Toshiba is planning to withdraw from its mobile phone joint venture with Fujitsu in the first half of 2012, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported Wednesday.

Nokia Siemens Networks will remain under the full ownership of Nokia and Siemens after buyout firms failed to come up with a compelling offer.

Toshiba and SanDisk on July 12 celebrated the opening of Fab 5, the third 300mm wafer NAND fabrication facility at Toshiba's Yokkaichi Operations in Mie Prefecture, Japan.

IM Flash Technologies, the NAND flash memory joint venture between Intel and Micron Technology, is expanding its operations in Lehi, Utah, and adding 200 jobs, according to a statement issued Monday (June 20) by Utah's Governor and the state's economic development office.

STMicroelectronics, Europe's largest chipmaker, fell the most in six weeks in Milan trading after saying second-quarter sales will be held back by a decline at its joint venture with Ericsson. Dubbed ST- Ericsson, the venture is completing a shift to a new lineup targeting smartphone and tablet markets.

S-LCD, a flat screen joint venture between Sony Corp and Samsung Electronics , said it would reduce capital by US$555 million, as Sony struggles with perennial losses from its TV business and Samsung seeks to shift to a new type of display.

Samsung Electronics, the world's biggest flat panel maker by revenue, said that it will invest KRW541.1 billion (US$501 million) in a joint venture in China that will develop the company's 7.5G LCD panel plant.

Chinese silicon wafer producer Jiangsu Huantai, a joint venture partner of MEMC Electronic Materials, aims to go public in 2012, according to company chairman Wang Lubao. Huantai expects to begin manufacturing LED materials later in 2011.

IM Flash Technologies (IMFT), Intel and Micron's joint venture, released 25 nanometer (nm) circuitry a little over a year ago. In the next few weeks, IMFT plans to annouce 20nm NAND flash chip production.

Micron Technology has acquired Canon's interest in Tech Semiconductor Singapore for about US$121 million, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Micron also seems to be taking the lead in its joint venture with Intel.

Nanya Technology may sell its stake in Inotera Memories to Micron Technology, a move that will herald an industry reorganization, an analyst said.

Intel was expected to be a capital spending and production partner in the Singapore fab. However, Intel "is not participating" in terms of capital spending in the Singapore fab, said Micron CEO Steve Appleton. Still, over time, analysts said that Micron will go it alone in NAND and without its partner, Intel.

One analyst says yes, saying that Micron is going it alone in NAND and without Intel. Intel is not commenting, saying the analyst is only speculating without hard data.

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.

Toshiba has started construction of Fab 5 at Yokkaichi Operations, its memory production facility in Mie Prefecture, according to the company. The chip vendor also announced it has signed primary agreements with SanDisk for a new joint venture to operate the new facility.

Chinese wafer supplier Huantai Silicon has suspended its partnership with the country's solar cells and panels giant Suntech Power on their joint venture Glory Silicon, and will jointly build a new venture with U.S. veteran wafer producer MEMC Electronic Materials.

Fujitsu and Toshiba are merging their mobile-handset operations into a joint venture. In some ways this makes sense. Handsets aren't core to either business.

Micron Technology has formed a 50:50 joint venture with Australia-based integrated energy company Origin Energy focused on the development of PV (photovoltaic) technology.

Panasonic, which runs a hybrid and electric car battery joint venture with Toyota, has secured a controlling stake in rechargeable battery maker Sanyo.

Passenger car sales at Ford Motor's China joint venture will likely rise by close to 50% in 2009, partly due to government incentives for purchases of small vehicles, according to Nigel Harris, general manager of the joint venture.

With the forecast for packaging improving in 2010, business strategy is shifting toward more partnerships and joint ventures. And the focus on through-silicon vias (TSVs) is rapidly accelerating and may result in even more partnerships and joint ventures between foundries and packaging houses.

Elpida Memory plans to increase its stake in Rexchip Electronics to 71% by the end of 2009, Nikkei English News said, without citing anyone.

Nakaya Microdevices, Amkor Technology and Toshiba have jointly announced the start of their joint venture will be postponed. The operation was initially scheduled to begin on October 1.

Q-Cells and MEMC Electronic Materials have formed a joint venture to construct solar photovoltaic (PV) generation facilities, in which each partner will have a 50% share.

Nakaya Microdevices, Amkor Technology and Toshiba Tuesday announced that they have signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding expressing their intent to form a joint venture in Japan that will provide system LSI assembly and testing services.

Pioneer and Sharp have announced that they signed a partnership agreement on the establishment of a joint venture in the optical disk business area.

STMicroelectronics and Ericsson has announced the closing of their agreement merging Ericsson Mobile Platforms and ST-NXP Wireless into a 50/50 joint venture. The deal was completed on the terms originally announced on August 20, 2008. Ericsson contributed US$1.1 billion net to the joint venture, out of which US$0.7 billion was paid to ST.

SanDisk said that it had signed a definitive agreement with Toshiba to restructure the Flash manufacturing joint ventures operating at the 300mm Fab 3 and Fab 4. The result of the agreement will be basic SanDisk's transition to fabless flash-based products manufacturing.

Hynix Semiconductor said on Wednesday it would cut planned spending on a South Korean plant and delay a $260 million investment in its Chinese joint venture as it tries to deal with a cash shortage amid a downturn. Hynix shares slid 12.7% to end at 6,720 won before the announcement, compared with the wider market's 1.4% loss.