All of Wal-Mart's solar projects will generate enough clean energy to power the equivalent of 2,600 homes and avoid 22,500 metric tons of carbon-dioxide emissions each year — tantamount to taking about 4,000 cars off the road. The company is considering other sites for solar arrays.

Equipment supplier EV Group said that strong equipment orders in the last quarter have led to plans to increase production capacity with an extra working shift, starting near the end of April. New orders have exceeded the equipment suppliers forecasts, with demand coming from 3D IC through-silicon via (TSV) and nanoimprint lithography markets.

Infineon Technologies AG has announced a collaboration with Nokia. Infineon will supply its XMM 2130 EDGE platform to Nokia, enabling the mobile device manufacturer to bring a new breed of internet capable devices to the market.

Toshiba has denied a newspaper report that it will increase capital by 500 billion yen (US$5 billion) this year to strengthen its semiconductor business.

Qimonda North America has appointed advisors for the sale of its semiconductor manufacturing assets in Sandston, Virginia, subject to bankruptcy court approval.

Elpida Memory, Japan's largest maker of computer-memory chips, climbed to the highest in six months in Tokyo trading after it said it plans to raise chip prices and a report said the company may receive public funding.

Elpida Memory, Japan's largest maker of computer-memory chips, plans to raise prices as much as 50% and break even by June as industry-wide production cuts help ease a supply glut.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has unveiled the foundry industry's first mixed-signal/radio-frequency reference design kit (MS/RF RDK) at its North American Technology Symposium in San Jose. The RDK initially targets 65nm process technology and aims to accelerate analog, mixed-signal, and RF designs and RF SoC verification and integration.

UK government funding is needed as the credit crunch threatens a generation of small high-tech companies, a business investment group has warned. The National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts said the UK could lose its global standing in areas such as healthcare and biotechnology.

TSMC's board of directors recently approved four candidates for Independent Director, including three current directors Peter Leahy Bonfield, Stan Shih and Carly Fiorina, as well as former Texas Instruments (TI) chairman Thomas J. Engibous. These four candidates for Independent Director will stand for election at TSMC's Annual General Meeting on June 10, 2009.

Memory IP specialist Mosaid Technologies and NXP Semiconductors BV have extended their patent license deal. However, troubled and insolvent memory maker Qimonda has terminated the six-year patent licensing agreement between the two companies that came into effect July 1, 2006.

German chipmaker Infineon is in negotiations with the government over state guarantees worth several hundred million euros (dollars), the Welt am Sonntag paper reported Sunday.

Shares of Toshiba opened down 6.9% on Monday after weekend reports that it plans to raise about US$5 billion in capital to bolster its finances, weakened by its loss-making chip operations and tax costs.

Japanese electronics giant Toshiba has said it is to cut a further 3,900 temporary jobs by March 2010 to cope with the global economic downturn. The news came as it said it expected to report a net loss of 350bn yen (US$3.5bn) for the year to March 2009.

Chinese major multicrystalline silicon wafer producer LDK Solar Wednesday announced that it had secured a 200-million-yuan loan from China Development Bank and received approval for a one-billion-yuan credit line from Agricultural Development Bank of China.

The group also has developed a 32nm process and says customers will be able to move to the more power-efficient 28nm technology without a major redesign. Among the members of the joint development alliance is GlobalFoundries, a manufacturing company formed by AMD and Advanced Technology Investment.

Chief executives from 28 large corporations, including Google, Cisco, Research in Motion (RIM) and Intel, sent President Barack Obama a letter on Mar. 25, urging him to support the Patent Reform Act of 2009. The problem, they say: Litigation costs and patent infringement damages are stifling innovation.

In its third layoff in recent times, silicon wafer supplier MEMC Electronic Materials has cut about 200 more jobs, according to a regulatory filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

Renesas Technology, Japan's second-largest chipmaker, aims to return to profit next fiscal year by cutting labor, research and productions costs.

Micronic Laser Systems AB (STO:MICR), today received an order for a Prexision-8 laser pattern generator from a captive mask shop in Asia. The tool will be shipped in the second quarter of 2009.

In a recent interview, Globalfoundries vice president of manufacturing systems and technology Tom Sonderman said that the company plans to make GPUs using 28nm processes in the near future.

Japan's government is considering providing funds to Elpida Memory to bolster its capital, NHK said, without providing an amount or saying where it got the information.

ASML Holding NV, Europe's largest maker of semiconductor equipment, has reported a first-quarter loss as sales plunged 80% amid an industry slump. The net loss was 117 million euros (US$155 million), compared with a profit of 145 million euros a year earlier.