To cut costs, Nakagawa is considering outsourcing production of the Cell multimedia chip.

But these graphene transistors were very leaky, ...but now the Manchester team has found an elegant way around the problem and made graphene-based transistors suitable for use in future computer chips.

Orders for Japanese semiconductor-making equipment hit a six-year high in January as chip makers bet on future demand for PCs, flat TVs, mobile phones and other gadgets, an industry group said on Wednesday.

Il Ung Kim, the sixth Samsung executive to plead guilty, has agreed to serve 14 months in a US prison, the longest imprisonment ever by a foreign defendant charged with price fixing in the US, according to the US' Department of Justice (DoJ).