Europe certainly sounds like they are years ahead in BIPV compared with the US.

The equipment vendor has commented that DRAM companies are expected to scale back their spending "considerably" throughout 2011, and investments in LCD technology will likely be weak for at least a couple of quarters.

Solar panel producer Suntech Power Holdings Co. said Wednesday it is buying 375 megawatts of wafer manufacturing capacity in China for $127 million.

Toshiba will shut its No.2 plant in Yokkaichi, central Japan, by the end of December and phase out low-end chips used in products such as memory sticks. The company will also farm out production of so-called logic chips next year to cut costs at a business that's "barely breaking even."

The new cells are specially designed to meet tough French regulations on the aesthetics of solar installations.

This new investment round was led by Intel Capital and includes new funding from strategic investors and Anobit's current investors. Anobit is a provider of NAND-based products and systems ranging from embedded flash controllers to enterprise-class SSD.

Warren East, chief executive of ARM, said the market for tablet PCs could grow to as much as 60m unit sales in 2011 as he brushed aside concerns that Intel would pose a major competitive threat to the UK chip company in the fast-growing market.

German chipmaker Infineon has reported strong fourth-quarter results, and said it plans to give back cash to shareholders for the first time in a decade.

AMD said it has joined open source MeeGo project, led by rival Intel and Nokia.

TV panel chipmaker MStar Semiconductor plans to raise up to US$300 million in an IPO ahead of a listing in Taiwan slated for December, according to a person familiar with the deal.

The Semiconductor Research Corp. (SRC) has announced it is extending its university research partnership to serve the needs of technology ecosystem in Abu Dhabi. Under the agreement SRC member companies will conduct research sponsored by the Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC), the parent of Globalfoundries.

China, the world's largest producer of rare-earth metals, will speed up exports of the minerals after delays disrupted supply, according to Japan's Trade Minister Akihiro Ohata.

Instead of using China as a production base, Hynix in its early days produced a wide range of high-tech products in South Korea that it then exported to China and other countries.

Citigroup analyst Timothy Arcuri asserted in a research note that Samsung is pushing out US$750 million to US$1 billion of equipment orders targeted at DRAM capacity expansion. Lam is the company most exposed to the move, Arcuri said.

The sale of new tablet PCs and smartphones with solid-state storage technology is compensating for weak demand for memory cards and USB flash drives, and has led to a 17% quarter-to-quarter increase in NAND flash shipments and an average price drop of about 9%.

New suggested pricing for the Intel X25-M Mainstream SATA SSD is now US$199 for an 80GB drive. Users can double the storage capacity with a 160GB X25-M drive for US$415. The company has also added a new 120GB version of the Intel X25-M for US$249.

Trina Solar said it is interested in teaming with or investing in developers in Europe, where solar-panel makers have extra capacity.

Kingston Technology has appointed Ingram Micro as one of its national distributors for its DRAM business in India.

"The company has a small foundry business, which operates under the radar and is 'always looking' for customers," according to one source. "The company has been doing this for sometime, but not saying anything about it or at least not publicizing it."

Analysts expect Qualcomm to benefit from new drivers in the market, including the launch of the revamped Windows Phone platform and the expected expansion of Apple's iPhone to new carriers in 2011.

"Overall, the SIA forecast for 2012 looks like the "death" of the semiconductor industry, and we couldn't disagree more!" said Bill McClean, president of IC Insights. In IC Insights opinion, 2012 has tremendous upside potential for the semiconductor industry.

Solyndra said it has scuttled its factory expansion in Fremont, a move that will stop the company's plans to hire 1,000 workers.

Elpida will slash production at its Hiroshima site and at the plant of Taiwanese subsidiary Rexchip Electronics and will consider postponing the construction of a plant in Taiwan, the Nikkei reported.

Chipmaker Qualcomm wants to expand in Europe via both organic and acquisition-fueled growth, its top man in the region told a German daily in an interview published on Wednesday.

While Intel is almost certain to do other foundry deals like the one announced today, we don't see the chipmaker actually pursuing a real foundry model. Rather, Achronix and deals like it will enable Intel to develop new markets with less downside risk, and will ultimately grow the company's IDM business through acquisitions.

Canesta makes chips that, when coupled with a digital camera, give all manner of devices a sense of depth perception for the world around them, letting them "see" in three dimensions.

Intel, Toshiba and Samsung Electronics will join hands to develop technologies that could more than halve semiconductor line widths to nearly 10 nanometers by 2016, the Nikkei daily reported.

Another source familiar with the situation said the money would likely be used to expand capacity at the company's Beijing plant, specifically to quickly ramp-up production of chips using 65nm technology.

Achronix Semiconductor has announced strategic access to Intel's 22nm process technology, and plans to develop the most advanced FPGAs.

Intel has announced the opening of a massive US$1 billion chip testing and assembly facility in Vietnam. The factory has a total area of 46,000 square meters.