The US ITC has found Nvidia and several of its customers liable for infringing three Rambus patents in a hotly contested dispute over technology for memory controllers.

"With closer access to the Arm technology we will be able to enhance our R&D activities for ARM-based products," said KD Hallman, general manager, Microsoft.

Following a third consecutive record-breaking sales quarter reported by Xilinx Wednesday (July 22), at least one Wall Street analyst reiterated his contention that extending lead times by the leading FPGA supplier put it at risk of double ordering.

Despite losses at ST-Ericsson, STMicroelectronics' revenues for the second quarter of 2010 totaled US$2.531 billion, up 8.9% sequentially and 27% on year. ST reported net profits of US$356 million for the quarter, compared to profits of US$57 million in the prior quarter and losses of US$318 million in the year-ago period.

Eli Harari, founder, chairman and CEO of SanDisk, will retire from his current positions on December 31, 2010. Sanjay Mehrotra, currently SanDisk's president and COO, will succeed Harari.

Chip designer Rambus has reported bigger-than-expected losses for the second quarter of 2010, although revenues rose with the help of agreements signed earlier this year with Samsung Electronics.

Xilinx has announced first quarter fiscal 2011 sales of US$594.7 million, up 12% sequentially and 58% on year. Net profits for the quarter reached US$158.6 million, compared to profits of US$148.5 million in the prior quarter and US$38 million a year ago.

Qualcomm, the largest wireless chipmaker, has said the mobile phone industry had reached a "transformative stage" as it reported third-quarter sales and profits ahead of expectations.

The talk of a Samsung-Infineon deal surfaced in German publication Manager Magazine but neither firm would comment. Two years ago, Samsung greatly extended its purchasing of cellphone chips from Infineon, largely at the expense of Qualcomm.

Applied Materials has announced it will stop new sales of its "turnkey" SunFab thin-film solar manufacturing line and concentrate on silicon solar and LED lighting. The restructuring of its Energy and Environmental Solutions business will lead to the elimination of 400-500 positions and a third-quarter charge between US$375-425 million.

Samsung has begun mass producing what it claims is the industry's first 2Gb DDR3 memory using 30nm-class process technology. The chip was introduced on February 1.

China mapped out investment of 5 trillion yuan ($738 billion) into alternative energy over the next decade, an official with the National Energy Administration (NEA) said Tuesday.

Programmable logic vendor Altera set a new all-time high in quarterly sales in the second quarter of 2010. It also beat consensus analyst expectations for sales and net income during the quarter.

"We'll seek opportunities including acquisitions and partnerships," executive officer Takehiro Fukuda, who oversees finance and accounting at Elpida, said in a recent interview. "We need to further expand the range of our business in areas such as mobile phone and television chips, and we plan to cut our debt-to-equity ratio to 1 from 1.3 by year-end and eventually to 0.3."

Samsung in June announced plans to expand the capacity of its 12-inch chip plant in Austin with a US$3.6 billion investment, and hire 500 more workers there by 2011.

Google Energy has signed a deal to purchase 114 megawatts of energy from a wind farm in Iowa, marking the first deal done by Google's energy subsidiary.

Now, many or all the famous (Nvidia, Qualcomm, Marvel...) TSMC customers already use ARM designs with TSMC, but this deal might make things easier for smaller ones. In short: expect to see ARM continue to proliferate on the mobile computing market.

Texas Instruments has said weaker-than-expected orders from one mobile phone customer, identified as Nokia by some analysts, caused second-quarter revenues to miss Wall Street forecasts.

Brian Toohey has taken office as president of the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), succeeding George Scalise who had led the association since 1997.

China has passed the U.S. to become the world's biggest energy consumer, according to new data from the International Energy Agency, a milestone that reflects both China's decades-long burst of economic growth and its rapidly expanding clout as an industrial giant.

Applied Materials "has not made a dent in the mask shop," said Brian Trafas, chief marketing officer at KLA-Tencor. "They have a few systems in the fab, but it's a small share."

Analysts expect that it recovered to pre-recession levels in the just-ended quarter, as manufacturers ramp up production of electronics that use TI chips and build inventories.

GSI Technology is growing fast by selling specialty memory chips, but the small company wants to grow to the next level.

Japan's Sanyo Electric is to sell its loss-making chip unit to ON Semiconductor for about 33 billion yen (US$373 million), turning its focus to environmentally friendly technology.

Germany's move comes as Italy plans a 30% cut in its FIT for next year. That could force Italian developers to build as fast as possible in the 2H10, much like German developers did in 1H. The lower drop in FIT gives manufacturers time to make a transition to markets such as the United States and Canada, which have the possibility of being larger than Europe, based on combined electricity demand and land available for development.

The most important announcement from SEMICON West was a subtle statement from Globalfoundries about tools. Putting some bits together, it is pretty clear that the company is going to use EUV lithography at the 15nm node.

Hitachi's delay in supplying electronic controls to Nissan was caused by STMicroelectronics' failure to meet a microchip order.

General Motors said on Wednesday that it would guarantee the battery on its forthcoming Chevy Volt for eight years or 100,000 miles - better than the typical five-year or 100,000-mile warranty it typically offers for the powertrain on its conventional cars.

First-half gross domestic product rose 11.1%, implying that second-quarter growth slowed from the first quarter's 11.9% pace.

The state of California is suing federal mortgage lending giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for blocking implementation of a program that helps property owners to install solar energy systems, it was announced today at a San Diego news conference

Toshiba has started construction of Fab 5 at Yokkaichi Operations, its memory production facility in Mie Prefecture, according to the company. The chip vendor also announced it has signed primary agreements with SanDisk for a new joint venture to operate the new facility.

Applied Materials said demand for semiconductor and solar-panel manufacturing equipment in Europe is growing rapidly, a sign the region's debt crisis isn't crimping spending.