“Science was a key and so was civil rights and so was peace and so was equality.”

— Harvey Ovshinsky, son of Stanford Ovshinsky, who invented so-called amorphous semiconductors and the hybrid vehicle battery, among other things. Ovshinsky’s work helped lead to solar-energy panels, flat-panel displays, rewritable CDs and more. In its obituary of Ovshinsky, who died Wednesday at the age of 89 at his home in Michigan, the New York Times calls him “among the 20th century’s most inventive breed of scientists” and says he began promoting hydrogen fuel cells more than 50 years ago.  The self-taught scientist — he had no formal education beyond high school — holds about 200 U.S. patents that are licensed by companies around the world, according to the Wall Street Journal and the Associated Press. But Harvey Ovshinsky said his father, who was the son of a Lithuanian immigrant, cared about more than science, according to the AP: “Civil rights or a ban on nuclear testing, he was passionate.”

This year’s global fall-off in shipments of graphics-oriented microchips is likely to be the worst ever tracked by Jon Peddie Research.

The Tiburon-based consulting firm estimates that graphic-chip shipments will drop 12 percent this year compared with 2008. That’s a nasty change, since shipments have seen double-digit increases every year since 2002, except for 2008 when they rose only about 6 percent.

Still, Peddie predicts a big turnaround next year, when graphic-chip shipments are expected to surge by nearly 22 percent.

“Taking together our data, interviews with suppliers and world economic forecast models, we believe the worst is over and Q3 will show recovery leading all the way through 2010, subject to seasonal adjustments,” it noted in a recent press release.

That should be good news for Advanced Micro Devices and Nvidia, two Silicon Valley companies that specialize in graphic chips.

More bad news for Spansion, the Sunnyvale flash memory chip maker that filed for bankruptcy protection on March 1.

The company disclosed in a federal regulatory filing today that it will be delisted from the Nasdaq stock market on Monday July 20.

The stock exchange had previously notified the company that it was considering the action, prompting a request by Spansion to have the matter reviewed by a hearing panel. But the panel decided Spansion didn’t warrant being listed and trading in the company’s stock was halted on May 7.

Intel just gained ground on its longtime-microprocessor rival, Advanced Micro Devices, in the world of high-performance computers.

The latest edition of the TOP500 list, a widely watched compilation of the 500 most powerful computer systems, found Intel’s chips were in 399, or nearly 80 percent, of the supercomputers.

That’s an increase from six months ago when the Santa Clara company’s chips were in 379 or about 76 percent of the top computers.

AMD’s chips were in 43 supercomputers (about 8.6 percent), which was down from 59 six months ago.

The blog world is abuzz with rumors that Intel is about to get spanked – and hard – by European authorities, who have been investigating claims the Santa Clara chipmaker engaged in anti-competitive practices.

Some are speculating that the European Union might even fine Intel more than $1 billion.

No one is commenting at Intel or at its chief competitor, Advanced Micro Devices, which long has accused Intel of monoplizing the market for high-powered computer chips. So we’ll have to wait until the Euros issue a public statement on the matter, a development that could occur as early as next week, according to some blogsters.

Money losing Advanced Micro Devices of Sunnyvale said today it is revamping its organization, by creating four operational teams.

A products team, led by Rick Bergman, will merge the company’s effort to make graphics chips and microprocessors “into a “single unified organization.”

An Advanced Technology Group, led by Chekib Akrout, will focus on future technology innovation.The other two teams will be a marketing group, led by Nigel Dessau, and a customer group, led by Emilio Ghilardi, aimed at expanding AMD’s customer relationships.

The company also announced that Randy Allen, senior vice president for the Computing Solutions Group, is leaving AMD.

Xilinx, the San Jose maker of programmable chips, said Wednesday it expects to cut 200 jobs, or about six percent of its total workforce. The move is expected to cost anywhere from $11 to $13 million in charges during its current quarter, mostly to cover severance pay, and estimates that it will save the company somewhere between $4 and $5 million per quarter.

The company is implementing other short-term cost-savings measures, including cuts to executive salaries of from 10 to 20 percent, beginning May 1. Xilinx Chief Executive Moshe Gavrielov will have his base salary of $700,000 a year reduced 20 percent to $560,000. Chief Financial Officer Jon Olson will have his pay cut 15 percent, from $460,000 to $390,000.

“Over the longer term,” the company said it expects “to implement further supply chain efficiencies resulting in additional restructuring charges totaling approximately $10 million over the September, December and March quarters of fiscal 2010. These efficiencies are expected to result in changes to the structure and location of certain global operations, which are expected to provide the Company with further cost savings over time.”

Santa Clara chip maker Intel has become a corporate sponsor of The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, broadcast on PBS.

Intel’s support, which began on April 1, will continue through December 2009. Other sponsors of the show include Chevron, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

Besides providing general programming support, Intel will pay for a series of mini-documentaries examining the role of innovation in the economy, but won’t have editorial involvement, according to PBS.

Intel also will work with the NewsHour and the Aspen Institute to create a series of salon dinners in Washington, DC, culminating in an October summit, which will focus on innovation.

Micrel is losing the head of its analog business unit next week. Vice President Scott Ward tendered his resignation Monday, a day before the company postponed by a year the expiration date for its poison-pill defense adopted last year in the face of an accumulation of its shares by Obrem Capital, which later launched an unsuccessful proxy battle to take over Micrel’s board.

Ward, 54, joined Micrel 10 years ago and has headed the analog unit since November 2007. There was no explanation offered for why Ward is quitting.

Electroglas, which cut its work force by 15 percent and reduced salaries for those remaining by the same amount, said the steps were “not enough to compensate for the precipitous drop in revenue” during its fiscal 2009 third quarter, for which it released results today.

“Clearly we are disappointed in these quarterly results,” said the company’s recently apointed Chief Executive Warren Kocmond in a statement, who noted that its “customers stopped buying in early 2009 as their near term business outlook weakened and fear spread throughout the world economy.”

The company, which supplies wafer probing equipment and software used by chip makers, said it is in the process of “adjusting to these business realities and have additional plans in place to dramatically lower our break even point which should return us to positive gross margins this quarter.”

The company, which did not hold a conference call to discuss its results, said it would have “further announcements” in the next several days on steps it would take to “make additional cuts and preserve (its) cash resources.”

Earlier this month the company reached an agreement with Comerica Bank limiting the amount of additional money the company could borrow to $25,000, from $3.1 million. Electroglas had committed as part of its credit agreement with Comerica to maintain deposits with the bank of $3.5 million, an amount that has now been reduced to $425,000. Electroglas has previously reported retaining Needham & Co. to help it explore “strategic options.”

The company reported last month that it had retained Needham & Co. to help it explore “strategic options.”