The upgrade reflects improving 2011 prospects for NAND flash memory demand, driven by tablets, smartphones and solid-state drives. The improving demand picture offsets concerns about higher supply due to new NAND fabs from Samsung, Toshiba and Micron expanding production in 2011.

Auriga analyst Daniel Berenbaum has reiterated a Buy rating on Micron Technology and an US$11 price target, writing that the company's in much better shape to weather plunging DRAM prices.

Shares of Tessera Technologies, which owns and makes money licensing numerous patents for combing computer chips together, are up 7% at US$22.09 after an appeals court ruled in favor of the company in its suit against Qualcomm, Spansion and STMicroelectronics.

The decreased sales guidance is primarily related to weaker than anticipated sales to a few large communications customers, specifically in the wireless segment, according to the company.

Germany's solar energy industry is open to accelerating part of a reduction in subsidies should installations grow too quickly, a lobby group said.

A look at the big events and trends in a pivotal year for the solar power industry.

"Chip prices remained strong until the first half of this year, but they dropped sharply, especially during the fourth quarter," CEO OC Kwon said in a recent interview. "Due to the sharper-than-expected fall, a considerable decline in both our sales and profit is inevitable in the fourth quarter."

Globalfoundries and the Institute of Microelectronics (IME), a research institute of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research, are joining hands to develop MEMS capacitive sensor platform technology for power-efficient and highly sensitive motion sensing applications that are relevant to consumer electronics, automotive and aerospace industries.

Copper advanced for a third day from London to Shanghai on optimism the economic recovery in the US remains on track, boosting the demand outlook for the metal amid supply disruptions at the world's third-largest copper mine.

ISO/TS 16949, in conjunction with ISO 9001, defines the quality management system requirements for the design and development, production and, when relevant, installation and service of automotive-related products.

Imagination will pay US$27 million cash for Caustic Graphics. The deal comes less than a month after the chip designer agreed a deal to buy US-based HelloSoft for up to US$47m to assist its push into video and voice-over Internet protocol products and expand its WiFi offering.

"You used to have myriad semiconductor companies building fabs. Now they are expecting a couple of foundries to do it all for them," said Malcolm Penn, founder and principal analyst with Future Horizons.

Yonhap news agency quoted sources at the local government as saying Samsung plans to build the lines by 2016, but the spokesperson said details have yet to be decided.

Under the agreement, IBM receives a five-year license to certain of Misaud patents. IBM's processor and ASIC products that contain embedded DRAM are licensed under the agreement.

The company terminated its employment of Manosha Karunatilaka on December 16, the day of his indictment. Karunatilaka was one of three technology company workers arrested in the US yesterday on charges of wire fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud as federal prosecutors expanded a probe of insider trading to companies.

Smart Modular Technologies has said prices of DRAM chips were decelerating at 20-25%, hurting profits, especially in its key Brazil markets that account for over half of its revenues.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory study reveals cost of solar PV installations in US down 30 per cent, but still around a third more than in countries which have pioneered solar panel deployment

Broadcom now expects fourth-quarter revenues to reach about US$1.9 billion, the top end of its previous forecast range. "Our increased revenue guidance reflects stronger-than-expected demand for products in our Mobile and Wireless markets versus our initial expectations entering the quarter," said company president and CEO Scott McGregor.

With the acquisition of Avalon Microelectronics, Altera is allowed to expand its portfolio of customizable IP solutions for OTN (Optical Transport Network) applications, supporting data rates at 1.2G, 2.5G and 10G, as well as 40G and 100G.

Trina Solar, the world's No.2 solar panel maker by market value, aims to take a 10% or more share of the global market as it beefs up production with capital spending of up to $US400 million next year.

Micron says some flash controller jobs are going to migrate down stack towards the NAND chips, freeing up controller manufacturers from chip-dependent work they shouldn't be doing. It sees low-level flash controllers developing and taking on error management, taking this job away from existing NAND controllers.

None of the companies involved in the bidding have publicly disclosed their participation. But those patents are likely what Apple is most interested in, since it's rumored that a "Verizon iPhone" will come with LTE support.

IDC forecasts that worldwide semiconductor revenues will grow 9% on year in 2011, and will achieve a CAGR of 6% for the 2010-2015 forecast period. "Near term, the semiconductor market should hit bottom by the second quarter of next year and begin a growth cycle that will take us into the second half of 2012..."

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).

ASML now expects fourth-quarter bookings to be above two billion euro. "NAND flash memory investments for the high volume ramp of new technologies and foundry/logic commitments for new strategic fab projects are driving brisk lithography demand for 2011..."

Toshiba's shipments of NAND flash memory chips may fall as much as 20% in January and February because of a power outage at a plant, the company said.

The chips will be used in "premier" smartphone brands, Otellini said today at an investor conference in San Francisco. He declined to name any customers.

Intellectual Ventures has filed patent lawsuits against nine tech companies. The first lawsuit targets software security vendors Symantec, McAfee, Trend Micro and Check Point. The second lawsuit targets DRAM and flash memory vendors Hynix and Elpida. The third names FPGA vendors Altera, Lattice and Microsemi, which recently acquired Actel and its FPGA business.

A person familiar with the situation said earlier the company plans to raise up to US$300 million in the IPO.

The SLE 78 chip in the new German ID card has been certified by the Germany Federal Office for Information Security (BSI). Infineon developed the chips for the ID card in Neubiberg near Munich, Germany.

Texas Instruments has narrowed its fourth-quarter financial forecasts that match analysts' projection, citing higher demand for communications equipment.