"There's still a general freeze on hiring, but we're seeing a shortage in our research and development department, and will need hundreds of employees there," said PH Chang, VP for human resources at TSMC.

Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing has announced the results of its 27-for-10 rights offering, the subscription period of which ended on April 6, 2009. The rights offering was oversubscribed with applications totaling approximately 144% of the offering size. The rights offering will strengthen its capital position.

Japan's subsidies for home solar panels have attracted far fewer applicants than planned, industry data showed on Wednesday, underscoring the likelihood of bold government steps to promote solar power.

Micron Technology has announced that it intends to offer, subject to market and other considerations, common stock and convertible senior notes for total aggregate gross proceeds of approximately US$450 million. The company said these offerings will be used for general corporate purposes, including working capital, capital expenditures, and potential acquisitions and strategic transactions.

Qualcomm is looking at South Korean wireless and healthcare technology firms for possible investment, Chairman and CEO Paul Jacobs told Reuters on Wednesday.

Although solar module makers are trying to get rid of excess inventory, the price of conventional home solar systems remains somewhat unfazed because of other factors, like declining subsidies.

KLA-Tencor has introduced the TeraScanXR, bringing high-resolution reticle-, aerial-, and wafer-plane inspection capability to the 32-nm node.

Japan slipped from the number two position in the world as of the end of 2008 in grid-connected existing solar photovoltaic capacity, replaced by Spain, according to a recent study by an international body.

Applied Materials said on Monday the value of a sales agreement to supply solar production equipment to a private buyer has been slashed to US$250 million from US$1.9 billion due a worsening global economy.

As per Taiwan labor law, we issued documents on April 3 to over 200 former employees certifying that their employment was terminated due to deteriorating business conditions.

Elpida's loss widened to an estimated 160 billion yen (US$1.59 billion) from 23.5 billion yen in the previous financial year, the Nikkei said, without citing anyone.

...In the long run, they say, there will be only three viable entities, at least at the leading edge of chipmaking: Samsung in memory chips, Intel in microprocessors and TSMC in foundries. The rest will be "nationalistic" ventures in need of regular government bail-outs.

Powerchip Semiconductor Corp., Taiwan's biggest memory-chip maker, is seeking to revise terms on US$157.9 million of debt a week after smaller rival ProMOS Technologies won acceptance to buy back debt at a discount.

"We're interested in finding somthing that really makes sense for us," said Micron Technology CEO Steve Appleton, who sees no compelling reason to join in the Taiwanese government's plan to aid its struggling memory chip industry.

Taiwan Memory Co., keen on securing technology from foreign chip makers, is looking to forge an alliance with Micron Technology on top of a partnership announced Wednesday with Elpida Memory, but a three-way tie-up may be complicated and won't provide meaningful benefits, say analysts.

Elpida Memory said Thursday it is considering offering an approximately 10% stake in the company to Taiwan Memory Co., the memory-chip firm being created by the Taiwanese government. The Japanese DRAM chipmaker hasn't decided on the amount of the stake in monetary terms, the timing or how it would be offered.

It's no secret that IBM is outsourcing US jobs. Last year, IBM's US employment fell 5%, while emerging market employment rose 15%, particularly in high growth markets like India, China, Brazil and Russia.

Some are suggesting it's time to buy beaten-down solar stocks, while others are arguing there's value because bad news is priced in and good news is starting to emerge. Wall Street analysts, often criticized for being blindly bullish on stocks, are this time among the sector's staunchest bears.

The Chinese government alerted all silicon, ingot, wafer, cell, and panel manufactures that it intends to announced a very aggressive Solar subsidy that is equivalent to US$3 per installed watt, in cash, as an incentive to aid the Chinese population to install solar. The Japanese may soon follow suit with an announcement of a substantial subsidy for solar installation.

KLA-Tencor will reduce its global workforce by a further-10% as part of an effort to reduce its quarterly operating expenses to US$140 million to US$145 million by the end of calendar year 2009, down from the previously announced target of US$165-170 million per quarter.

Western Digital has announced that it has completed a US$65 million cash acquisition of SiliconSystems, Aliso Viejo, California, a supplier of solid-state drives for the embedded systems market.

Specialty glass and plastic manufacturer Romag has developed the PowerPark, a carport with a photovoltaic roof that harnesses solar energy as a power source for plug-in cars.

"We need to find a European solution, and to back it up with the EU is a challenge — it takes time and if we wait too long, some of these companies might not exist anymore," said Heinz Kundert, president of SEMI Europe. Kundert said that the full-scale rescue of Qimonda would be quite difficult. "These projects are too big to be solved by one company or a single nation."

China is working on a plan to establish a union in silicon materials industry so as to cope with the ongoing financial crisis, said Zhu Lihui, secretary general of the semi-conductor materials branch under China Electronics Materials Industry Association.

So, is Nvidia absolutely wanting to take a look at GlobalFoundries then? Carvill wouldn't say, but noted, "As long as it didn't compromise our relationship with AMD and customer service to them, we would happily have those discussions with Nvidia and anybody else."

Japan's Toshiba and Sharp has said they are considering working together in the solar power business amid growing demand for cleaner energy, sending their shares higher.

Fairchild Semiconductor International recently announced it will close a wafer fabrication plant and eliminate some manufacturing at a second site to save up to US$25 million annually, as part of the power-chip maker's ongoing cost-reduction in response to slumping demand.

Agilent Technologies has announced a 2700 employee layoff and a major restructuring of its electronic measurement business in response to what the company described as the "most severe global downturn" in its history.

The global solar PV (photovoltaic) market grew to at least 5.5 GW of electrical power converted using PV methods in 2008 compared to 2.4 GW in 2007, the EPIA (European Photovoltaic Industry Association) said in a recent report.

Shares of MEMC Electronic Materials, which makes silicon wafers for the semiconductor and solar industries, rose as much as 14% on speculation that the company received a takeover offer from German chemicals group BASF.