What's Hot On TheStreet?

Here's what Benzinga's reading on our friend,

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The Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International team expects impressive growth this year in the worldwide semiconductor market. This global association pegs growth at 5% to 10% in 2011 on $316 billion in sales. SEMI says most of this growth is based on surging demand for tablets and smartphones as well as rebounding consumer confidence. Tablet sales are likely to swell to 200 million devices sold in 2011 from 20 million in 2010.

The mind reels. Coincidentally, it reels in perfect synchronicity with the revolving door in Washington D.C., where an FCC commissioner has accepted a job with Comcast

-- less than four months after voting to approve its merger with NBC Universal.

The 244,000 jobs created in April and the U.S. unemployment rate's rise to 9% in the same month is just another reminder of the near-constant state of flux in America's work force. Technology has no problem telling people who string wire for landline phones, develop photos, sell books to a mass market or produce news or any other sort of editorial content on paper that their days are numbered.

Microcap stocks have lagged recently. During the past five years, iShares Russell Microcap Index ETF

has lost 1% of its value annually, trailing the S&P 500 Index by 3.6 percentage points.