Price pressure, caused by overcapacities in the worldwide solar panel business are exerting pressure on the solar panel value chain.

Besides adding manufacturing capacity through ATIC's acquisition of Chartered and the construction of a new plant in New York, Globalfoundries is counting on advanced process technologies to help it win customers and compete with rivals like TSMC.

Consumers are changing buying patterns, placing a new emphasis on value and gravitating toward products that promise to improve their lifestyles, such as netbooks, portable navigation devices (PNDs), digital TVs, DVD recorders and video game consoles.

OCZ Technology has announced its collaboration with SandForce on its next-generation mainstream and enterprise solid state drives (SSD).

South Korea's Hyosung has withdrawn its bid for Hynix Semiconductor, throwing the future of the world's second-largest memory chipmaker into doubt again.

Applied Materials has announced it will cut 10% and 12% of its global workforce over the next 18 months, with half of the cuts in the US. Applied saw net income for its fiscal 2009 fourth quarter slip 40% on year.

"The problem for Applied and the problem for semi equipment in general is that it's highly unlikely that we're going back to 2007 capital spending levels..."

Solid state drive (SSD) controller start-up SandForce has closed US$21 million in series C funding. Led by new investor TransLink Capital, the round also included new investors UMC Capital, LSI, Red Maple Ventures, Darwin Ventures and A-Data Technology.

Intel will release a US$120 solid-state disk (SSD) drive positioned as a server "boot drive" with only 40GB of capacity, but the drive could also be used in low-end laptops PCs and netbooks.

Applied Materials has acquired substantially all the assets, including the intellectual property, of Advent Solar for an undisclosed cash amount. Advent Solar is a developer of advanced technology for crystalline silicon (c-Si) PVs.

Samsung unveiled a multi-chip memory package that it claims is the thinnest ever, for smartphones, portable media players, laptops and other mobile electronics.

The capacitors are hollow - no more hemispherical-grain polysilicon to increase the surface area. Which implies that a high-k dielectric has been used, to keep the cell capacitance up.

"Chartered shareholders have spoken overwhelmingly in favor of the acquisition...as we believe this offer enables Chartered to accelerate its goal of becoming a leading player in the semiconductor industry," said Jim Norling, chairman of the board of directors at Chartered.

The jury in the two-month-long TSMC vs. SMIC trade secrets trial has ruled in TSMC's favor after several days of deliberation. The jury found that SMIC has been misappropriating TSMC's trade secrets since a 2005 legal settlement was reached between the two foundries.

Cambridge Silicon Radio (CSR) has shipped more than 1.5 billion units and processed more than one million wafers from foundry partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). CSR also announced that it is collaborating with TSMC on a 40nm low power (LP) RF process technology.

Toshiba eked out a small profit in the July-September quarter on cost-cutting and higher sales of memory chips. The electronics company reported a net profit of 100 million yen (US$1.1 million) for the fiscal second quarter, up from a net loss of 26.9 billion yen in the same period a year earlier.

Intel and Numonyx have announced a key breakthrough in the research of phase change memory (PCM). Researchers have demonstrated a 64Mb test chip that enables the ability to stack, or place, multiple layers of PCM arrays within a single die.

Samsung Electronics, the world's top maker of memory chips and LCD screens, reported on Friday its best ever quarterly net profit on a resurgent memory sector and forecast a strong 2010.

Sharp, Japan's largest maker of liquid-crystal displays, posted a second straight half-year loss because of declining sales of LCD panels. The net loss was 17.7 billion yen (US$196 million) in the six months ended September 30, compared with a profit of 28 billion yen a year earlier.

Renesas Technology has reached a preliminary agreement to transfer its semiconductor manufacturing equipment business to Hitachi High-Technologies.