Ailing Japanese chipmaker Elpida Memory has said that it was in alliance talks with three Taiwanese firms but denied a report that they had reached an accord on merging their operations. The Nikkei economic daily reported Wednesday that Elpida had reached a basic agreement with the Taiwanese companies to integrate in a bid to survive amid falling demand for semiconductors.

For the fourth quarter of fiscal 2009, revenues were US$481.1 million compared to US$1.2 billion for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2008, a decrease of 60%. For the twelve months ended January 25, 2009, revenues were US$3.4 billion compared to US$4.1 billion for the twelve months ended January 27, 2008, a decrease of 16%.

German technology company Infineon Technologies AG has said it would expand a Hungarian production facility which makes components for solar and wind power systems, as a result of strong demand for the products.

Elpida Memory executives met Taiwan officials in Taipei today (Feb 11) to discuss integration of the memory-chip industry, Chen Chao-yih, head of Taiwan's industrial development bureau, said in a phone interview.

Advanced Micro Devices has said that it failed to get enough shareholders at its special meeting in order to vote for the creation of The Foundry Company (TFC) and spin off manufacturing capacities for the company. The company will now delay the vote by more than a week to get a quorum.

SanDisk is disclosing at a San Francisco technology conference Tuesday that it will begin mass production of memory chips that will allow consumers to store up to 64GB of data on tiny flash cards. The company's X4 technology will pack four bits of data into each memory cell. To date, flash memory chipmakers typically stored one bit or two bits per cell.

Qimonda AG, the German chipmaker that has filed for insolvency protection, has begun reducing production at its plant in Dresden to about one quarter of capacity, cutting the amount of silicon wafers it processes.

A Qimonda spokesman, Ralph Heinrich, said in a telephone interview that the division is in talks with potential investors in Asia. Wirtschaftswoche magazine reported that CSMC Technologies, a unit of China Resources Microelectronics, is interested in buying Munich-based Qimonda and has been negotiating with the company for months, citing an unidentified person in the industry.

Toshiba has developed a higher capacity version of its FeRAM (Ferroelectric RAM) memory that can send and receive data at eight times the speed of its previously detailed prototype.

Struggling German chip maker Infineon is considering a partnership in Europe or Asia even though it can survive alone, its chairman told a newspaper, but analysts said chances for an alliance were slim.

Recent production adjustments for NAND flash memory won't bring the desired effect of stabilizing and increasing prices, a research report published by Baird suggests. Manufacturers will have to brace for further production cuts and price declines in the second quarter, while consumers should benefit from this scenario through cheaper flash memory devices, especially in SSDs.

Japanese electronics maker Sharp Corp. said Friday it will cut 1,500 contract workers in Japan by the end of March, and is headed for a billion dollar annual loss, its first in nearly 60 years.

Toshiba is planning to allow a total of about 16,700 workers to take on second jobs while they are on temporary leave due to production cuts in its struggling semiconductor and LCD divisions, company officials said Thursday.

Tessera reported 4Q sales of $69.1 million, up 30% year over year, in line with estimates, and profit of 41 cents per share, excluding some costs, which was ahead of the average estimate of 36 cents. The company designs devices that attach chips to PCBs and gets royalty payments for the use of those designs by others.

German chipmaker Infineon Technologies AG reported Friday a ？404 million ($513 million) net loss for its fiscal first quarter as the global economic slowdown crimped demand and caused sales to fall.

Chip maker ON Semiconductor said Wednesday it expects first-quarter revenue in the range of US$340 million to $380 million, which is below Wall Street's expectations.

ALLVIA, the first through-silicon via (TSV) foundry, has secured US$5 million from private investors in its next round of funding to expand manufacturing facilities and to build more capacity. This brings the total funding invested in the company to US$25 million.

Michael Jaffe, the insolvency lawyer for Qimonda AG, will fly to Asia by the end of this week to meet potential investors for the German memory-chip maker.

The US-Taiwan Business Council, in its "Semiconductor Quarterly Report--Annual Review, 2008," contends that Taiwan is facing a critical strategic crossroads that will impact the future of its semiconductor sector, and particularly the DRAM industry, for years to come.

STMicroelectronics and Ericsson has announced the closing of their agreement merging Ericsson Mobile Platforms and ST-NXP Wireless into a 50/50 joint venture. The deal was completed on the terms originally announced on August 20, 2008. Ericsson contributed US$1.1 billion net to the joint venture, out of which US$0.7 billion was paid to ST.

Unlike past US recessions, chipmakers can't count on boosting overseas sales this time because the economic slowdown has so quickly gone global. Slowing exports is a challenge for the chipmakers, which do most sales overseas. Three of the largest US chipmakers are taking different tacks to cut manufacturing costs in the face of a steep global recession.

Samsung Electronics on Wednesday said it plans to start selling by the end of 2009 a DRAM chip built with its new 40-nanometer technology, which is expected to use significantly less power than the current generation of memory chips used in PCs.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has launched an initiative to boost the development of solar energy technology, in a bid to turn it into a major energy source in China by 2050. The plan will be carried out in three phases, including "utilization in selective areas" by 2015, "utilization as an alternative energy" by 2025 and "large-scale utilization" by 2035, respectively.

The Japanese chip maker Elpida Memory said Wednesday that it may seek government funds under a new program intended to support nonfinancial firms hit by the economic crisis.

Qimonda will shut its only U.S. plant with the loss of around 1,500 jobs, the insolvent German memory chip maker said on Tuesday, adding it faced liquidation if it cannot find investors with deep pockets.

European Union Industry Commissioner Guenter Verheugen sees no chance to save Germany's insolvent chip maker Qimonda with the tools available to the EU, he said in a newspaper interview on Tuesday. 'Nobody can save a company whose owner does not want to save it.'