Operating profits for the first quarter of 2011 are estimated at KRW2.7-3.1 trillion (US$2.5-2.8 billion), compared to KRW3.01 trillion in the prior quarter and KRW4.41 trillion a year ago.

Taiwan's UMC will take the "lead role" in making the OMAP 5 device on a foundry basis for TI, said Kevin Ritchie, senior VP and manager of TI's technology and manufacturing group. For the OMAP 5, TI may work with other foundries, but Samsung does not appear to be one of the candidates. With the OMAP 4, TI has been "dissatisfied" with its foundry arrangement with Samsung, Ritchie said.

The worldwide semiconductor equipment market grew 143% in 2010 to nearly US$41 billion as the market recovered from the industry slowdown of the previous two years, according to Gartner.

IM Flash Technologies (IMFT), Intel and Micron's joint venture, released 25 nanometer (nm) circuitry a little over a year ago. In the next few weeks, IMFT plans to annouce 20nm NAND flash chip production.

TowerJazz has signed a non-binding term sheet contemplating its purchase of Micron Technology's fabrication facility in Nishiwaki City, Hyogo, Japan. The proposed purchase would nearly double TowerJazz's current internal manufacturing capacity, increasing production by 60,000 wafers per month.

Rumors, misinformation and speculation are spreading like wildfire across the industry today following recent reports about Android anti-fragmentation efforts and what this means for processor architecture openness. Will Google's anti-fragmentation initiatives for Android code impact providers of microprocessor architectures such as MIPS, Intel and ARM? Does anti-fragmentation mean that Google is standardizing Android for any specific architecture?

Hynix Semiconductor has developed 2Gb DDR4 DRAM and DDR4 DRAM-based 2GB ECC-SODIMM applying its 30nm-class process technology. Hynix plans to start volume production of this high performance DDR4 product in the second half of 2012.

Its top shareholders have sought to sell their stake worth about US$2.6 billion, but failed to find interested investors for a company that requires heavy capital investment to weather the highly volatile memory chip cycle.

Production was suspended at the plant in Iwate Prefecture after suffering damage in the March 11 earthquake. The plant makes microcontrollers and large scale integration chips.

OCI, the world's second-largest polysilicon maker, said it may sell global depositary receipts to raise funds for expansion.

Renesas Electronics America will sell its semiconductor wafer fabrication facility in Roseville, California, to Telefunken Semiconductors. The sale price is approximately US$53 million, and the closing for the sale is planned for May 2, 2011. Telefunken also will enter into a supply agreement with Renesas for manufacturing services at the Roseville factory.

Hynix CEO OC Kwon said that Hynix had around 45 days of wafer inventory and was reassured by quake-hit Japanese raw materials firms that there wouldn't be any major disruptions in wafer supplies.

Firms across the world fear shortages of parts that used to be made in the Japanese factories now shuttered because of power and water shortages, or because of road and port closures, following the quake and the floods. And carmakers, whose products often contain some 20,000 individual parts, are expected to be among those worst hit.

Renesas is in talks to outsource production of auto microcontrollers to Globalfoundries Singapore, and some mobile phone semiconductor production to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), Shino Inokuma, a spokesman for Renesas, said by telephone.

David NK Wang, president and CEO of SMIC, has been elected to a two-year term on the board of directors of the Global Semiconductor Alliance (GSA).

LTX-Credence has terminated plans to buy Verigy after accepting a US$15 million payment to end the agreement. The termination fee was received March 25, LTX-Credence said in a statement.

SanDisk expects tablet sales will increase from 17 million units in 2010 to nearly 205 million units by 2014. The firm also estimates the flash based storage per device (SSD storage) will more than triple during the same period from 31 Gb/unit in 2010 to 96 Gb/unit in 2014.

Citigroup analyst Timothy Arcuri asserted in a research note that that FormFactor has received a "major order" from Elpida Memory for wafer probe cards.

Iwate Toshiba Electronics will start to ramp-up production lines from March 28. However, Toshiba Mobile Display (Saitama Pref.), a wholly-owned subsidiary and manufacturer of mid- and small-sized LCD displays, expects to take about a month to secure recovery of its manufacturing line. Toshiba has started to supply some products alternatively from the Ishikawa Works, the company's another production facility located in Ishikawa Pref..

Toyota Motors, the word's biggest carmaker, will slow production at some of its factories in North America due to a shortage of parts. Toyota has already halted production at all of its 12 assembly plants in Japan until 26 March.

Renesas Electronics has resumed operations at the factory sites in Aomori and Yamagata prefectures, northern Japan. The facilities were shut down following a massive earthquake and resulting tsunami on March 11.

Micron Technology is trying to secure its supply of crucial silicon wafers following Japan's devastating earthquake and said it was too soon to gauge the disaster's impact on its business.

Globalfoundries expects revenues to rise at least 14% to more than US$4 billion in 2011, and aims to overtake United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC) of Taiwan to be the world's second-largest contract chipmaker by revenues, CEO Douglas Grose said in an interview.

Verigy has said that an acquisition offer from Advantest is better than an earlier deal Verigy made to buy rival LTX-Credence. Advantest is offering US$15 per share for Verigy. Based on Verigy's 60.7 million outstanding shares as of March 1, the deal is worth US$910.8 million.

Renesas's semiconductor plant in Yonezawa, Yamagata Pref., re-opened on March 19.

Xilinx has begun shipments of its 7 series FPGA, built with 28nm technology.

JEDEC Solid State Technology Association has announced a broad spectrum of ongoing standards development work related to 3D-ICs.