"I expect that the number of DRAM makers will be reduced by three or four from the current 10 this year," said Hynix Semiconductor CEO Kim Jong-kap.

Qimonda's insolvency administrator Michael Jaffe was hoping for signs that there would be further talks in both countries, Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported on Thursday, citing company sources.

IBM will cut about 5,000 jobs in the US, adding to similarly large cuts in the past few months, sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Wednesday.

The global semiconductor industry is likely to have hit its bottom in the fourth quarter of last year, the chief executive of South Korea's Hynix Semiconductor said Thursday.

Environmental campaigners say they are astonished at the government's decision to suspend a scheme which gave grants to schools, hospitals and other public buildings to switch to renewable energy. Renewable energy experts say it has all been disastrous and could leave the UK at a competitive disadvantage in the future.

When Toshiba's fuel cell-powered phone was announced last October of 2008, the purported release date was March of this year. Unfortunately, the month is coming to a close, but we are yet to see any telltale signs of the phone's release whatsoever. But even if the phone in question is nowhere in sight, Toshiba is commencing the mass production of its fuel cell products.

Seeking to boost the US clean-energy industry, President Obama on Monday announced US$1.2 billion for science research at national labs and a proposal to extend a business tax credit for investments in research and development. Obama told researchers and green-technology business people that their work was vital to revitalizing the US economy and cutting the country's dependence on foreign oil.

The European Commission and Japan are going to deepen their collaboration in energy research. The primal areas for cooperation are photovoltaics, power storage and carbon capture and storage.

Lam Research is cutting 375 jobs or 10% of its workforce as part of a restructuring effort the company estimates will save it up to US$95 million a year.

A startup called Zeebo is betting that people in emerging markets want to play good video games just as much as people in the US, Western Europe and Japan do. Zeebo plans to launch its "video game console for the next billion" in Brazil next month for US$199 and other countries later in the year for US$179. It was developed using the cell phone technology of Qualcomm.

Germany's Siemens AG (SI) Tuesday said that Siemens Energy is to acquire a 28% stake in Italian solar company Archimede Solar Energy S.p.A. and thus expand its competencies for solar thermal power plants.

Spansion said Friday that it received an additional delist warning from Nasdaq.

German solar technology company Q-Cells SE, the world's largest producer of solar cells, announced a rise of 28% in its 2008 net profit, as the growing demand for renewable energy leveraged sales for its solar panels.

Installed solar power capacity in the US rose by 17% to 8,775 megawatts in 2008, the strongest growth in a single year, solar advocate Solar Energy Industries Association said in an annual review issued on Friday.

Infineon Technologies AG HAS announced that it has signed a letter of intent for framework purchase agreement amounting US$68 million with Huawei Technologies of China. Infineon will provide semiconductor solutions for Huawei in the area of central office solutions (CO), customer premise equipment (CPE) and mobile phone platforms.

The world economy is set to shrink by between 0.5% and 1.0% in 2009, the first global contraction in 60 years. In its gloomiest forecast yet, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) says that developed countries will suffer a "deep recession".

The German state of Saxony isn't ruling out taking up an indirect stake in bankrupt computer chipmaker Qimonda AG anymore, the state's governor said Thursday.

Three years ago, as head of Toshiba's (TSBAa.BE) power business, Norio Sasaki orchestrated the tech conglomerate's $5.4 billion acquisition of Westinghouse's nuclear-power-plant business. Now, as Sasaki prepares to take over the president's post, he will have to show the same willingness to take chances as he tries to help overhaul the company after its biggest-ever expected annual loss.

An end-of-March deadline for Qimonda AG to find investors has been extended, and liquidation of the memory-chip maker is still a possibility, according to court officials in Munich.

A wave of consolidation is sweeping the solar power industry.

International Business Machines is in talks to buy Sun Microsystems in a combination that would bolster IBM's heft on the Internet, in data storage and in government and telecommunications areas, according to people familiar with the matter.

Energy Conversion Devices' shares plummeted 30.3% in morning trading on Tuesday, after the solar-equipment maker warned investors that its third-quarter earnings would fall short of earlier projections amid a weakening economic environment.

"We want to make sure the government will not simply inject capital into any industry, but hope we could use our leverage to help build up the industry again," Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou said in a speech.

VLSI Research said ASML overtook TEL for the second spot in its annual ranking of equipment suppliers. Applied Materials remained on top, while KLA-Tencor and Lam Research were in the fourth and fifth spots. The Top 10 declined slightly faster than the total IC manufacturing equipment industry, which dwindled 25.1% to $41.8 billion.

Inspur International, a Hong Kong-listed computer and information technology company, has said it's not interested in acquiring a stake in Qimonda AG, the memory-chipmaker that filed for insolvency in January. The Financial Times Deutschland reported on March 16 that the Shandong-based company would acquire about 50% of Qimonda to help the company exit bankruptcy.