Leading shareholders of Hynix Semiconductor denied on Friday market talk the firm's capital could be reduced, boosting its shares, although persisting concerns over the sector outlook limited gains.

Fairchild Semiconductor said Friday it is cutting 12% of its workforce, or 1,100 people, in an attempt to reduce expenses.

Chip maker Cypress Semiconductor said late Friday that the US Department of Justice has closed its investigation into in a global price-fixing scheme involving a form of computer memory.

Infineon Technologies has indicated it could contribute 50 million euros ($66 million) to help rescue its loss-making chipmaker Qimonda, German magazine Focus said, citing sources close to negotiations.

Samsung Electronics is upgrading its memory technology and manufacturing processes, which could lead to price drops for the solid-state drives that are becoming more widely used in laptops. Samsung will introduce three-bit chips with a capacity of 64Gbit in the first half of 2009, manufactured using a 30nm process technology.

Texas Instruments expects its profit margin levels for analog chips to hold steady even as sales volumes decline, CEO Rich Templeton said on Thursday. "The key difference is that you don't have pricing moving down" for analog chips compared with other chip segments even as the entire chip industry sees volumes decline in the weak global economy."

Having launched production of its energy-saving buried wordline (BWL) technology, memory chip maker Qimonda intends to leverage this feature for its entry into the DDR3 market which is expected to take off in 2009.

Amtech Systems, a supplier of production and automation systems and related supplies for the manufacture of solar cells, semiconductors, and silicon wafers, posted a revenues jump of 104% on year in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Dark economic clouds shadowing businesses worldwide aren't discouraging solar companies from considering manufacturing in Oregon. A large European solar company has picked Gresham as its top US candidate while seeking a site for multiple factories that could employ more than 2,000, public officials confirm.

European semiconductor industry executives are launching a concerted push to convince European government leaders to increase support for chip manufacturing and the equipment and materials infrastructure.

IBM, Dell and Intel stand out among technology and consumer-products companies for their policies directed at averting climate change, according to a study released on Thursday.

Kim Jong-kap, CEO of the world's No. 2 memory chip maker, told the evening newspaper, Munhwa Ilbo, that the global semiconductor industry would face a big change such as a closure of a rival chipmaker by the first quarter of 2009.

Qimonda AG hopes to soon strike a deal to research chip technology with the German state of Saxony, where its main chip factories are located, a company representative said.

As downward revisions of December quarter guidances flow as steadily as pink slips this month, reports are swirling of company-enacted manufacturing plant shutdowns in what seems to be a heavy trend compared to previous years. Samsung, Spansion, TI, and TSMC are among those reportedly shutting down manufacturing sites at the end of the year for up to three weeks. Such action is nothing new...

The new center is expected to provide design and extended sales and engineering support for the company's growth in the Asian market. The company stated that the new office opening is a major strategic initiative as part of migrating its business model to that of a wholly owned Chinese enterprise.

Shares in Hynix Semiconductor rose sharply on Wednesday on expectations of an imminent US$560 million in funding from shareholders, which analysts said would help keep the chip maker afloat for a while.

Chu Woo-sik, the Korean electronics giant's executive vice president in charge of investor relations, said at an investor conference that capital expenditures will drop from about 10 trillion won (US$6.91 billion) expected this year to a range of 7 trillion won (US$4.84 billion) to 8 trillion won (US$5.53 billion) next year.

Hyderabad's plan to become the semiconductor manufacturing capital of India has run into trouble and this could impact Andhra Pradesh's image as a vibrant investment destination. SemIndia, an integrated semiconductor company, has decided to put its plan to set up a US$3-billion chip manufacturing facility (fab) on the backburner. But the company's proposed plant on assembly, testing, marking and packing (ATMP) in the city will start production in the second quarter of next year.

Samsung Electronics, the world's largest maker of memory chips and LCD panels and TVs, says the global recession is wiping out profits at those businesses in the fourth quarter.

Forecast downgrades from American chipmakers Texas Instruments and Broadcom sapped yet more investor confidence from technology stocks in Europe on Tuesday, with German semiconductor firm Infineon bearing the brunt of the sell-off.

Research shows that this trend towards power-hungry applications is only set to continue. According to Strategy Analytics, voice call, MP3, FM radio and other handset activities are forecast to remain relatively constant through 2015. However, the use of multimedia functions will increase.

Texas Instruments, a major provider of processors for mobile phones and other devices, has pulled down its profit forecast for the December quarter by as much as two-thirds on Monday. The company also cut its revenue expectations, saying the economic downturn is having a powerful impact on the market for its chips.

"The bottom is yet to come," said Jae H. Lee, an analyst at Daiwa Securities. "Oversupply is a given fact until next year and chip companies will have to cut down capacity." "We currently see no reason to be invested in the memory sector," said Robert Lea, an analyst with UBS. "We believe the industry recovery has been pushed out to 2010."

Fourteen of the world's largest mobile phone and chip makers, including Sony Ericsson, Vodafone and ARM, joined the Open Handset Alliance on Tuesday to support the Android mobile device platform developed by Google Inc.

Spansion said in a statement that the decision is consistent with other chip manufacturers in the industry that are also suffering from decreased demand for flash memory.

When the new Macbooks came out a few weeks ago, Nvidia stated that the chips they provided to Apple did not contain the so-called bad bumps material believed to have caused higher-than-expected defect rates in certain notebooks, namely from HP and Dell, under certain usage models. But an investigation lead by The Inquirer seems to show this not to be the case.

Yesterday Lee Youn-ho, South Korea's minister of knowledge and economy, said that creditors had almost agreed on support measures for the world's second largest chipmaker. "At the moment, the government is not considering direct support [for Hynix] because shareholders have agreed on providing liquidity to some extent," Mr Lee told foreign correspondents. "But if creditors can't help out Hynix, then the government may look into it."

In late December and early next year, TI also plans to idle some undisclosed fabs amid a drop in demand. On average, the company sees fab utilization rates hitting the mid-40 percent range in the fourth quarter, compared to the mid-60 percent range in the third quarter. This represents TI's lowest fab utilization rates since the second half of 2001.

AMD and Abu Dhabi-based ATIC and Mubadala have renegotiated some of the financial details of their deal,inked in October, to transfer ownership of AMD's foundry business and assets, to more closely reflect the current market value of the sale.

Hynix Semiconductor has sought 1 trillion won ($691 million) in financial support from its creditors as it faces a liquidity crunch and struggles as chip prices are falling, reports say.

The growth pace of China's new energy industry is seriously dented by oil price slump and demand shrinkage due to the global financial crisis, according to analysts.