Freescale Semiconductor cut more jobs in Austin and elsewhere Wednesday as part of a yearlong campaign to reduce costs in the face of weak market demand. Through the end of January, Freescale had disclosed 228 job cuts in Austin. The company employed about 5,000 people in Austin and 23,000 worldwide before this week's job actions.

If you want to feel good about the economy, do not read any of the trade publications. They're predicting a continued downward slide in every imaginable aspect of the industry except for MEMS. If you pick up anyone's iPhone nowadays you'll find perhaps 50 or more of these applications, all of which are essentially useless but kind of interesting in a very nerdy way.

Wacker Chemie AG, a German chemical company, announced Thursday that it will build a $1 billion plant with 500 jobs in southeastern Tennessee to produce hyperpure polycrystalline silicon, a product used to make solar panels and semiconductors.

While Spansion Inc. was cutting 3,000 jobs on Monday, the company's board was restoring full pay to its top executives. The company had imposed a 10% pay cut in October for top executives. But in a securities filing Tuesday, Spansion said it was returning the executives and other key employees to full pay as part of an "employee retention program."

Japan's exports plunged 45.7% in January compared with a year ago to hit the lowest figure in 10 years, official figures have shown. Imports exceeded exports by 952.6 billion yen (US$9.9 billion). It is the largest gap since records began in 1980. Demand for Japanese cars in particular dropped by 69%. Trade in electronics and other goods has also slumped as global economies and consumer spending contract, pushing Japan deeper into recession.

ARC International, a specialty semiconductor manufacturer, said Wednesday posted a larger-than-forecast GBP7.3 million net loss for 2008, and said it remains cautious for 2009. Analysts cautioned that the company is unlikely to reach break-even this year.

The Top-10 advanced packaging companies garnering market share on Gartner's just-released preliminary list for 2008 include Advanced Semiconductor Engineering (ASE, Kaohsiung, Taiwan), Amkor Technology (Chandler, Ariz.), Siliconware Precision Industries (SPIL, Taichung, Taiwan), STATS ChipPAC (Singapore), Powertech Technology (Taipei, Taiwan), UTAC (Singapore), ChipMOS Technologies (Hsinchu, Taiwan); King Yuan Electronics (Hsinchu, Taiwan); Carsem (Ipoh, Malaysia); and Unisem (Ipoh, Malaysia).

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and Tela Innovations has recently announced a strategic partnership to develop co-optimized design solutions using Tela's innovative and patented lithography-optimized design technology and TSMC's processes.

ST to show key applications for energy efficiency at IIC-China 2009, including green air-conditioning, eBike, and Solar-LED street lights in Shenzhen Convention and Exhibition Center - Booth 2G01

The Open NAND Flash Interface (ONFI) workgroup was created in May of 2006 to standardize the low-level interface to NAND flash chips from different manufacturers. However, the two largest NAND flash manufacturers are not members of ONFI. Samsung and Toshiba together account for approximately 70% of global NAND flash production, although their market share has been dropping by around 10% annually since ONFI was first standardized. SanDisk is also notably absent from the list of members.

Micron Technology's decision to cut as many as 2,000 jobs and scale back memory chip production is a "prudent" move, a Deutsche Bank analyst said.

China reaffirmed on Monday that it will ramp up public spending and try to simulate domestic demand to ensure stable growth as the global financial crisis weighs on the economy.

Japan's chip industry, awash in red ink, plans to consolidate older fabs. Fujitsu, NEC Electronics and Renesas Technology all detailed scheduled closings of older facilities. Also, executives at NEC and Toshiba, which have been discussing a merger of their system-on-chip (SoC) operations, appeared reluctant to go ahead with a merger until internal restructuring efforts take effect.

At Nikon's annual LithoVision symposium yesterday on the eve of the SPIE Advanced Lithography conference in San Jose, representatives from throughout the lithography community, as well as Nikon representatives, gave updates on progress being made in immersion lithography, double patterning and extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography. Although they had much to tell on the technology advances, a common theme was the consternation at not yet having what appears to be a workable solution beyond 20nm.

Hynix is gratified that the court rejected Rambus' request for an injunction, but is disappointed by the district court's damages ruling and will file an appeal when the final judgment is entered. Hynix believes that Rambus's patents, as has been recently confirmed by certain rulings of the US Patent & Trademark Office, are invalid. In addition, Hynix maintains that Rambus' conduct in destroying evidence relevant to the litigation between Hynix and Rambus, and Rambus and the rest of the DRAM industry, bars Rambus from enforcing its patents.

Micron Technology will cut 2,000 jobs as it phases out 200- millimeter DRAM chip manufacturing operations in Boise, Idaho, by the end of its fiscal year in August. These layoffs are in addition to a 15% reduction, affecting about 2,850 employees, announced last fall as the company stopped production of some NAND flash-memory chips.

The ThinkEquity Partners' report centered on SanDisk, which is not one of the four companies Apple actually buys its memory components from (Samsung, Hynix, Toshiba and Micron). However, the report says Apple's voracious appetite for flash RAM is affecting the entire market.

Kyocera has announced the construction of a new solar module manufacturing plant in Tianjin City, China in order to expand production capacity at Kyocera (Tianjin) Solar Energy. Construction of the new plant is timed to align the production capacity of solar modules with the increase in production of solar cells which Kyocera is set to expand to 650MW by March 2012.

Global semiconductor equipment maker Analog Devices on Wednesday reported better-than-expected earnings for its first quarter after a bout of cost-cutting, and forecast earnings in line with estimates for the current quarter.

Chipmaking equipment orders received by Japanese manufacturers fell to the lowest level in more than seven years in January, according to preliminary figures released by an industry group on Wednesday. The book-to-bill ratio, which stands for orders divided by billings, came to 0.55, the Semiconductor Equipment Association of Japan said.

VLSI Research predicted overall solar equipment growth of 8% this year. Suppliers of equipment for silicon wafer-based solar cell manufacturing are expected to see declining revenues this year, but thin-film equipment vendors will more than offset that with strong growth.

ProMOS has announced that it intends to commence a tender offer (the "Tender Offer") for its US$350mm Zero Coupon Convertible Bonds issuance due 2012 (the "Convertible Bonds"). Funding for this Tender Offer will be provided by a new NT$3 billion syndicated loan facility arranged by Bank of Taiwan with commitment letter dated February 17, 2009 (the "Facility"). This Facility is, as yet, subject to finalization by each of the participating banks and represents the entire and only source of funding for this tender offer.

module supplier Kingston Technology has said it wants to help the DRAM chip sector consolidate as it remains mired in its worst downturn, and it expects to see an upturn as early as this year. "We want to play a helpful role," John Tu, president and co-founder of Kingston, told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of the Mobile World Congress trade show.

Qimonda's works council urged German Chancellor Angela Merkel to help save the insolvent memory chipmaker. "Act now, dear Mrs Chancellor, so that technological dominance in semiconductors in Germany and Europe will not be lost."

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) announced today that its stockholders overwhelmingly approved a spinoff proposal to create The Foundry Company. The shareholder approval allows AMD to issue common stock and warrants to an affiliate of the Mubadala Development Co., paving the way for AMD and the Advanced Technology Investment Co. of Abu Dhabi to create the new foundry.

The market for TFT-LCD equipment may have grown 30% in 2008, but it is expected to drop 41% in 2009, according to The Information Network.