STMicroelectronics could make some analog ICs on 300mm wafers at its Crolles-2 wafer fab near Grenoble, France, according to CEO Carlo Bozotti.

Japan's Sanyo Electricis in talks with several suppliers, including a Taiwanese firm, to procure solar cells

SanDisk's SSD P4 and SSD G4 offer up to 128GB and 256GB of storage, respectively, double the capacities of the company's previous SSD offerings.

The company is making its SolarMagic technology available as a chipset that can be integrated into the junction boxes of solar panels. Until now, the power optimizer hardware, first introduced a year ago, was available as an add-on product.

Trina Solar announced its research agreement with the Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore to develop an all-back-contact high-efficiency silicon wafer solar cell using Trina solar's monocrystalline wafers.

"ATIC is not in a position to do this in this stage of our capital deployment," said Ibrahim Ajami, CEO of Advanced Technology.

Hynix Semiconductor said on May 31 it would raise its capital expenditure by a third to 3.05 trillion won (US$2.5 billion) this year to take advantage of a strong recovery in the global technology sector.

Toshiba, Hynix, Micron and Elpida all moved up at least one position in the top 20 list, with Elpida jumping six spots.

Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC) is still in talks with Texas Instruments (TI) about taking over the operation of a 200mm fab in Chengdu, China, according to sources.

Greenliant, a new company headed by SST's former management, will use the acquired product lines to form the core of its solid-state storage product portfolio for the embedded system, data center, and mobile Internet markets.

Daimler AG and BYD set up a 50-50-owned new joint venture-Shenzhen BYD Daimler New Technology-to develop a new green-car brand for the Chinese market.

Aixtron and Veeco dominate what's known as the MOCVD market for LED applications and have been seeing strong demand amid increasing display sales for items such as TVs. But some investors have worried demand and bookings could soon weaken as the LED market sees excess supply.

ASML has announced that four TWINSCAN XT:1900Gi lithography systems have joined its "One Million Wafer Club" of scanners that have processed more than one million silicon wafers within 12 months, underlining the importance and acceptance of this advanced technology in mainstream chip manufacturing.

The first ASIC prototypes implemented in ST's 32LPH (low-power high-performance) process technology are expected early in 2011 with production ramp-up in the second half of 2011.

Trina Solar Limited announced today its financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2010.

Qualcomm has announced the opening of a new, multi-million dollar R&D center in Shanghai, which will focus on advancing chipset solutions to better address China's increasing need for high quality and affordable 3G handsets with customized features and time-to-market advantages.

South Korea's won fell the most in more than a year and the nation's stocks slumped following a report by a defector group that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il ordered the military to prepare for conflict.

Spansion CEO John Kispert also said he could not confirm a recent Nikkei report indicating Texas Instruments was in final talks to buy two plants owned by Spansion Japan, as Spansion Japan is now a separate entity from Spansion.

We all know that for the absolute best throughput of storage available to us today, it's in solid-state-drives. The problem with SSDs is cost and the limited storage capacity in comparison to the magnetic solutions. But upcoming solutions from Seagate and Toshiba may be able to come up with something in between.

Many South Koreans joke they inhabit "the Republic of Samsung." But a one-time insider at the powerful Korean conglomerate has launched a scathing attack on his former employer, saying Korean politicians and media turn a blind-eye to the company's misdeeds.

The demand for medical instrumentation - combined with new and lower-cost transducers - means that analog-circuit design and interface for this market segment a growth area with lots of innovation and interesting work.

"As a result of this successful qualification, we currently expect to ship a significant number of tools to Epistar this year. We are excited that we have been chosen to support their volume capacity ramp in 2010...," said Bill Miller, senior VP, GM of Veeco's MOCVD Operations.

Under the terms of the royalty bearing agreement, Qualcomm has granted CK Telecom a worldwide patent license to develop, manufacture and sell WCDMA and TD-SCDMA subscriber units and modem cards/modules.

But he declined to comment directly on market rumors that Intel could buy Infineon's wireless unit, which produces chips used in mobile network technology. "We have nothing we have to sell urgently..."

Elpida plans to withdraw its patent lawsuits filed with the Virginia US district court while Infineon and its US subsidiary have agreed to abandon a patent infringement complaint against Elpida and other respondents filed last February with the US International Trade Commission in Washington D.C.

"Applied's stronger second quarter results were led by revenues and profitability gains in our silicon and FPD businesses," said Mike Splinter, chairman and CEO of Applied Materials. "Global demand for computing and consumer electronics is giving our customers the confidence to make significant capacity additions, fueling what we believe will be a multiyear growth cycle..."

The Commission has adopted a decision settling a cartel investigation and imposing a fine totalling about 331 million euros (US$409 million) on Samsung, Hynix, Infineon, NEC, Hitachi, Mitsubishi, Toshiba, Elpida and Nanya.

Intel has announced that Intel-Micron Flash Technologies are in mass production of their 25nm NAND flash memory, and Intel is shipping in volume to customers.

"Current strong market conditions will last for at least another three or four quarters...we are considering raising (capital investment for this year) by 20-30%," according to Hynix CFO Kim Min-chul.

An IC foundry has made it into the ranks of the Top 20 MEMS foundries for the first time, as TSMC's roughly US$10 million in MEMS foundry revenues put it into 14th place on Yole Developpement's 2009 listing.

Perhaps because of that history major suppliers have not been installing capacity, which indicates that prices will continue to increase until at least the last quarter of 2010, when capacity may again be able to meet demand, according to a Gartner analyst.

"I think it'll be a story in 2011, and it'll be pretty good penetration in 2012. But, you know, maybe I'm wrong," said Mark Durcan, president and CEO of Micron Technology.

Micron Technology sees strong demand for computer memory this year even as major players like Samsung invest billions of dollars to increase production, according to company president Mark Durcan.

European Union regulators are expected to fine nine makers of memory chips, including Samsung, Infineon and Hynix, this week on charges of illegally fixing prices. Others set to be fined are Elpida, NEC Electronics, Hitachi, Toshiba, Mitsubishi and Nanya.