The UN's Food Price Index rose 2.2% in February to the highest level since the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) began monitoring prices in 1990. It also warned that spikes in the oil price could make the "already precarious" situation in the food market even worse.

Oil prices climbed to their highest level in 30 months in London today as Libya's uprising reduced shipments and sparked fears of unrest spreading across the Middle East.

"We are excited to complete the transition to the next generation 2Xnm NAND components which reiterates our strategy of producing high performance SSDs at the most attractive price point available for consumer applications," said Ryan Petersen, CEO of OCZ Technology.

The memory-chip industry will keep a lid on capital expenditures this year, helping avoid a repeat of the production glut that plagued the industry until 2010, Micron Technology CEO Steve Appleton said.

"DRAM prices were previously expected to rebound from the second quarter of the year, but that may be brought forward to the first quarter," Kwon Oh-hyun said at an industry event.

"It'll come out in the spring of 2011 and the price, we haven't decided yet," said Chris Casper, a group manager at Toshiba's digital products division.

The price of copper has hit a new all-time high, rounding off a year in which industrial metals rebounded strongly. It peaked at US$9,631.75 per metric tonne on the London Metal Exchange, before falling back slightly.

Auriga analyst Daniel Berenbaum has reiterated a Buy rating on Micron Technology and an US$11 price target, writing that the company's in much better shape to weather plunging DRAM prices.

"Chip prices remained strong until the first half of this year, but they dropped sharply, especially during the fourth quarter," CEO OC Kwon said in a recent interview. "Due to the sharper-than-expected fall, a considerable decline in both our sales and profit is inevitable in the fourth quarter."

Advantest offered US$12.15 a share, a 33% premium over the closing price on December 3, for the company's 60 million outstanding shares, according to a statement from Verigy. Verigy rejected the unsolicited offer and was open to continued talks, the Singapore-based company said.

October inflation hit a higher-than-expected 4.4%, up from September's 3.6%, the Bureau of Statistics said. It added that the government needed to do more to control price rises.

The sale of new tablet PCs and smartphones with solid-state storage technology is compensating for weak demand for memory cards and USB flash drives, and has led to a 17% quarter-to-quarter increase in NAND flash shipments and an average price drop of about 9%.

Hitachi last year sat out a bruising price war in the flat-panel television industry. This year it's back with a vengeance with a new line of energy-sipping LED, or light-emitting diode, LCD televisions.

"Memory chip prices are expected to continue their downtrend even through the first half of next year, but they will likely bounce back from the middle of the second quarter," said Kwon Oh-hyun, president of Samsung's semiconductor division. Hynix CEO Kwon Oh-chul echoed his view, but said a price rebound may not start until the second half of 2011.

Oracle has sued Micron Technology, alleging it overcharged Sun Microsystems, which Oracle acquired, by conspiring to fix prices for computer memory chips.

The Ideos is championed as "an affordable smartphone powered by the latest iteration of Android 2.2." And one of the headline facts is its price: "Between US$100 and US$200, depending on the market."

Samsung Electronics has commented that DRAM prices are expected to fall in the third quarter of 2010, and drop further in the fourth.

Prices of DRAM fell for the first time in over a year in June, as companies increased production and PC vendors toughened their stance on further price increases. Analysts now say prices will slide for the rest of the year.

Verizon spokeswoman Brenda Raney said the new pricing is part of a broader set of price reductions. The company is "comfortable" with the way the Kin is being accepted, she said. Katy Asher, a spokeswoman for Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft, declined to comment.

Thirty-three states, including California, have reached a US$173 million settlement with six DRAM makers alleged to have fixed prices for their products between 1998 and 2002. The companies named in the lawsuit are Micron Technology and NEC Electronics America as well as Infineon Technologies, Hynix Semiconductor, Elpida Memory and Mosel Vitelic.

German solar energy company Q-Cells SE (QCE.XE) raised prices for its key products in the second quarter due to higher material costs and can't rule out further price hikes, said Chief Executive Officer Nedim Cen.

The Commission has adopted a decision settling a cartel investigation and imposing a fine totalling about 331 million euros (US$409 million) on Samsung, Hynix, Infineon, NEC, Hitachi, Mitsubishi, Toshiba, Elpida and Nanya.

European Union regulators are expected to fine nine makers of memory chips, including Samsung, Infineon and Hynix, this week on charges of illegally fixing prices. Others set to be fined are Elpida, NEC Electronics, Hitachi, Toshiba, Mitsubishi and Nanya.

MEMC Electronic Materials will raise its prices for silicon wafers in both the second and third quarters by the "low- to mid-single digits." SEH, Sumco, Wacker and others are also believed to be raising their silicon wafer prices.

For some time, there has been shortages of DRAMs, causing prices to increase for both DDR2 and DDR3. Now, PC OEMs have reached the boiling point amid the price hikes.

DDR3 spot pricing has been stable for several weeks; however, with several contract price increases the gap between spot and direct is narrowing.

A company that bought the former Qimonda plant for a bargain price has announced plans to retrofit the 1.36 million-square-foot facility to host data centers.