Toshiba eked out a small profit in the July-September quarter on cost-cutting and higher sales of memory chips. The electronics company reported a net profit of 100 million yen (US$1.1 million) for the fiscal second quarter, up from a net loss of 26.9 billion yen in the same period a year earlier.

Intel and Numonyx have announced a key breakthrough in the research of phase change memory (PCM). Researchers have demonstrated a 64Mb test chip that enables the ability to stack, or place, multiple layers of PCM arrays within a single die.

Samsung Electronics, the world's top maker of memory chips and LCD screens, reported on Friday its best ever quarterly net profit on a resurgent memory sector and forecast a strong 2010.

Samsung Electronics will seek to sharply expand sales in its semiconductor sector over the next three years through improved product quality and cost savings, according to the company. It hopes to register US$25.5 billion in revenue from its semiconductor division in 2012, up more than 50% from this year's goal of US$16 billion.

NOR flash supplier Spansion has put its 300mm fab up for sale, according to sources at the ISMI Symposium here.

Rambus has evolved its mobile memory technology further in its second generation silicon, which brings its high-bandwidth mobile memory controller to an achievable power efficiency of 2.2mW/Gbps.

"Demand for our XLR immersion lithography light sources and Installed Base Products rose sharply during the quarter, driven by increased investment from the foundry and memory sectors in support of transitions to the 5x nanometer node and below," said Cymer's CEO Bob Akins. Cymer's net income totaled US$10.79 million in the third quarter, compared to net income of US$5.33 million a year ago.

Taiwan's DRAM makers "don't have enough money to invest in new technology," said Keich Lee, manager of memory marketing for Samsung Electronics. "We think after the downturn, the strong will get stronger and the weak will get weaker."

Qimonda already laid off 600 staff in April this year. Another 800 employees were sent on forced leave. Now, 590 of these will be laid off, while the remaining 200 employees will continue their force leave, according to local Portuguese media reports.

A better global economy and the launch of Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system are expected to support demand for memory chips through the first half of 2010, the chief executive of Hynix Semicondcutor has commented.

Kingston Digital, the flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology, has announced it has partnered with Spyrus for hardware-based encryption, authentication, and digital content security products.

Samsung sees size and power benefits in phase-change memory (PCM), a memory type that is being pushed as a replacement for memory that goes into devices like mobile phones today.

Samsung Electronics has estimated it made a record quarterly operating profit of 4.1 trillion won (3.5 billion dollars) in July-September. Consolidated sales for the quarter are estimated at 36 trillion won, up from 30.27 trillion a year ago.

Micron's recent performance was "a really strong signal" that things have been improving in the chip market, which had suffered from an industry-wide glut that drove prices into the ground, according to an analyst.

Samsung and Hynix sources said strong demand for advanced DRAM or DDR3 chips, has resulted in a price upturn for both DRAM and NAND flash memory chips used in high-end handheld gadgets such as smart phones.

Micron Technology has reported a narrower loss after an industry glut eased and product prices rebounded. DRAM sales increased 28% from the previous three months, helped by an 8% gain in ASP and a 19% rise in shipments.

Uni-chem has signed a MOU to buy Hynix's memory chip plant and the accompanying land in Eugene, Oregon, for US$50 million. It plans to use the plant to make solar cells as part of the company's new business.

Micron Technology will begin to pursue manufacturing of LED devices with the help of a US$5 million federal economic stimulus grant announced Sept. 24.

The Numonyx eMMC architecture is comprised of an embedded storage solution with multi-media card interface, flash memory device and host controller – all in a small BGA package. With interface speeds of up to 52MB per second, Numonyx eMMC also allows for an interface voltage of either 1.8V or 3.3V.

Virage Logic and SMIC have jointly announced a RFID optimized version of Virage Logic's AEON multi-time programmable non-volatile memory (NVM) solution. The RFID-optimized NVM solution, ideal for use in passive tags, is being developed on SMIC's 180nm low leakage process.

Korea Exchange Bank sent out bid notices to around 40 conglomerates on September 7, and four to five were believed to be interested. But only textile conglomerate Hyosung submitted a letter of intent.

DRAM sales will probably climb 21% to US$22.4 billion in 2010, the first gain in four years, a Seoul-based analyst at Morgan Stanley wrote in a report.

In addition to a DRAM recovery, the NOR and NAND flash memory market has been extremely active. The volume of requests for Spansion and Numonyx flash memory has tripled over the last two months.

The SSD market has been one of several factors that have boosted demand for NAND flash memory and, as a result, boosted NAND flash prices, too. While this trend will likely continue to benefit Micron and SanDisk, it is equally likely to work against STEC in the longer term.

Samsung, which saw its operating profits jump five-fold to 2.5 trillion won in the second quarter, is expected to report 3.8 trillion won in the third, analysts said. The growth can be attributable to increases in chip and panel prices.

"Semiconductor shipments rose to meet current OEM demand, after an overcorrection earlier this year, driving an increase in our variable royalty payments and consequently higher expected revenue for the quarter," said Harold Hughes, president and chief executive officer at Rambus.

ASML has reported a business pick-up above previous guidance resulting mainly from the short- and mid-term needs in the DRAM memory and Logic segments.

The 50-page report from research firm Objective Analysis said that Braidwood's flash memory is less expensive to install because it resides directly on the motherboard and will offer all the same benefits of an SSD at a lower cost.

Creditors of South Korea's Hynix Semiconductor have started the sale process for their controlling stake in the second-largest memory chipmaker.

Elpida Memory said it has developed a copper through-silicon via technology (Cu-TSV) and applied it to an 8Gb DRAM with vertical connections among eight memory die and an interface chip.

Shares of memory chip developer Rambus rose 8% on September 4 on speculation that Samsung Electronics would buy the company, but Samsung said it had no such plans.

The antitrust trial between memory chip designer Rambus and several chip makers, including Micron Technology, has been postponed, according to reports.

The US International Trade Commission has said it plans to launch an investigation into flash-memory chips in popular products such as Apple's iPhone, Research In Motion's BlackBerry Storm, as well as camcorders and laptop computers.

Samsung Electronics will produce 1.5 million 40nm DDR3 DRAM memory chips in September, and 20 million such chips every month afterwards until December.

Texas Instruments (TI) could be interested in taking over Qimonda's US-based assets, writes news service swissinfo.ch.

The Flash Memory Summit brought a range of opinions on the state of the NAND industry, scaling, 3-bit-per-cell and solid-state drives (SSDs).

Memory chip makers will offer more sophisticated flash drives for smartphones - technology that will be comparable to the solid-state drives (SSD) found in laptops today.

Advanced Inquiry Systems, a developer of wafer-level sensing systems for memory testing, has closed an US$11 million Series B financing round with all its current investors participating.

"On the DRAM side, there are shortages of DDR3 SDRAM due to surprising demand in the server and other markets...The price and demand picture for NAND are also improving," said Brian Shirley, VP of Micron Technology's memory group.