LDK Solar is planning to build a solar manufacturing facility with 1 gigawatt of solar cell and 500 megawatts of solar module capacity. The manufacturing facility is expected to begin production in the second quarter of 2011, backed by US$368 million in financing for up to three years from a Chinese lender.

One particular type of fly eye has just the right shape that could be perfect for manufacturing efficient solar cells.

Applied Materials has announced it will stop new sales of its "turnkey" SunFab thin-film solar manufacturing line and concentrate on silicon solar and LED lighting. The restructuring of its Energy and Environmental Solutions business will lead to the elimination of 400-500 positions and a third-quarter charge between US$375-425 million.

Applied Materials said demand for semiconductor and solar-panel manufacturing equipment in Europe is growing rapidly, a sign the region's debt crisis isn't crimping spending.

Toshiba plans to expand manufacturing capacity at its plant in Houston, Texas for production of high-performance drive motors for hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) and electric vehicles (EVs).

Those holding out hope of getting a white iPhone this month, prepare for disappointment. Apple says that the white model won't be available to users until the second half of July.

Questions have been raised about whether exporters will have to transform their modus operandi, which for years was predicated on a seemingly endless supply of cheap labour.

Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC) is still in talks with Texas Instruments (TI) about taking over the operation of a 200mm fab in Chengdu, China, according to sources.

ASML has announced that four TWINSCAN XT:1900Gi lithography systems have joined its "One Million Wafer Club" of scanners that have processed more than one million silicon wafers within 12 months, underlining the importance and acceptance of this advanced technology in mainstream chip manufacturing.

The factory will be Toshiba's fifth at its manufacturing base in Yokkaichi in western Japan. It will initially be used to produce conventional NAND flash chips, but Toshiba plans to expand this to new types of 3D memory where chips and components are stacked vertically.

Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC) has said it plans to book several charges to its 2009 results. It also raised its first-quarter revenue guidance, projecting a 4%-6% increase from fourth-quarter revenues of US$333.1 million.

Applied Materials has opened its new Singapore Operations Center, Applied's first facility in Asia for manufacturing its advanced semiconductor equipment.

Fujitsu has outsourced production to TSMC and shut three production lines last year to help save 80 billion yen in the two years to March 2011.

Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC) has been talking to Texas Instruments (TI) about taking over operation of the government-owned factory, according to company sources. It was not immediately clear whether TI was interested in only taking over management of the facility, or in buying it as well.

Representatives from GlobalFoundries and TSMC said their companies are focused on tighter cooperation with EDA and IP vendors. The comments were part of a panel discussion at the Design, Automation and Test in Europe (DATE) conference, held last week in Dresden, Germany.

Ramifications of slowed manufacturing capacity output and a lack of capital expenditure over the past 24 months, combined with increased demand driven by a hot PC market, has resulted in a very positive environment for DRAM pricing.

Abu Dhabi-backed foundry Globalfoundries is planning to spend US$2.5 billion to increase its 300mm wafer manufacturing capacity by 50% in 2010, according to Udo Nothelfer, company VP and general manager of Fab 1 in Dresden, Germany.

Intel expects to complement 193nm immersion lithography with either EUV or electron-beam direct write lithography for the 11nm generation, expected to arrive in 2015, according to Yan Borodovsky, director of Intel's Advanced Lithography and Manufacturing Group.

Their system-on-a-chip (SoC) platform is based on ARM's Cortex-A9 processor and Globalfoundries' 28nm manufacturing process, and will be used in smartphones, tablets and smartbooks.

Abu Dhabi's ATIC, which helped create Globalfoundries when AMD spun off its manufacturing business, is looking to assume full control of the company.

Under the terms of the agreement, government officials said Samsung must build four manufacturing plants in Ontario, promising 16,000 direct and indirect jobs over the next five years.

STMicroelectronics has joined the new industry/research multi-partner program IMAGINE, led by CEA-Leti, which includes TSMC, for mask-less lithography for IC manufacturing.

Vacuum technology firm Edwards is to cut 220 jobs in Sussex as it locates all its manufacturing operations overseas. The move marks a shift in strategy for the Crawley-headquartered company that had previously trumpeted its strong UK manufacturing base, which dates back to 1919.

The combined company employs approximately 10,000 people around the world, anchored by headquarters in Silicon Valley and manufacturing operations in Singapore and Germany, and a new fab under construction in New York.

Singapore's economy probably shrank this quarter after six months of growth. Manufacturing output, which accounts for about a quarter of Singapore's economy, fell 8.2% in November from a year earlier.

First Solar has forecast 2010 profits of US$6.05-6.85 per share on revenues of US$2.7-2.9 billion. The Company said it plans to invest US$365 million of capital to add two production plants, consisting of four manufacturing lines each, to meet a demand pool.

The Korean government and private sector will jointly inject 58.4 billion won (US$50.5 million) over the next three years into building up the local semiconductor manufacturing equipment sector, according to government officials.

This project seeks to optimize the patterning process from design to manufacturing, extend characterization tools and methods to develop new correction and compensation techniques for reducing variability. The project will also explore lithography options for manufacturing complex chips at sub-30nm nodes.

DuPont Apollo has announced the opening of its silicon based thin-film photovoltaic module manufacturing facility. The 538,000-square-feet facility will have an annual capacity of up to 50 megawatts with a thin-film-on-glass PV module production line. Full-scale commercial production is slated for the first quarter of 2010.

Loss-making foundry Tower Semiconductor, which trades as TowerJazz, has announced it plans to transfer "manufacturing know-how and certain equipment" to support an un-named Asian company ramp up production.

The German government is funding a research project aiming at developing manufacturing processes for large-area OLED illuminants. In the Light InLine (LILi) project, Applied coordinates the activities of a team formed of its own experts as well as professionals from OLED materials manufacturer Merck KGaA and from the Technical University of Braunschweig (Germany).

Suntech Power has announced that its first US manufacturing plant for the growing North American market would be located in the Greater Phoenix, Arizona area. The plant will have an initial production capacity of 30 megawatts (MW) and is expected to begin production in the third quarter of 2010.

Besides adding manufacturing capacity through ATIC's acquisition of Chartered and the construction of a new plant in New York, Globalfoundries is counting on advanced process technologies to help it win customers and compete with rivals like TSMC.

Renesas Technology has reached a preliminary agreement to transfer its semiconductor manufacturing equipment business to Hitachi High-Technologies.

Allvia, a through-silicon via (TSV) foundry, has purchased a manufacturing facility in Hillsboro, Oregon, for high volume production of their products with TSV technology. Over the next several months Allvia will proceed with manufacturing equipment tool selection for TSV production, and expects the facility to be operational in 2010.

Consumer electronics maker Panasonic Corp., which already has a big chunk of Japan's home appliance market, is accelerating its push into Europe and India by considering local production in those regions to take advantage of lower costs.