, the processors found in most personal computers. Intel ranked No. 46 in the 2018 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue. Intel supplies processors for computer system manufacturers such as Apple, Lenovo, HP, Dell. Intel manufactures motherboard chipsets, network interface controllers and integrated circuits, flash memory, graphics chips, embedded processors and other devices related to communications and computing. Intel Corporation was founded on July 18, 1968, by semiconductor pioneers Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore, associated with the executive leadership and vision of Andrew Grove; the company's name was conceived as portmanteau of the words integrated and electronics, with co-founder Noyce having been a key inventor of the integrated circuit.
The fact that "intel" is the term for intelligence information made the name appropriate. Intel was an early developer of SRAM and DRAM memory chips, which represented the majority of its business until 1981. Although Intel created the world's first commercial microprocessor chip in 1971, it was not until the success of the personal computer that this became its primary business. During the 1990s, Intel invested in new microprocessor designs fostering the rapid growth of the computer industry. During this period Intel became the dominant supplier of microprocessors for PCs and was known for aggressive and anti-competitive tactics in defense of its market position against Advanced Micro Devices, as well as a struggle with Microsoft for control over the direction of the PC industry; the Open Source Technology Center at Intel hosts PowerTOP and LatencyTOP, supports other open-source projects such as Wayland, Mesa3D, Intel Array Building Blocks, Threading Building Blocks, Xen. Client Computing Group – 55% of 2016 revenues – produces hardware components used in desktop and notebook computers.
Data Center Group – 29% of 2016 revenues – produces hardware components used in server and storage platforms. Internet of Things Group – 5% of 2016 revenues – offers platforms designed for retail, industrial and home use. Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group – 4% of 2016 revenues – manufactures NAND flash memory and 3D XPoint, branded as Optane, products used in solid-state drives. Intel Security Group – 4% of 2016 revenues – produces software security, antivirus software. Programmable Solutions Group – 3% of 2016 revenues – manufactures programmable semiconductors. In 2017, Dell accounted for about 16% of Intel's total revenues, Lenovo accounted for 13% of total revenues, HP Inc. accounted for 11% of total revenues. According to IDC, while Intel enjoyed the biggest market share in both the overall worldwide PC microprocessor market and the mobile PC microprocessor in the second quarter of 2011, the numbers decreased by 1.5% and 1.9% compared to the first quarter of 2011. In the 1980s, Intel was among the top ten sellers of semiconductors in the world.
In 1992, Intel became the biggest chip maker by revenue and has held the position since. Other top semiconductor companies include TSMC, Advanced Micro Devices, Texas Instruments, Toshiba and STMicroelectronics. Competitors in PC chipsets include Advanced Micro Devices, VIA Technologies, Silicon Integrated Systems, Nvidia. Intel's competitors in networking include NXP Semiconductors, Broadcom Limited, Marvell Technology Group and Applied Micro Circuits Corporation, competitors in flash memory include Spansion, Qimonda, Toshiba, STMicroelectronics, SK Hynix; the only major competitor in the x86 processor market is Advanced Micro Devices, with which Intel has had full cross-licensing agreements since 1976: each partner can use the other's patented technological innovations without charge after a certain time. However, the cross-licensing agreement is canceled in the event of takeover; some smaller competitors such as VIA Technologies produce low-power x86 processors for small factor computers and portable equipment.
However, the advent of such mobile computing devices, in particular, has in recent years led to a decline in PC sales. Since over 95% of the world's smartphones use processors designed by ARM Holdings, ARM has become a major competitor for Intel's processor market. ARM is planning to make inroads into the PC and server market. Intel has been involved in several disputes regarding violation of antitrust laws, which are noted below. Intel was founded in Mountain View, California, in 1968 by Gordon E. Moore, a chemist, Robert Noyce, a physicist and co-inventor of the integrated circuit. Arthur Rock helped. Moore and Noyce had left Fairchild Semiconductor to found Intel. Rock was not an employee; the total initial investment in Intel was $10,000 from Rock. Just 2 years Intel became a public company via an initial public offering, raising $6.8 million. Intel's third employee was Andy Grove, a chemical engineer, who ran the company through much of the 1980s and the high-growth 1990s. In dec
Skolkovo Innovation Center
The Skolkovo Innovation Center is a high technology business area, being built at Mozhaysky District in Moscow, Russia. Although Russia has been successful with development of science and technology, its lack of entrepreneur spirit led to government intervention of patents and nonproliferation of Russian tech companies beyond the scope of regional service; as corporations and individuals become "residents" of the city, with proposed projects and ideas receiving financial assistance. Skolkovo was first announced on 12 November 2009 by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev; the complex is co-chaired by former Intel CEO Craig Barrett. In March 2010, Vekselberg announced the necessity of developing a special legal order in Skolkovo and emphasized the need to offer a tax holiday lasting 5–7 years. In April 2010, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev charged the government with working out specific legal, administrative and customs regulations on Skolkovo. In May 2010, Dmitry Medvedev introduced two bills regulating working conditions in Skolkovo.
The bills were adopted by the State Duma in September of that year and, on 28 September 2010, the President of the Russian Federation signed the bills into federal law. In August 2010, Dmitry Medvedev introduced a bill easing migratory policies in regards to Skolkovo. On 20 August 2010, a new government decree regulating visas for participants of the Skolkovo project was published. According to this decree and skilled foreign nationals who arrive in Russia with the purpose of securing employment at Skolkovo will be granted a visa for a term of up to 30 days. In the event of successful job placement they can obtain a work visa for a term of 3 years. A new highway was opened connecting Skolkovo to the MKAD in June 2010. Railway transport will be available via Kiyevsky Rail Terminal. A link to Vnukovo International Airport is planned; the innovation center will be financed from the Russian federal budget. The center's 2010 budget was 3.9 Billion RUB. An additional 22 Billion RUB is planned for 2012 and 17.3 Billion RUB in 2013.
Skolkovo includes five "clusters" specializing in different areas. These include IT, Nuclear Technologies and Space Technologies; the IT cluster is tasked with creating an effective model for successful commercialization of IT technologies in Russia. Over 450 companies have signed up for the IT cluster. IT ecosystem includes over 50 fast growing cyber-security startup companies with more than 700 employees in total The Energy Efficient Technologies cluster aims to introduce breakthrough technologies focused on the reduction of energy consumption by industrial and municipal infrastructure facilities. Today over 80 companies are on board for the energy efficiency cluster; the Nuclear Technologies cluster aims to encourage the competitiveness of nuclear power markets and develop breakthrough technologies and products. The strategic goal of this cluster is to create an ecosystem for biomedical innovation. In order to achieve this goal, the best practices of leading biotechnology and biomedical research centers were studied.
More than 215 companies have signed on for the Biomedical Technologies cluster. The Space Technology and Telecommunications cluster is intended to strengthen Russia's position in the respective industries; the scope of activity is wide: from space tourism to satellite navigation systems. Russian companies aim to increase their market share in this global market, the total volume of, estimated at $300 billion. There are examples of cooperation between the clusters. For example, in 2012 clusters of Information Technologies and Biomedical Technologies organized joint contest on Mobile Diagnostic Device "Skolkovo M. D." and FRUCT was named the contest winner. The main elements of The City are a Technopark; the City will feature a Congress Center, office buildings, fitness centers and stores. The City will measure 400 hectares and have a permanent population of 21,000. Employees, including commuters from Moscow and surrounding regions, will comprise about 31,000 people. At least 50% of the energy consumed by the city will come from renewable sources.
The well-developed water system uses less water by Russian standards without compromising comfort or hygiene. The transport system prioritizes cycling; the use of vehicles with internal combustion engines is prohibited in the city. Energy passive and active buildings that do not require energy from the outside and produce more energy than they consume will be built at Skolkovo. Household and municipal waste will be disposed of in the most environmentally friendly way possible – leveraging the use of plasma incinerator technology. In July 2012, IBM and five leading Russian innovation companies: the Skolkovo Foundation, Rostelecom, Russian Venture Company and ITFY, all signed a collaboration agreement to foster a culture of applied research and commercialization and attract key talent and investment from around the world in the area of microelectronics; the agreement will give the Electronics Technology Center access to IBM’s intellectual property for chip design. IBM will provide cloud computing technologies to form the basis of a new virtual design environment to be used to develop new microelectronic devices such as sensors to be used in smarter infrastructure projects and consumer electronics.
The cloud will help unite Russia’s dispersed microelectronics development teams and provide access to advanced technologies and best practice and foster global collaboration. Russian chip designers and fabless design houses will be able to access new semiconductor technologies, including automation tools, design kits, libra
