The TI OMAP 5 offers quad-core computing at up to 2GHz with power consumption barely breaking into double-digit wattage figures. In terms of raw figures, that level of performance is very near that of current Intel and AMD desktop chips.

TriQuint Semiconductor's (TQNT) fourth-quarter earnings more than doubled as revenue jumped by nearly one-third, but results still fell short of analysts' forecasts. "With the world transitioning to a mobile Internet, I expect a strong market and see another solid growth year for TriQuint in 2011," said company president and CEO Ralph Quinsey.

"There are certainly server applications today for which ... a lack of 64-bit is not a barrier..."

Fabless LCD developer Pixel Qi has announced it has struck a manufacturing partnership with Chunghwa Picture Tubes (CPT) of Taiwan.

On January 19, 2011, the 3.5 billionth CoolMOS high-voltage MOSFET came off the production line at Infineon's manufacturing facility in Villach, Austria.

Rising demand for vehicles in China has boosted profits at Infineon. Back orders are expected to last through summer.

The profit gain was largely due to "a significantly improved performance in electronic devices, driven mainly by the return to profit of the LCD business and demand expansion in NAND flash memories," Toshiba said in a statement.

"In 2010 there was a big bounce in the semiconductor market marking a recovery year which has seen the industry overall grow about 15%," said Tim Score, ARM's CFO. "ARM grew about 30%, and this year we expect the industry to grow about 5% to 8%, and that we will grow faster."

Speculation ARM could become a takeover target is misguided and ignores the importance of the chip designer staying independent, ARM's president said.

"A fall in DRAM prices, the appreciation of the yen, and inventory valuation losses resulted in a 26.9 billion yen operating loss," said CFO Yasuo Shirai. Elpida shares closed 0.24% higher in Tokyo trade ahead of the earnings announcement on February 2.

When a final agreement is reached, Powerchip will phase out the sales of own branded DRAMs and Elpida will purchase all PC DRAMs from Powerchip to sell them as its own branded products. Powerchip currently has 80,000 wafers per month capacity for commodity DRAM production.

Net income for the fourth quarter of 2010 was US$33.1 million as compared to net losses of US$20.6 million in the prior quarter and losses of US$23.3 million a year ago. Net profits for 2010 were US$150.9 million, compared to losses of US$92.2 million in 2009.

Flash memory specialist SanDisk topped Wall Street's estimates with its fourth-quarter results, boosted by strength in Asia and its mobile business.

The recession caused fab tool vendors to de-accelerate their investments and programs in 450mm. As a result, 450mm production has been delayed at least to 2017 or 2018, said Trevor Yancey, an analyst with IC Insights.

China plans to step up efforts to develop clean energy and other technology industries this year, government officials said Thursday, a strategy that has strained trade ties with Washington and other governments.

Amid a loss and some US$454.0 million in disputed claims against the company, Spansion has raised its capital spending for 2011.

STMicroelectronics, Europe's largest chipmaker, fell the most in five months in Milan trading after the company's ST-Ericsson wireless venture reported increased losses in the fourth quarter.

Texas Instruments has admitted that Nvidia beat it to market with the first dual-core processor for tablets. This is surprising statement from a company that has been in the business of building power-efficient chips based on the ARM design for close to two decades.

Yesterday First Solar closed at a new 52 week high after Goldman Sachs posted a Buy recommendation and news of a $1 billion manufacturing plant in Vietnam hit.

"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.

Toshiba is hammering out a deal to outsource fabrication of advanced system chips to Globalfoundries, the Nikkei business daily reported, citing company sources.

Officials with Micron Technology have said the company intends to break ground this year on a new 50,000-square-foot research facility at its main campus in Boise. At least half of the new building will be devoted to R&D of 300mm wafer microchips.

Western Digital again shipped more disk drives than Seagate in the fourth quarter of 2010, although Seagate's stronger enterprise presence allowed it to top WD in overall revenues.

PV system integrator MHH Solartechnik has signed a multiyear contract to sell Solar Frontier's next generation CIS modules to its German customers. Solartechnik will begin selling the modules in March, with the total volume of sales expected to exceed 100MW.

Samsung Electronics has announced that its new 4Gb-based 40nm-class DDR3 memory will be used in HP ProLiant G7 servers.

Germany's government and an industry group said Thursday they have agreed to trim solar power subsidies by up to 15 percent this year as demand thrives in the country, a leading producer and user of the renewable energy source.

Tilera, among the first in a growing number of processor makers looking to manufacture non-x86 chips for servers in cloud computing and other high-performance environments, is getting more support from a number of capital venture companies and tech vendors like Cisco Systems and Samsung.

The San Francisco-based bank said in a statement that such agreements "are a common first step in a business relationship involving a Chinese company," and that the partnership "could lead to the development and building of solar power projects."

The fab tool industry has undergone a sea of change...

As reported, Unity recently ousted its chief executive and the company is moving from a fab to an IP model, according to sources. Unity has reportedly been on the block. And a fab alliance with Fujitsu has reportedly fallen through.