CEO of Zetex said the LED market will be bigger than DRAM and huge demand for LCD driver IC will occur.

Lexar has asked a U.S. trade agency to ban imports of some NAND chips from Japan's Toshiba

The China-based foundry will boost its capacity to 35,000 wafers per month in 2006 on its ties with Cypress

The plant, with a monthly production capacity of 20,000 wafers, will go into mass production of 8-inch wafers later in June.

Shares of NEC Corp. and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Japan's two biggest cell-phone makers, gained after the Nihon Keizai newspaper reported the companies will form a handset parts-making venture with TI to cut production cost.

Among Korea's 10 largest corporations, Samsung and LG saw their performance considerably worsen last year, but Hyundai, GS, and SK Group did well, figures show.