Asian currencies were set for a weekly decline, led by the Taiwan dollar and South Korea's won, as an uprising in Libya pushed up oil prices and sapped demand for emerging-market assets.

"Recent data points have circulated in the past weeks suggesting OmniVision's BSI (backside illumination) yields have been adversely impacted out of TSMC, which could be backed-up on strong demand for general CMOS image sensors into smartphones and tablets," said analyst Doug Freedman of Gleacher & Co. in a new report.

Rising demand for vehicles in China has boosted profits at Infineon. Back orders are expected to last through summer.

The profit gain was largely due to "a significantly improved performance in electronic devices, driven mainly by the return to profit of the LCD business and demand expansion in NAND flash memories," Toshiba said in a statement.

"A fall in DRAM prices, the appreciation of the yen, and inventory valuation losses resulted in a 26.9 billion yen operating loss," said CFO Yasuo Shirai. Elpida shares closed 0.24% higher in Tokyo trade ahead of the earnings announcement on February 2.

Germany's government and an industry group said Thursday they have agreed to trim solar power subsidies by up to 15 percent this year as demand thrives in the country, a leading producer and user of the renewable energy source.

Apple acknowledged that it still can't make enough iPhones to meet demand, and the addition of the Verizon iPhone will simply add to the crunch.

Singapore's exports rose at a slower pace in December, ending a year in which shipments jumped the most since 2003 as the global economic recovery boosted demand for the island's goods.

Intel is yet to be much of a player in the booming tablet and smartphone spaces, a concern for industry observers in the long term. However, for now the burgeoning markets are helping drive demand in some of Intel's traditional businesses.

Qualcomm Inc. agreed to buy Wi-Fi chip maker Atheros Communications Inc. for US$3.1 billion in cash as it aims to address growing demand for devices that use Wi-Fi to connect to the Internet.

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.

Micron Technology said it expects prices for NAND to drop another 10% in the current quarter but pointed to signs of improvement as demand for the chips used in smartphones, tablets and solid-state hard drives grows.

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.

Germany's economy is fueling the euro region's recovery as declining unemployment encourages consumer demand and companies boost investment, helping counter weaker exports.

Broadcom now expects fourth-quarter revenues to reach about US$1.9 billion, the top end of its previous forecast range. "Our increased revenue guidance reflects stronger-than-expected demand for products in our Mobile and Wireless markets versus our initial expectations entering the quarter," said company president and CEO Scott McGregor.

The rise is partly because of good news: The outlook for growth has improved, putting less pressure on investors to keep their money in ultra-safe bonds. When there's less demand for bonds, their interest rates - or yield - go up to attract more investors.

ASML now expects fourth-quarter bookings to be above two billion euro. "NAND flash memory investments for the high volume ramp of new technologies and foundry/logic commitments for new strategic fab projects are driving brisk lithography demand for 2011..."

Texas Instruments has narrowed its fourth-quarter financial forecasts that match analysts' projection, citing higher demand for communications equipment.

"Compared with its peer, Nanya Technology, which saw lukewarm demand and was undersubscribed in a mid--November offering, issued at par, too, we don't see significant upside potential to Elpida's planned TDRs," Primasia Investment Consultancy Co said in a client note.

The sale of new tablet PCs and smartphones with solid-state storage technology is compensating for weak demand for memory cards and USB flash drives, and has led to a 17% quarter-to-quarter increase in NAND flash shipments and an average price drop of about 9%.

"initial supplies are tight", says Microsoft. Is demand really that strong or is the software holding back shipments artificially?

Trina Solar said it is interested in teaming with or investing in developers in Europe, where solar-panel makers have extra capacity.

ARM shares, up 120% since the start of 2010, fell to their lowest in nearly two months after a statement overnight from Texas Instruments that end-demand for chips could be weakening.

Western Digital has sought to reassure investors about the slowing hard-drive business, as the advent of tablet computers eats into computer demand.

Toshiba's operating profits for the April-September period is set to come to more than 100 billion yen (US$1.2 billion), beating the company's forecast of 70 billion yen, according to the Nikkei business daily. Booming global sales of smartphones have boosted demand for the company's flash memory chips and small LCD panels.

TriQuint Semiconductor Inc. on Tuesday hiked its estimates for third-quarter revenue and income, citing strong demand.

The Chinese maker of polysilicon used in solar panels expects to offer 8 million American Depository shares at between $10.50 and $12.50 each. It has given underwriters the right to buy about 1.2 million additional shares if demand exceeds initial supply.

Elpida Memory president and CEO Yukio Sakamoto said in an interview that the company is delaying plans to boost production capacity at its Taiwanese unit. "Through the summer, demand for PC memory didn't rise as much I had expected," Sakamoto said. "If there's no demand, there's no point in adding capacity."

The massive demand for the product outpaces last year's official launch of the iPhone 3G and 3GS in China. During that period, it had taken over a month before China Unicom had announced it sold 100,000 iPhone units.

Early demand for the device has already exceeded initial supply, with China Unicom reportedly struggling to fill the more than 200,000 pre-orders it received since September 17.

The analyst do not expect a meaningful acceleration in enterprise SSD adoption in 2010, but his analysis suggests as system availability improves in the second half of 2010, shipments are set to grow dramatically in 2011.