Apple said that it has made a US$500 million prepayment to Toshiba for flash memory chips and indicated the market is stabilizing. Intel, which makes flash chips jointly with Micron, is also seeing a recovery in pricing.

Robert Rivet, AMD's CFO said in a conference call that capex for subsidiary Globalfoundries would be trimmed to US$690 million.

NEC is considering raising funds to strengthen its capital base, which has suffered during the economic downturn, according to sources familiar with matter.

Chip equipment maker ASM International (ASMI) has announced that it is accelerating its cost reduction and restructuring of worldwide front-end operations.

The giant South Korean company Samsung Electronics has said it will invest more than US$4 billion to cut emissions from its plants.

Lazard Capital Markets analyst Daniel Amir said he believes SanDisk gained market share of about 3% at the expense of rivals in the MicroSD memory card market during the second quarter.

Converge also reports that demand for DDR3 modules remains strong, with supplies limited, and that Xeons and AMD Opterons are the drivers for cost savings in the CPU space.

German computer chipmaker Infineon Technologies AG said Thursday that its revenue for the most recent quarter fell 18 percent as customers placed fewer orders.

The investment in semiconductor in the second half will concentrate on introduction of 40nm DRAM and 30nm NAND, and shifting main process to 50nm and 40nm NAND.

Experts at Semicon West 2009 were in broad agreement that the industry must change its business model in the face of global recession and ever-advancing R&D costs.

Xilinx has announced net income was US$38.0 million for the quarter ended June 27, 2009, down 56% from US$86.3 million a year ago. The specialized chipmaker also saw its net sales for the quarter slide 23% on year.

Second-quarter net income was US$47.4 million, down from US$98.0 million in the second quarter of 2008.

Citing the embodiment of its concept of "holistic lithography," ASML has unwrapped two hardware/software components to help chipmakers improve lithography process windows while avoiding costly and timely steps and maintenance downtime.

Q-Cells, the world's biggest manufacturer of solar cells, on July 14 blamed tough market conditions for its decision to scrap its full-year sales outlook and warned it would post a big loss in the second quarter. The update shocked investors, leaving the stock more than 14% lower...

One should not waste a crisis' opportunity to innovate. "Toward the tail end of the oil shock of the early 1970s the first cell phone emerged, produced by Motorola. The second oil crisis in the 1980s eventually led to IBM's PC," said Anand Chandrasekher, manager of Intel's ultra mobility group.

Semiconductor equipment maker Novellus Systems has posted disappointing margins and a wider-than-expected loss, but a robust forecast helped limit share losses in late trade.

Dutch semiconductor equipment maker ASML has reported a narrower second quarter net loss than in the first quarter as sales jumped, and said it expects to reach break-even by the end of 2009.

While the current economic environment is imposing severe constraints on the semiconductor equipment industry, the primary driver for increasing profitability for leading-edge chipmakers is still Moore's Law...

The 1.8-inch hard disk market appears to be dying. Already, the market is down to two manufacturers, Toshiba and Samsung, and when the latter announced its new 250GB, US$200 1.8-inch HDD last week, the announcement had a rather stunning omission: IDE and SATA.

While the headlines on Mosaid Technologies are about the patent-infringement suit it launched against IBM, the case won't be resolved for years. Of more pressing concern is whether Mosaid can renew its patent-license agreement with Samsung Electronics.

Governments across Asia have launched massive stimulus packages focused on renewable energy in recent months, and some analysts think the new infusion of cash could reshape a solar industry reeling from the economic downturn.

With more automation processing, the solar industry can cut the amount of human labor needed dramatically.

NEC Electronics will likely outsource more production of semiconductors used in consumer electronics to outside foundries to insure against a sudden plunge in demand following losses last year tied to a rapid drop in orders.

At the Semicon West trade show here, fab tool vendors rolled out a plethora of products. Here's some of the hot product introductions at the show.