"You used to have myriad semiconductor companies building fabs. Now they are expecting a couple of foundries to do it all for them," said Malcolm Penn, founder and principal analyst with Future Horizons.

Yonhap news agency quoted sources at the local government as saying Samsung plans to build the lines by 2016, but the spokesperson said details have yet to be decided.

Under the agreement, IBM receives a five-year license to certain of Misaud patents. IBM's processor and ASIC products that contain embedded DRAM are licensed under the agreement.

The company terminated its employment of Manosha Karunatilaka on December 16, the day of his indictment. Karunatilaka was one of three technology company workers arrested in the US yesterday on charges of wire fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud as federal prosecutors expanded a probe of insider trading to companies.

Smart Modular Technologies has said prices of DRAM chips were decelerating at 20-25%, hurting profits, especially in its key Brazil markets that account for over half of its revenues.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory study reveals cost of solar PV installations in US down 30 per cent, but still around a third more than in countries which have pioneered solar panel deployment

Broadcom now expects fourth-quarter revenues to reach about US$1.9 billion, the top end of its previous forecast range. "Our increased revenue guidance reflects stronger-than-expected demand for products in our Mobile and Wireless markets versus our initial expectations entering the quarter," said company president and CEO Scott McGregor.

With the acquisition of Avalon Microelectronics, Altera is allowed to expand its portfolio of customizable IP solutions for OTN (Optical Transport Network) applications, supporting data rates at 1.2G, 2.5G and 10G, as well as 40G and 100G.

Trina Solar, the world's No.2 solar panel maker by market value, aims to take a 10% or more share of the global market as it beefs up production with capital spending of up to $US400 million next year.

Micron says some flash controller jobs are going to migrate down stack towards the NAND chips, freeing up controller manufacturers from chip-dependent work they shouldn't be doing. It sees low-level flash controllers developing and taking on error management, taking this job away from existing NAND controllers.

None of the companies involved in the bidding have publicly disclosed their participation. But those patents are likely what Apple is most interested in, since it's rumored that a "Verizon iPhone" will come with LTE support.

IDC forecasts that worldwide semiconductor revenues will grow 9% on year in 2011, and will achieve a CAGR of 6% for the 2010-2015 forecast period. "Near term, the semiconductor market should hit bottom by the second quarter of next year and begin a growth cycle that will take us into the second half of 2012..."

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) plans to build one more "mega-fab" at a cost of up to NT$300 billion (US$10 billion). Construction of the fab, codenamed Fab 16, will start in 2014 probably at the Central Taiwan Science Park (CTSP).

ASML now expects fourth-quarter bookings to be above two billion euro. "NAND flash memory investments for the high volume ramp of new technologies and foundry/logic commitments for new strategic fab projects are driving brisk lithography demand for 2011..."

Toshiba's shipments of NAND flash memory chips may fall as much as 20% in January and February because of a power outage at a plant, the company said.

The chips will be used in "premier" smartphone brands, Otellini said today at an investor conference in San Francisco. He declined to name any customers.

Intellectual Ventures has filed patent lawsuits against nine tech companies. The first lawsuit targets software security vendors Symantec, McAfee, Trend Micro and Check Point. The second lawsuit targets DRAM and flash memory vendors Hynix and Elpida. The third names FPGA vendors Altera, Lattice and Microsemi, which recently acquired Actel and its FPGA business.

A person familiar with the situation said earlier the company plans to raise up to US$300 million in the IPO.

The SLE 78 chip in the new German ID card has been certified by the Germany Federal Office for Information Security (BSI). Infineon developed the chips for the ID card in Neubiberg near Munich, Germany.

Texas Instruments has narrowed its fourth-quarter financial forecasts that match analysts' projection, citing higher demand for communications equipment.

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.

China aims to bring online at least 1 gigawatt of solar power capacity annually from 2013 under its "Golden Sun" pilot program, aided by increases in subsidies to boost the domestic solar industry, the Ministry of Finance said

The milestone has been reached by an XT:870 and an XT:400 , which are in operation at two different customer sites in Asia and which have raised the bar for 300mm lithography productivity.

Infineon Technologies was sued by the insolvency administrator of Qimonda who filed an action in a Munich court seeking a liability judgment for an unspecified amount.

Rambus is giving out another round of subpoenas to all of its friends in the tech industry. Most interesting among the defendants perhaps is Nvidia, who only months ago signed a licensing agreement with Rambus to end an ITC blockade of its products.

Germany's environmental minister said he can't guarantee feed-in tariffs will continue, but scrapping them would play poorly at the polls.

Sharp will spend 15 billion yen to add a new assembly line for mass-producing highly efficient solar cells at its Sakai plant this fiscal year. The line will be able to churn out the equivalent of 200,000kw a year, driving up Sharp's total annual solar cell output capacity more than 20% to 1.07 million kilowatts.

Following the acquisition of Numonyx earlier this year, Micron Technology has reorganized its memory operations. The company has also recruited Tom Eby, a former executive vice president and chief marketing and sales officer at NOR rival Spansion.

Sony, Nikon and SanDisk have developed a new specification for CompactFlash memory cards that promises photographers the ability to continuously shoot high-quality RAW images. The proposed new format supports data transmission at up to 500MBps, according to their joint statement.

IBM seems to be shifting away from semiconductor manufacturing, and planning to rely on Samsung and GlobalFoundries as foundry suppliers. Both foundries are set to have wafer fabs for foundry operations in the US, which could help cement relations.

Tesla has incorporated Infineon's power semiconductors in its battery-powered Roadster, and is also testing them for its Model S, which is scheduled to begin production in 2012, according to Infineon spokesperson Christian Hoenicke.

STATS ChipPAC announced it has shipped over 100 million semiconductor packages with copper wire bond interconnect, and expects copper wire bond production volume to grow another 75% by the end of 2010 due to a rapidly growing customer base.