Apple will start selling a white version of its iPhone 4 in the next few weeks, following a 10-month delay, three people with knowledge of the plans said. The release was stalled as Apple resolved manufacturing challenges including paint that peeled under heat.

Ford is to cut its workforce in Victoria by 240 after a slump in demand for larger cars, and competitor Toyota will reduce hours for manufacturing staff in the wake of the Japanese earthquake disaster.

Last fall, industry analysts predicted there would be an oversupply of manufacturing capacity due to a market correction following the strong revenue posted in 2010, but following the earthquake, tsunami, and now nuclear crisis in Japan, the landscape looks different.

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.

LDK Solar has announced a business investment of approximately US$40 million to establish a new manufacturing plant in Nanchang City, Jiangxi Province (China). This new manufacturing facility will have capacity to supply two million 2-inch equivalent pieces of sapphire wafers per year and be positioned to capture the growing opportunities in the LED industry.

The move leaves some to wonder if the silicon foundry giant is gradually moving into the IC-packaging world, thereby competing against Amkor, ASE and other subcontractors. Rick Cassidy, president of TSMC North America, said TSMC remains focused on the foundry market. But "lines are blurring" between some parts of the wafer manufacturing and packaging processes, Cassidy said.

Taiwan's UMC will take the "lead role" in making the OMAP 5 device on a foundry basis for TI, said Kevin Ritchie, senior VP and manager of TI's technology and manufacturing group. For the OMAP 5, TI may work with other foundries, but Samsung does not appear to be one of the candidates. With the OMAP 4, TI has been "dissatisfied" with its foundry arrangement with Samsung, Ritchie said.

TowerJazz has signed a non-binding term sheet contemplating its purchase of Micron Technology's fabrication facility in Nishiwaki City, Hyogo, Japan. The proposed purchase would nearly double TowerJazz's current internal manufacturing capacity, increasing production by 60,000 wafers per month.

Japanese manufacturing activity sank to a two-year low in March 2011, underlining the impact of the earthquake and tsunami on economic activity in the country.

Renesas Electronics America will sell its semiconductor wafer fabrication facility in Roseville, California, to Telefunken Semiconductors. The sale price is approximately US$53 million, and the closing for the sale is planned for May 2, 2011. Telefunken also will enter into a supply agreement with Renesas for manufacturing services at the Roseville factory.

Firms across the world fear shortages of parts that used to be made in the Japanese factories now shuttered because of power and water shortages, or because of road and port closures, following the quake and the floods. And carmakers, whose products often contain some 20,000 individual parts, are expected to be among those worst hit.

Renesas is in talks to outsource production of auto microcontrollers to Globalfoundries Singapore, and some mobile phone semiconductor production to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), Shino Inokuma, a spokesman for Renesas, said by telephone.

Iwate Toshiba Electronics will start to ramp-up production lines from March 28. However, Toshiba Mobile Display (Saitama Pref.), a wholly-owned subsidiary and manufacturer of mid- and small-sized LCD displays, expects to take about a month to secure recovery of its manufacturing line. Toshiba has started to supply some products alternatively from the Ishikawa Works, the company's another production facility located in Ishikawa Pref..

Renesas Electronics has confirmed that seven out of 22 of its factories in Japan has temporarily shut down production. Among these factories, Renesas Yamagata Semiconductor Tsuruoka Factory is currently beginning its startup procedures to restart its manufacturing.

The two Toshiba-SanDisk JV semiconductor manufacturing plants, Fab 3 and Fab 4, were down for a short period of time due to the earthquake and were back up and operational as of Friday morning, Pacific Time. SanDisk's current assessment is that there has been minimal immediate impact on wafer output due to the earthquake.

A gauge of manufacturing in the euro region rose to 59 last month from 57.3 in January, London-based Markit Economics said in an e-mailed report. That's the highest since June 2000. A reading above 50 indicates expansion.

Nova Measuring Instruments has announced that three major foundries recently placed US$12 million orders for its integrated and standalone metrology tools. The tools will support manufacturing and development for both the 4x and 3x technology nodes, and are expected to ship within the first and second quarters of 2011.

Growing global demand has fuelled a surge in US manufacturing activity, which last month (Feb. 2011) accelerated at its fastest rate in almost seven years, according to the Institute of Supply Management.

On Semiconductor plans to invest more than US$30 million to expand capacity and capabilities at its 8-inch wafer manufacturing facility in Gresham, Oregon. The facility remains the company's most advanced wafer fab - with current production technologies down to 0.11-micron.

Eurozone manufacturing and service activity in February 2011 hit levels last seen in July 2006 but inflation, an increasing concern, also jumped sharply, a closely watched survey has shown.

Fabless LCD developer Pixel Qi has announced it has struck a manufacturing partnership with Chunghwa Picture Tubes (CPT) of Taiwan.

On January 19, 2011, the 3.5 billionth CoolMOS high-voltage MOSFET came off the production line at Infineon's manufacturing facility in Villach, Austria.

Yesterday First Solar closed at a new 52 week high after Goldman Sachs posted a Buy recommendation and news of a $1 billion manufacturing plant in Vietnam hit.

Fairchild Semiconductor will be closing the 6-inch manufacturing line in its South Portland, Maine manufacturing facility and transferring production to its 8-inch fab in the same site. The restructuring is expected to eliminate approximately 120 jobs at the facility over a nine-month period.

Factory output growth eased in India and China in December, but strengthened in South Korea and Taiwan, narrowing a gap in manufacturing activity between much of developing Asia and the region's emerging economic giants.

As part of the strategy for transforming the system LSI business and securing an asset light business model, Toshiba has signed a MoU with Sony, expressing the intent to dissolve Nagasaki Semiconductor Manufacturing (NSM) and to transfer 300mm wafer fabrication lines there from Toshiba to Sony.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) plans to build one more "mega-fab" at a cost of up to NT$300 billion (US$10 billion). Construction of the fab, codenamed Fab 16, will start in 2014 probably at the Central Taiwan Science Park (CTSP).

IBM seems to be shifting away from semiconductor manufacturing, and planning to rely on Samsung and GlobalFoundries as foundry suppliers. Both foundries are set to have wafer fabs for foundry operations in the US, which could help cement relations.

Solar panel producer Suntech Power Holdings Co. said Wednesday it is buying 375 megawatts of wafer manufacturing capacity in China for $127 million.

Achronix Semiconductor has announced strategic access to Intel's 22nm process technology, and plans to develop the most advanced FPGAs.

The US$2.5 billion chip factory is producing chips on 12-inch silicon wafers, mainly chipsets to be used in desktop computers, laptops and servers. The factory is already fully operational.

Applied Materials announced that Hareon Solar has selected its SmartFactory manufacturing automation software to improve productivity across Hareon's solar photovoltaic (PV) cell manufacturing operations in China.

But shares of Veeco, which makes precision manufacturing equipment for the LED and data storage markets, slipped after hours as the company predicted some revenue slated for the fourth quarter may not come in until early next year.

In a statement sent to Emirates 24/7 on Monday, BlackBerry manufacturing company, Research in Motion (RIM), refused to give details of the deal reached with TRA but indicated the deal took into account the UAE security needs.

Rising competition from Chinese solar companies and high entry costs are likely to limit the number of start-up companies going into the PV manufacturing market, a managing director at private equity firm CMEA Capital said.

The Taiwan-based Industrial Technology Research Institute, or ITRI, won the top prize in this year's Innovation Awards contest for a manufacturing technique that promises to clear the way for commercial development of high-quality displays on flexible materials.