A conversation on August 20 with Joseph Sawicki, VP and GM of the Mentor Graphics Corp.'s Design to Silicon Division, provided a snapshot of the conundra facing foundries and EDA vendors as they approach sub-20nm process geometries. The landscape is filled with uncertainties, Sawicki warned, but there is no time left to wait for resolution.

The group aims to end a long and heated debate about the next big leap in disk technology and is expected eventually to include all drive makers and their component vendors.

"Targets will be companies that have technologies that Fujitsu doesn't have or that have customers that Fujitsu has never been able to reach so far," company president Masami Yamamoto said in an interview. "We would like to get engaged very actively in M&A activities."

Korea-based specialty IC foundry Dongbu HiTek has revealed plans to open sales offices in France and Italy, gearing to expand its customer base in Europe.

Marvell's net income for the second quarter ended July 30 nearly quadrupled to US$219.8 million, compared with US$58 million a year ago. The results gave it confidence to start buying back stock, according to the chipmaker.

Start-up Fusion-io has snagged Dell as an OEM for its ioDrive PCIe flash card accelerators.

Verigy, which makes products that test flash memory, high-speed computer memory chips and SoC devices, previously posted seven straight quarters of red ink, though recent losses had narrowed.

Applied Materials has forecast quarterly results that beat Wall Street estimates, with demand for its chip-making gear holding up despite fears of weakening technology spending. But the company warned that sales of solar and energy equipment would slide 10-20% this quarter.

The new group made up of state-owned automakers and other related manufacturers will promote common standards and accelerate research among related state-owned companies.

2011 will likely see the release of a more powerful series of smart phones thanks to a new Snapdragon chip from Qualcomm. And of course there will be another set of Apple iPhones and iPads next year, which will have their own ARM processor, most probably running at faster speeds than the 1GHz at present.

Unlike traditional silicon-based solar cells, the film is composed of metal nanoparticles embedded in a transparent composite matrix, and operates on a different principle. EnSol is now developing the product with help from the University of Leicester's Department of Physics and Astronomy.

Samsung Electronics said it would establish a 836-million-dollar fund to help South Korean contractors. The "mutual development" fund would be set up jointly with Industrial Bank of Korea, and was aimed at helping contractors receive low-interest loans for R&D from October.

A leaked slide of Intel's nine-month solid state drive (SSD) roadmap shows a 400GB multi-level cell (MLC) enterprise solid state drive due in the first quarter of 2011.

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.

Battery Ventures, Flybridge Capital Partners and Highland Capital Partners represent the traditional venture capitalists behind Smooth-Stone. They have been joined by ARM, Texas Instruments and Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC).

An Apple supply manager has been accused of giving confidential information to Asian suppliers in exchange for kickbacks during a three-year scheme detailed in court filings made available over the weekend.

"This acquisition is another step in our strategic expansion in the Asia Pacific region and, in particular, increases our scale and scope in the Australian market...". Australia-based itX distributes software, hardware and services from the world's leading suppliers including Oracle, IBM, HP, VMware, Apple, Citrix, Red Hat and Trend Micro.

IBM and Infineon Technologies have closed a transaction to sell 100% of the share capital of Altis Semiconductor to a new corporation. They have also entered into supply agreements with Altis, and will continue to use Altis' production facility in France.

Hynix said in a filing to the Korea Exchange that it plans to invest 677.0 billion won (US$572.7 million) to expand an existing facility.

Just six weeks ago, it didn't even have a factory. Now it has orders from customers to take 20 megawatts worth of panels.

The Medfield platform will include a power-efficient version of the Atom processor, which will be integrated inside a chip code-named Penwell, according to a document originally posted on Intel's website, which is still available on Google cache.

With semiconductor sales soaring to a possible 30% increase this year, companies are ramping up capacity to meet current and expected demand. But the capital invested during the balance of 2010 will not impact actual capacity until sometime in 2011.

Electronics distributor Avnet has reported record sales of US$5.21 billion for the quarter ended July 3, 2010, besting consensus analyst expectations. "The demand for electronic components remained strong across all three regions as better-than-normal sequential growth resulted in year-over-year revenue growth of 47% this quarter," said company CEO Roy Vallee.

LDK Solar reported Tuesday that it earned net income of US$45 million, or 36 cents per American Depositary Share, in the quarter that ended June 30. That compared with a net loss of US$216.9 million, or US2.03 per ADS, when it took a hefty writedown on plummeting inventory value in the year-ago quarter.

The mid-year edition of the SEMI Capital Equipment Forecast predicts that sales of global semiconductor equipment are growing in all regions in 2010. Taiwan is again, projected to be the largest market with US$9.18 billion.

Scientists at Ohio State University have demonstrated a form of plastic computer memory that uses the spin of electrons to read and write data.

SunPower reported their second quarter results today and here is a rundown of the highlights for the solar panel manufacturer and solar power provider.

NXP Semiconductors opened trading Friday (Aug. 6) on the Nasdaq exchange, its new shares seesawing with the rest of the turbulent equity market.

SMIC, China's largest foundry chipmaker, is close to receiving tens of millions of dollars from the China government in a move that could help its earnings this year.

Kyocera is ramping up its annual production to 600MW this year - an increase of 50% over the previous year - to meet growing demand in countries such as Japan, US, Germany, France and Italy, the company says.

Experts on the nation's electricity system point to a frighteningly steep increase in non-disaster-related outages affecting at least 50,000 consumers.