The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) board of directors has elected Freescale Semiconductor CEO Rich Beyer as its 2012 chairman.

Flash memory provider Spansion said it would cut 750 jobs, 610 of which will come from closing down its Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, facility by the end of the first quarter of fiscal 2012.

China's Trina Solar Ltd slashed its sales estimates for solar panels on Thursday because of weak European demand and said declines in panel prices would shrink its profit margins.

SunPower Corp. and First Solar Inc., the two largest US solar manufacturers, will reorganize as falling prices and increased competition from China drive down sales.

"[Making] bulk silicon HKMG at 28nm is hard. All foundries are having yield issues and defect density issues right now," said Bob Johnson, research vice president at Gartner.

RealD, a producer of 3D video technology, has disclosed that Samsung has decided not to proceed with a previous plan to build TVs using the RealD 3D technology.

India's solar power costs could fall by more than 40 percent by 2015, allowing the industry to compete against domestic oil and gas firms without the help of state subsidies, the head of Lanco Solar told Reuters on Wednesday.

The solar power system Facebook Inc. plans for its new Menlo Park headquarters won't just supply electricity. It'll heat water for the showers, too. And maybe help clean dishes in the cafe.

ARM, which designs the technology at the heart of all the top smartphones and tablets, has dismissed its American rival Intel as a "niche" player in the future of computing.

The strong yen has had an impact on several Japanese companies including Toshiba, Honda Motor and Panasonic, which have reported lower second-quarter profits.

Flush from better-than-expected third quarter revenues, flash memory supplier SanDisk is buying back up to US$500 million of its stock over the next five years, joining a growing list of companies putting their cash to use to help build investor confidence.

The peremptory cut in subsidies for solar energy announced by the Government this week has stunned an industry that employs 25,000 people and that now faces ruin.

An open-source hardware group on Monday announced a US$89 credit-card sized motherboard based on an ARM processor that could be used for robotics, gaming and medical devices.

LSI will not limit the distribution of SandForce's flash chip controller technology, even to competitors, after its buyout of the company is completed. LSI's planned acquisition of SandForce was announced on October 26.

GT Advanced Technologies and Saudi Arabia-based Polysilicon Technology (PTC) have signed a US$47.7 million deal, which will see GT supply its SDR 400 reactors to PTC.

The UK government has launched a consultation paper, which is proposing further, significant photovoltaic feed-in tariff (FIT) cuts for systems registered on or after December 12, 2011.

This SoC, in production at the S1-Line at Samsung's Giheung facility, was built using 32nm gate-first High-k Metal Gate (HKMG) process technology from Samsung and a complete Cadence digital design flow.

Infineon has announced another reshuffle of its structure and management that it hopes will make it less vulnerable to economic downturns and help it tap into growth in China.

Spansion plans to consolidate its two test and assembly manufacturing operations which will result in the closing of its Kuala Lumpur facility, according to the company.

For third-quarter 2011, deposition equipment maker Aixtron SE of Herzogenrath, Germany has reported revenue of ??9.8m (down 49% on ??75.6m last quarter and 58% on ??12.7m a year ago).

Shares of flash memory chip maker Spansion are taking a beating Friday after the company disclosed weaker-than-expected 3Q11 results and highly disappointing guidance for the fourth quarter.

Samsung Electronics' president expects Thailand floods to further hit the computer memory chip market by hurting PC production until the first quarter of 2012.