Android isn't only about smartphones - not for long, anyway. Google's mobile operating system is set to make its way onto all sorts of high-tech stuff, ranging from the mundane and to the just plain strange.

This week RIM delivered on both these key requirements with the launch of the BlackBerry Torch 6800 - the first touchscreen "slider" BlackBerry and the first to run BlackBerry 6, the latest version of RIM's smartphone operating system.

Hynix will pay an estimated US$422.89 million for the 19.3% stake in the China-based joint venture, Hynix-Numonyx Semiconductor, according to Micron.

The announcement comes weeks after Taiwan signed a major trade deal with China - the first since the two split at the end of the civil war in 1949.

Chip equipment maker UMS, which counts Applied Materials as its biggest client, will boost capacity utilisation to 85% in the third quarter from 65% in a booming industry.

It took firefighters from Boise about a half an hour to put out the fire, which broke out in a building that helps support the company's development of solar panels.

A new solar energy capture technology is able to generate electricity from light and heat at the same time, producing double the efficiency of existing solar panels.

Infineon Technologies is in discussions with interested parties about a transaction concerning the segment Wireless Solutions (WLS), according to the company.

Rambus has introduced a high-performance, low-cost DDR3 memory controller for HDTVs, Blu-ray players and digital set-top boxes.

[A] team of researchers at MIT has found that silicon, the most widely used material for computer chips and solar cells, can exhibit "retrograde melting" when it contains high concentrations of certain metals dissolved in it. This could make it possible to produce some silicon-based devices, such as solar cells, using a less pure, and therefore less expensive, grade of silicon that would be purified during the manufacturing process.

Robert Krakauer succeeds Bruce McDougall, CFO of Globalfoundries since the company's launch in March 2009. McDougall will assume a new role as CFO of ATIC, the majority shareholder of Globalfoundries.

The report notes that the Google Android platform continues to show rapid growth and over the past six months has edged past the Apple iPhone platform with new subscribers.

IC Insights' recently updated Strategic Reviews Online database shows that most large memory and foundry companies performed extremely well in 1H10.

Freescale Semiconductor may file to sell shares in an initial public offering by the end of 2010, according to two people briefed on the plan.

Micron Technology has confirmed its support for the phase-change memory product line and R&D inherited when it acquired Numonyx in May 2010. But a company executive declined to give further details of its technology roadmap or how it plans to scale the technology below the 45nm node.