The largest semiconductor companies will need to shoulder much of the burden for the expensive R&D projects facing the chip industry, including the development of 450mm equipment and the inspection tools needed for EUV masks, said Dan Armbrust, the new CEO at Sematech.

The former boss of Samsung Electronics, who was convicted of tax evasion and later given a presidential pardon, has returned to head the company. Analysts see Lee's return as good news for the electronics giant.

Intersil and Techwell have entered into a definitive agreement for Intersil to acquire Techwell through a cash tender offer at US$18.50 per share. "The addition of Techwell's mixed signal video products will help our customers build solutions that improve performance, reduce overall cost and shorten time-to-market," said Dave Bell, Intersil's president and CEO.

Samsung Electronics, Asia's biggest maker of chips, flat screens and mobile phones, has said it aims to post higher operating profit this year than in 2009.

Its technology, called QuantumFilm, is four times more efficient at capturing light than traditional silicon-based image sensor chips, meaning the company's sensors will offer either higher sensitivity in low light or more megapixels in resolution.

SMIC, China's top contract chipmaker, is planning to raise up to US$500 million through a private equity placement or overseas convertible bond, two sources with knowledge of the issue told Reuters on Friday.

TriQuint Semiconductor, which provides chips for mobile gadgets such as Apple's iPhone, has hiked its profit forecast for the quarter, a sign that demand is improving.

"Asia is a very strategic region for Spansion in the fast growing embedded electronics markets," said John Kispert, president and CEO of Spansion. "With the addition of SL Chan, we have strengthened our team with a veteran sales and marketing executive who will be a key asset for the company's new business strategy..."

Renewable energy investment may rise by 23% this year as government stimulus funds mainly in the US and Europe are spent wind turbines and solar panels.

Globalfoundries Fab 1 in Dresden, Germany is undergoing several major changes, including integration of separate modules into an integrated facility. With a steep 32nm MPU ramp underway that includes high-k/metal gate technology, the fab is also now running foundry wafers for non-AMD customers.

NEC Electronics has announced it plans to double production of its USB-IF certified SuperSpeed USB (USB 3.0) host controller, and is expecting to reach monthly production of two million units starting April 2010.

Representatives from GlobalFoundries and TSMC said their companies are focused on tighter cooperation with EDA and IP vendors. The comments were part of a panel discussion at the Design, Automation and Test in Europe (DATE) conference, held last week in Dresden, Germany.

Ramifications of slowed manufacturing capacity output and a lack of capital expenditure over the past 24 months, combined with increased demand driven by a hot PC market, has resulted in a very positive environment for DRAM pricing.

Elpida Memory is expected to return to the black with an operating profit of almost 20 billion yen (US$222 million) for the year ending this month, buoyed by a recovery in DRAM chip prices, according to the Nikkei business daily.

Dongbu, MagnaChip, TowerJazz and X-Fab are expanding their wings with new capabilities or alliances.

Applied Materials topped the list of semiconductor equipment vendors for the eighteenth consecutive year in 2009, a year in which mere survival was noteworthy amid a painful recession and steep industry downturn, according to VLSI Research.

Applied Materials has ramped up its lobbying effort during the last three months of 2009, spending close to a half-million dollars trying to sway lawmakers on energy policy and other issues.

Two of China's top chipmakers and Intel's lone China factory are all running at or near full capacity, as China's sector rebounds more quickly than the rest of the world, according to senior executives at the three firms.

China-based Vimicro International, which has posted two consecutive annual losses, may break even in 2010 as economic recovery bolsters its domestic sales, according to company chairman John Deng.

MagnaChip Semiconductor has filed to raise up to US$250 million in an initial public offering of common stock under the proposed trading symbol of MX on the New York Stock Exchange.

Hynix Semiconductor creditors sold a 923.2 billion won (US$814 million) stake in the world's second-largest maker of computer-memory chips after three failed attempts.

On the heels of OCZ Technology's release of its first sub-US$100 solid-state drive (SSD), Intel has revealed it is shipping a US$125 SSD called the X25-V Value SATA SSD.

Abu Dhabi-backed foundry Globalfoundries is planning to spend US$2.5 billion to increase its 300mm wafer manufacturing capacity by 50% in 2010, according to Udo Nothelfer, company VP and general manager of Fab 1 in Dresden, Germany.

A strong earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.6 jolted northern Japan on Sunday, shaking buildings in the capital Tokyo some 240km (150 miles) away. Fujitsu has said operations at its semiconductor plant in Fukushima prefecture, northeast Japan, were not affected by the quake.

A JP Morgan analyst has warned of what he considers to be the first warning signs that supply may be starting to outstrip demand in the chip sector. "After a strong start to 2010 characterized by low inventory, rampant component shortages, and extended lead times, we are starting to see our first negative data points..."

Hynix Semiconductor has said it would invest 465 billion won (US$410 million) to expand and upgrade its production capacity and research and development.

Former Sun Microsystems chief made announcement on personal blog this week

Technology managers have strong opinions on the merits of the gate-first and gate-last methods of depositing high-k dielectrics and metal gate electrodes. Controlling the PMOS V appears challenging with the gate-first method, while the gate-last approach requires layout engineers to adhere to new restrictive design rules to accommodate planarization requirements.

FormFactor, which makes probe cards used for testing wafers directly, has opened a new facility in Singapore as part of efforts to grow its business in Asia.

Konica Minolta has decided to enhance its production capacity of glass substrates of hard disk drives (HDDs) by adding production line in response to a rapid growth in demand and the accelerated increase in storage density.

In a major departure, Samsung Electronics is reportedly exploring an alternative in high-k dielectrics: It is looking at gate-last technology, according to sources.