The company will ship the dual-core QSD8672 chip with CPU cores running at up to 1.5GHz, said Mark Frankel, vice president of product management for Qualcomm CDMA Technologies. The chip could go into smartphones, tablets and low-cost laptops, he said.

The OMAP4430 chip will deliver double the performance of existing single-core chips from the OMAP3 family. This will allow applications to run faster on mobile devices, said Robert Tolbert, director of product management for the OMAP smartphone business at TI.

Greenliant, a new company headed by SST's former management, will use the acquired product lines to form the core of its solid-state storage product portfolio for the embedded system, data center, and mobile Internet markets.

Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC) has been talking to Texas Instruments (TI) about taking over operation of the government-owned factory, according to company sources. It was not immediately clear whether TI was interested in only taking over management of the facility, or in buying it as well.

Apple intends to stay "nimble" on pricing of the iPad, possibly lowering prices if the newly unveiled tablet device fails to gain traction among consumers.

Semiconductor makers must take the lead in evolving the tools and business processes that allow the electronics industry to benefit from the efficiency improvements and risk reduction associated with truly collaborative supply chain management.

Two-thirds of US chief executives plan additional layoffs and expect sales to decline in the next six months as their confidence in the economy continues to fall, according to a survey released on Tuesday.

Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz has commissioned searches for several high-level executives amid a management shuffle at the Internet company, a person familiar with the matter said.

History has shown that crisis breeds opportunity. Business leaders may have to cut costs to survive 2009, but the smart ones are also out there looking for prospects. If you have to cut costs, start at the top. If you can't give staff more money, look for ways to give them more power. In addition, innovating now can leave you nicely situated for a turnaround. For those who are willing to take some risks, 2009 can be a time of great possibilities.