Freescale Semiconductor has introduced its Xtrinsic sensing solutions, which are designed with the combination of high-performance sensing capability, processing capacity and customizable software to help deliver differentiated sensing applications.

Enabling "hot" electrons to carry that wasted energy could be a step towards solar cells with double the efficiency of current technology. Solar cells could see a boost in their theoretical maximum efficiency from 31% to 66%, thanks to a novel way of harnessing electrons whose energy is normally lost as heat.

IBM, Samsung and Globalfoundries are working with STMicroelectronics to develop and standardize advanced, 28nm process technology to ensure consistent production worldwide for electronics and device manufacturers.

"We are targeting segments within the semiconductor market that are growing faster," said Infineon CEO Peter Bauer. "The wireless market is bigger than before the crisis, driven by smartphones and emerging market phones."

Germany's LFoundry, an analog and mixed-signal foundry, has completed its previously-announced acquisition of Atmel's wafer fabrication operation in Rousset, France.

Toshiba plans to expand manufacturing capacity at its plant in Houston, Texas for production of high-performance drive motors for hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) and electric vehicles (EVs).

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.

China has started a massive open tender of utility-scale solar power projects after a smaller tender last year, in an effort, analysts said, to help Beijing set on-grid power prices for such projects.

SunPower announced Wednesday that it produced a full-scale solar cell with a sunlight-to-electricity conversion efficiency rate of 24.2%, a new world record.

Broadcom expects to close the acquisition of Innovision Research & Technology, which specializes in near-field communication (NFC) technology, in the third quarter of 2010.

GTronix' proprietary technology provides very low power solutions for noise cancellation in mobile applications such as wireless handsets and audio accessories, National Semi said in a statement. The analog chipmaker has acquired GTronix for an undisclosed sum.

ASIF chairman Javier Anta said the government proposed limiting the hours of output for which a solar plant could receive subsidies, instead of cutting the subsidies for plants themselves.

The race is now on between Italy, Czech Republic, United States, and potentially even Japan, to become just the third country member of the elite club to install 1GW of PV in a single year.

Chinese wafer supplier Huantai Silicon has suspended its partnership with the country's solar cells and panels giant Suntech Power on their joint venture Glory Silicon, and will jointly build a new venture with U.S. veteran wafer producer MEMC Electronic Materials.

Scientists in the US claim to have extended the operating life of plastic solar cells from mere hours to eight months.

STMicroelectronics said it plans to hire more workers to expand one of its two plants in China, defying higher operating costs as the government orders companies to increase employee pay.

The solution features Altera's low-cost Cyclone III or Cyclone IV FPGAs, and IP from Eyelytics and Apical supporting AltaSens' 1080p60 A3372E3-4T and Aptina's 720p60 MT9M033 HD wide dynamic range (WDR) CMOS image sensors.

Spansion stayed in Chapter 11 four plus months longer and lost more market share than planned. On the positive side, business is up for Spansion and its rivals.

MagnaChip Semiconductor, which filed for bankruptcy protection in June 2009, has priced an initial public offering (IPO) of stock to raise about US$130 million. This is about half the amount it had originally said it planned to raise.

There's plenty of sun to go around. Our local star is continuously transmitting 180 quadrillion watts of energy to the Earth, 14,000 times our requirements for generating power. So the question isn't where to get our energy, but how to capture it.

An investment unit of electric utility PG&E Corp. will invest $100 million in rooftop solar systems for 3,500 new homes nationwide, the company said Monday.

Spansion has received authorization to list its common stock on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). The company anticipates that trading will begin on or about June 23, 2010.

The company said it will incur restructuring charges of about US$5 million in its fiscal second quarter, and the staff reduction was one of several cost-cutting actions.

STMicroelectronics is to provide the University with digital multimedia and advanced analog chips, expert support and advanced design tools, and jointly cooperate on applications engineering projects assigned by ST to the University. ST will also donate one million yuan (US$147,100) to the Graduate School each year for five years.

Following its recent move to TSMC's high-performance, low-power (HPL) process technology at 28nm, Xilinx is aggressively broadening the reach of programmable logic into the traditional ASSP and ASIC markets with three new FPGA families on its roadmap, the low-cost low-power Artix-7, the Kintex-7, and the high-end Virtex-7 due to be sampling in the first quarter of2011.

Infineon is well equipped financially for future acquisitions, but has no concrete plans for takeovers at the moment, a German newspaper quoted its chief financial officer as saying.

Qualcomm has entered into a collaborative agreement with the global consortium of chipmakers. As the first fabless chip company to join Sematech, Qualcomm plans to participate in a high-level engagement to assess the feasibility of technologies that are designed to extend Moore's Law.

Just once, it would be nice if a president would level with Americans on energy. Barack Obama isn't that president.

ARM is more valuable as a standalone company and a buyer would be wasting money, said company CEO Warren East. The chip designer rose last week to an eight-year high on takeover talk.

When compared to carbon-intensive electricity sources such as coal, which supplies 45 percent of U.S. electricity, a significant role for PV technology in the energy mix may have a difficult road ahead.

SunEdison, a division of MEMC Electronic Materials,has purchased two ground-mount solar PV development projects in Ontario from TransAlta, Canada's largest publicly traded generator and marketer of electricity and renewable power.

Infineon has hired JPMorgan to sound out a possible sale of its wireless business. People close to the situation said at least one possible buyer had approached the German chipmaker.

A Wolfson audio chip is included in Samsung's soon to be released smartphones, Wave and Galaxy S. Edinburgh-based Wolfson Microelectronics makes microchips for mobile phones, TVs and gaming consoles.