The German state of Saxony isn't ruling out taking up an indirect stake in bankrupt computer chipmaker Qimonda AG anymore, the state's governor said Thursday.

Three years ago, as head of Toshiba's (TSBAa.BE) power business, Norio Sasaki orchestrated the tech conglomerate's $5.4 billion acquisition of Westinghouse's nuclear-power-plant business. Now, as Sasaki prepares to take over the president's post, he will have to show the same willingness to take chances as he tries to help overhaul the company after its biggest-ever expected annual loss.

An end-of-March deadline for Qimonda AG to find investors has been extended, and liquidation of the memory-chip maker is still a possibility, according to court officials in Munich.

A wave of consolidation is sweeping the solar power industry.

International Business Machines is in talks to buy Sun Microsystems in a combination that would bolster IBM's heft on the Internet, in data storage and in government and telecommunications areas, according to people familiar with the matter.

Energy Conversion Devices' shares plummeted 30.3% in morning trading on Tuesday, after the solar-equipment maker warned investors that its third-quarter earnings would fall short of earlier projections amid a weakening economic environment.

"We want to make sure the government will not simply inject capital into any industry, but hope we could use our leverage to help build up the industry again," Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou said in a speech.

VLSI Research said ASML overtook TEL for the second spot in its annual ranking of equipment suppliers. Applied Materials remained on top, while KLA-Tencor and Lam Research were in the fourth and fifth spots. The Top 10 declined slightly faster than the total IC manufacturing equipment industry, which dwindled 25.1% to $41.8 billion.

Inspur International, a Hong Kong-listed computer and information technology company, has said it's not interested in acquiring a stake in Qimonda AG, the memory-chipmaker that filed for insolvency in January. The Financial Times Deutschland reported on March 16 that the Shandong-based company would acquire about 50% of Qimonda to help the company exit bankruptcy.

Singapore's exports fell for a 10th month in February, as a collapse in global demand for electronics and pharmaceuticals extended the longest slump in the nation's overseas sales since 2002.

AMD spin-off Global Foundries will take an "agnostic view" of the market according to its head of communications, Jon Carvill.

Infineon sites in Asia are working far below capacity. The company denied to break down utilization rates by fab, but provided figures more or less in line with the industry-wide average.

The succession of Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs to the post of chairman, replacing Irwin Jacobs, garnered headlines on March 3. Not so widely reported was the younger Jacobs' plan to take a 25% reduction in salary for fiscal 2009.

Samsung expects solid-state drives to reach price parity with hard-disk drives within the next few years amid steep annual price declines in flash memory chips.

China's demand for polysilicon will make up less than 45% of its annual production capacity in 2009 due to fast capacity expansion and lowering demand, according to a report by CLSA Limited.

IC Insights reported that chip average selling prices (ASPs) increased 4% in January over the previous month, with NAND ASPs jumping 17% and MPUs also showing strong pricing. If traditional patterns hold true, the current downturn will be followed by strong growth in 2010 and 2011, IC Insights President Bill McClean told an IMAPS Global Business Council meeting in Arizona.

"We are considering a number of choices best for our firm, but are putting top priority on a technological alliance with Taiwan Memory," Elpida said in a statement.

The NAND rally continues. Vendors continue to increase their component prices, while SanDisk separately raised its flash card tags, according to an analyst. Amid component shortages--and reported "quality issues" at the Intel-Micron joint venture--NAND prices could jump again in 2Q.

Mario Morales, an analyst with market researcher IDC, is in the unenviable position of following one of the most bedraggled sectors in technology right now: semiconductors. "The biggest question I am getting is, when is the bottom?" Morales said last week. He doesn't see any growth coming to the semiconductor business until at least mid-2010.

The economic slump has become so pronounced that even outsourcing is getting scaled back. Executives who once relied on outside firms to handle certain IT tasks to cut costs are now reining in some outsourcing plans on concern they're too expensive.

Faced with a steep decline in sales, chipmaker National Semiconductor said Wednesday it will eliminate more than one-quarter of its work force, or 1,725 jobs.

Sun Microsystem has laid out more of its plans for using solid-state drives in its servers, which it says will help customers to reduce energy costs and improve application performance in the data center.

A South Korean trade commission has taken what could be a first step toward regulating wireless chip vendor Qualcomm's business practices in the country.

Much to the chagrin of the largest high-tech companies whose products have served as the foundation for computing for the past 30 years, the microprocessor is breaking free of the chains that bind it. ARM is a microprocessor manufacturer that is taking advantage of advancing technology's steady destruction of those chains forged by the likes of AMD, Intel, and Microsoft.