Amid a slowdown in DRAM, Samsung Electronics is reducing its capital spending by 14% for 2011.

Hynix Semiconductor said in a regulatory filing on January 6 that it plans 3.4 trillion won (US$3.03 billion) in facility investment in 2011.

"It'll come out in the spring of 2011 and the price, we haven't decided yet," said Chris Casper, a group manager at Toshiba's digital products division.

The price of copper has hit a new all-time high, rounding off a year in which industrial metals rebounded strongly. It peaked at US$9,631.75 per metric tonne on the London Metal Exchange, before falling back slightly.

Poor battery life is likely the reason that Research In Motion has delayed the launch of its BlackBerry PlayBook tablet until the second quarter of 2011, according to a new report from Kaufman Bros.

Germany will account for a reduced 40 percent of world demand in 2011, but that will be offset by growth in the U.S., Italy, France, the Czech Republic and others countries. The global demand for the solar market should grow 20 percent next year to 17.7 gigawatts.

The Beijing municipal government will raise the city's minimum monthly salary to 1,160 yuan (US$175) from 960 yuan, officials say.

A trio of posts this weekend point to a 2011 smartphone explosion, grudging admiration of Android, and a continuation of the trend of 2011: Android continuing extend its lead over the iPhone in terms of market share.

Hynix has completed development of a 30nm-class DRAM chip, with volume production slated for the first quarter of 2011, according to company CEO Kwon Oh-chul.

Elpida Memory intends to launch capital tie-up talks with Taiwan firms that are currently the world's sixth- and seventh-biggest DRAM chipmakers. Elpida president Yukio Sakamoto plans to visit Taiwan early next month (January 2011) to start the talks and hopes to reach a deal by the end of the company's fiscal year, according to sources.

Dow Chemical plans to push its game-changing "solar shingle" technology, which installs on roofs like ordinary shingles but can generate electricity from sunlight, into commercial markets in 2011, which will bring the largest U.S. chemical manufacturer into an entirely new and lucrative market.

The amount of noise coming out of Germany about proposed additional solar feed-in tariff cuts is an annual rite of passage -- and period of unrest -- for solar investors. Yet there's been a major change of tone this year in the battle of the future level of installations in the solar sector's leading market.

The upgrade reflects improving 2011 prospects for NAND flash memory demand, driven by tablets, smartphones and solid-state drives. The improving demand picture offsets concerns about higher supply due to new NAND fabs from Samsung, Toshiba and Micron expanding production in 2011.

Copper advanced for a third day from London to Shanghai on optimism the economic recovery in the US remains on track, boosting the demand outlook for the metal amid supply disruptions at the world's third-largest copper mine.

"We are working on LTE device for next year, 2011. We think the US mobile operator will be taking some leading and pushing the LTE 4G in the US market, but however, we are seeing the rest of world will be deploying LTE network elsewhere in 2011, could be second half of 2011," said Peter Chou.

Trina Solar, the world's No.2 solar panel maker by market value, aims to take a 10% or more share of the global market as it beefs up production with capital spending of up to $US400 million next year.

A brief look at all the tablets on the market or soon to hit the stores.

IDC forecasts that worldwide semiconductor revenues will grow 9% on year in 2011, and will achieve a CAGR of 6% for the 2010-2015 forecast period. "Near term, the semiconductor market should hit bottom by the second quarter of next year and begin a growth cycle that will take us into the second half of 2012..."

The chips will be used in "premier" smartphone brands, Otellini said today at an investor conference in San Francisco. He declined to name any customers.

Altera, which along with competitor Xilinx dominates the programmable logic chips market, said it was increasing its 2011 R&D budget by 26% to US$330 million as it introduces a new generation of chips. It will ship a 28nm microchip in the first quarter, and announce more 28nm chip families during 2011.

For 2011, the fab tool growth will be driven by foundry and NAND to offset a "pause in DRAM" ...

Shares of SanDisk jumped Monday after a Robert W. Baird analyst upgraded the stock, projecting better prices for the company's flash memory cards heading into next year. The analyst even predicted there could be NAND shortages in the second half of 2011.

"Capex will go up when our customers see the potential of the market. It will go down when it's not there. Every discussion we've had with customers indicates capex will not go down (next year)," ASML CFO Wennink said.

If you're waiting for the first LTE smartphone on Verizon Wireless to arrive, Verizon's CEO says it'll happen in February 2011

The equipment vendor has commented that DRAM companies are expected to scale back their spending "considerably" throughout 2011, and investments in LCD technology will likely be weak for at least a couple of quarters.

Warren East, chief executive of ARM, said the market for tablet PCs could grow to as much as 60m unit sales in 2011 as he brushed aside concerns that Intel would pose a major competitive threat to the UK chip company in the fast-growing market.

Analysts expect Qualcomm to benefit from new drivers in the market, including the launch of the revamped Windows Phone platform and the expected expansion of Apple's iPhone to new carriers in 2011.