EV Group (EVG) and Brewer Science have announced the installation of an EVG 500 series wafer-bonding system at Brewer Science's Taiwan applications lab. Located in Hsinchu Science Park, this joint effort offers customers localized support in the Asia-Pacific region for 3D IC and other advanced process development programs.

Sumitomo, Chisso and Cambrios Technologies have agreed the companies will jointly promote and commercialize "wet-coatable" transparent conductive ink as a replacement for ITO (indium tin oxide) in the field of TFT-LCD.

Motorola is cutting 4,000 more jobs as consumers stave off purchases amid the economic recession. Revenues in the fourth period fell to between US$7-7.2 billion. Sales of US$7 billion would represent a 27%drop from a year earlier.

The Sony PlayStation 2 debuted in 2000, before the beginning of the Bush administration, when Google Inc. was still a private search startup and the iPod and Windows XP hadn't been born. Yet despite its age in a business obsessed with the new, the video game console remains a big seller today. In fact, Sony Corp. announced Tuesday that it has sold 50 million PlayStation 2 units in North America.

Economic weakness continued to spread across the nation as real estate markets remained in distress and consumers kept their pocketbooks closed, according to the latest Federal Reserve report on regional economic conditions.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs said Wednesday he will take a leave of absence from the computer and music-player maker because of health issues. Apple shares fell 8% to $78.40 in after-hours trading. They were halted after closing down $2.38 to $85.33 in Wednesday regular-hours trading.

Freescale Semiconductor reacted to weakening business conditions Tuesday with a series of austerity moves to cut spending. The Austin-based chipmaker said it will temporarily freeze all salaries and promotions, require executives to take pay cuts and force all workers to take five unpaid days off in the first quarter.

Japanese electronics giant Toshiba has confirmed it is in talks to buy Fujitsu's hard disk drive (HDD) arm. The Nikkei business daily said any deal between Fujitsu and Toshiba would be worth 30bn-40bn yen ($340m-$450m; £233m-£308m).

FormFactor, which specializes in wafer probe cards, has announced a global reorganization and cost reduction plan. As part of the plan the company will reduce its workforce by 22%.

Nortel Networks Corp, North America's biggest telephone equipment maker, filed for bankruptcy on Wednesday, hoping to save a once highflying business whose decade-long decline has accelerated with the global economic crisis.

The creditors of Hynix Semiconductor yesterday said they aimed to sell their 36% controlling stake in the world's second-largest maker of memory chips by the end of September.

Nearly 1,500 CEOs left their jobs last year, including 221 in the technology and telecommunications sector, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc.

Gartner is canceling two of its biggest technology conferences due to the economic downturn. "As a result of this review, we have decided to cancel this year's Spring Symposium/ITxpo in Las Vegas and Barcelona. While a number of factors influenced this decision, the primary reason for the change is the current macro economic environment and its anticipated impact on attendee travel and overall event attendance," Gartner said in the statement.

Company bankruptcies in Japan jumped 24.7% in December from a year earlier, as the financial crisis pummelled the world's second-largest economy.

A severe economic slowdown in China is one of the biggest risks faced by the world this year, the World Economic Forum (WEF) has warned.

Yahoo announced Tuesday that it had hired veteran technology executive Carol Bartz as its new CEO. Separately, Yahoo said President Sue Decker will resign after a transitional period.

When George W Bush wanted a vice-president, he appointed Dick Cheney to head up a search team. When the team reported back, the selected candidate turned out to be…Dick Cheney. The Cadence board, having been a major contributor to Cadence’s problems through their selection of executive management and guidance given them, have also been off searching for a new CEO. And the selected candidate is…Lip-Bu Tan, member of the Cadence board.

Indian IT services provider Infosys Technologies on Tuesday reported a more than 6% increase in fiscal third-quarter profit and said it is seeing no fallout from the Satyam debacle, but warned that the pricing environment is challenging and trimmed its outlook for the full year.

Last week's tech gadget extravaganza in Sin City drew an estimated 110,000 attendees, down 22% from last year's audited total. But according to the CEA, board members reported getting more business done this year than at any prior show, which may prompt organizers to take steps to limit future attendance in order to ensure the right people attend the event.

Seagate Technology on Monday shook up its executive ranks as the No. 1 maker of computer hard-disk drives replaced Chief Executive William Watkins with the company's chairman, Stephen Luczo. The move comes less than a week after Seagate said it would cut about 10% of its US-based workforce.

Hynix Semiconductor said on Monday it believed the fourth quarter of 2008 was the bottom in the ongoing memory chip downturn, and that it was open to further financing. "Although we do not expect any rapid recovery, we are cautiously hopeful that the fourth quarter [of 2008] may have represented a bottom in the downturn," Hynix CEO Kim Jong-kap said during a news conference.

KLA-Tencor, a microchip manufacturing equipment maker, slashed its sales estimate for the fiscal second quarter, citing economic turmoil and the ongoing decline of the semiconductor industry.

German memory chip maker Qimonda AG's long-term chances of survival are limited, despite its recent bailout, as Taiwan's chip makers strengthen their alliances with peers from Japan and the US. Those alliances could leave Qimonda without a technology partner and cast it as a minor player in the industry.

Loss making NOR flash memory market leader, Spansion is facing growing concerns over its liquidity status with credit ratings specialist, Fitch Ratings, lowering its view on approximately US$1.3 billion of debt to a 'negative' outlook. Fitch noted that Spansion's total debts were US$1.6 billion.