"Lam Research had strong shipments and revenue performance in the September quarter, allowing the company to return to profitability and generate positive cash flow once again," company president and CEO Steve Newberry said in a statement.

ATMI, which provides specialty materials to semiconductor makers, saw revenues for third-quarter 2009 improve sequentially and beat Wall Street's expectations.

Allvia, a through-silicon via (TSV) foundry, has purchased a manufacturing facility in Hillsboro, Oregon, for high volume production of their products with TSV technology. Over the next several months Allvia will proceed with manufacturing equipment tool selection for TSV production, and expects the facility to be operational in 2010.

Rambus Technology has posted a net loss of US$27.5 million in the third quarter compared to losses of US$24.0 million in the second quarter and US$30.9 million a year ago.

Chartered Semiconductor has reported a net loss of US$4.7 million in the third quarter, compared to losses of US$39.4 million in the prior quarter and US$24.4 million in third-quarter 2008. In light of the proposed acquisition by ATIC, Chartered said it will not be providing guidance for its fourth quarter ending December 31, 2009.

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

TriQuint earned US$10.5 million, or US$0.07 per share in the third quarter compared with US$11.8 million, or US$0.08 cents a share in third-quarter 2008.

Sematech has claimed that it continues to make progress in 450mm fab technology, saying that it is in the "test wafer generation" stage in the arena.

SanDisk has admitted that far not all solid-state drives (SSDs) that are on the market right now are really reliable, which is why many of them are never used inside branded personal computers.

"Even if Taiwanese and Japanese players ramp up production, the possibility of oversupply is slim as worries over a double-dip in the global economy are easing," says chief executive of Hynix Semiconductor. Sources estimated Hynix' capex for 2010 will double to 2 trillion won.

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.

Seagate's first 2010 fiscal quarter (ended October 2, 2009) brought cheering news and a better outlook as its numbers continue to recover and it beings sampling its solid state drive (SSD) with OEMs.

IBM has struck its second major chip deal in China, leaving some to wonder if Big Blue is handing over technology to that nation without thinking about the possible consequences. Thanks to IBM, the Chinese foundry vendor will ramp the 45nm technology in 2010 - a possible bad sign for its rivals.

"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.

The major supplier of NAND flash silicon invested "millions" in Fusion-io, said Fusion-io President and CEO David Flynn, though he declined to give a more specific figure. The two will jointly evaluate technology for new applications of solid-state storage.

"We are encouraged by improved industry fundamentals and our increasingly diversified global markets, which bode well for further growth in Q4 and in 2010," said Eli Harari, SanDisk chairman and CEO.

Sun Microsystems plans to eliminate up to 3,000 jobs, or 10% of its worldwide workforce, as it awaits a takeover by Oracle, a deal being held up by antitrust regulators in Europe. Sun said the job cuts will happen over 2010 and affect all of Sun's major regions, including North America, Europe, Asia and emerging markets.

Price is still a huge barrier for solid state disks (SSD) in the enterprise, but for some datacenters the math already makes sense.

Samsung SDI, the world's second largest maker of lithium-ion rechargeable batteries, posted its biggest profit in five years, driven by record shipments and sales of the product and gains from its mobile-display unit. Third-quarter net income rose 48 percent to 87 billion won (US$75 million) from 58.8 billion won a year earlier.

Taiwan's government will invest in an innovative memory chip company to a maximum of NT$10 billion, and only if such an enterprise can secure core technology and help Taiwan to stay competitive in the field, Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-shiang said on October 15.

EDA company Mentor Graphics has entered into a multi-year software and services agreement with Globalfoundries which includes the provision of Calibre software for the design of 32nm and 28nm chips.

First Solar is the first pure-play renewable energy company to join the S&P 500 Index.

German conglomerate Siemens and US powerhouse General Electric (GE) have both underlined their commitment to the renewable energy sector after shelling out to acquire two high-profile Israeli solar energy firms.

SVTC and TSMC will work with developers to bring to market new applications in emerging technologies such as micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS), biochips and other devices incorporating new materials and novel structures.

"I am encouraged by the broad-based recovery in our business," said Moshe Gavrielov, Xilinx President and CEO. "September quarter operating margin was 20%, up from 15% in the prior quarter."

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."

Samsung's new SSD conforms to the new mini-SATA (mSATA) interface, and is about one-quarter the size of a 2.5-in SSD.

ASML generated net income of 20 million euro in the third quarter of 2009 compared to a net loss in the prior quarter. "ASML's third quarter sales doubled from the second quarter, stemming from technology transition demand for our immersion lithography systems as new DRAM devices are introduced and as Foundry customers are ramping 40nm products..."