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.

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.

Approximately US$2 million per year is expected to be available to labs for new awards under this call, funded over multiple government fiscal years.

Most valley companies still view the United States, the world's largest tech market, as the center of their business plans. Nonetheless, startups creating technology primarily marketed in other countries are "increasing pretty rapidly," said William Miller, a professor at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business.

As President Obama prepares to sign the $787 billion stimulus bill, administration officials sought to temper expectations, warning that the economy has not yet reached bottom and that increased economic activity as a result of the legislation would "take time to show up in the statistics."

For the troubled memory maker Qimonda things may get even tougher as the company is facing a class-action lawsuit from the former employees of its plant based in Richmond, Virginia.

The US switch to digital television signals will be delayed four months until June under legislation that cleared Congress on Wednesday. Obama supports the delay, sharing concerns that 20 million mostly poor, elderly and rural households were not ready for the congressionally mandated switch.

The US economy shrank at its fastest pace in nearly 27 years in the fourth quarter, government data showed on Friday, sinking deeper into a recession that the White House said demands urgent action.

More than 90 jobs are being shed in Boise because of production slowdowns at Micron Technology.

Gadgets made by a host of big-name manufacturers, including Nokia and HTC, could be banned from import into the US, if a patent violation investigation being conducted the US International Trade Commission (ITC) rules in the claimant's favor.

As the economy heads deeper into a recessionary abyss, business tax cut ideas that seemed to be nonstarters just a few short months ago are suddenly back on the table. Take the incoming Obama Administration's embrace of a measure that would lengthen the period for money-losing companies to write off net operating losses against profits from the current two years to four or five years.

Micron Technology has announced that the US District Court of Delaware has found that patents Rambus had asserted against Micron are unenforceable. The Delaware Court found that “the spoliation conduct was extensive, including within its scope the destruction of innumerable documents relating to all aspects of Rambus’ business.”

Nearly a dozen retailers, including Macy's and Target Corp, told investors that profits would take a further hit in the fourth quarter, which includes key holiday sales. The results confirmed that the U.S. recession, job losses and winter storms right before Christmas produced the most dismal holiday shopping season in nearly 40 years.

The Labor Department said Friday the unemployment rate hit 6.7 percent last month, the highest since 1993, which adds up to 10.3 million Americans out of work, 2 million more than the population of New York City.

Stores and online merchants were busier this weekend than they were a year ago, according to figures out Sunday, but signs persist that holiday shopping will suffer in the weakest economic climate in decades.

Benchmark indexes in Japan, Hong Kong and South Korea all dropped by about 5% in early trading after the Dow Jones share index in New York fell to its lowest level in five years, amid fears of a protracted global recession.