Qimonda's insolvency administrator Michael Jaffe was hoping for signs that there would be further talks in both countries, Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported on Thursday, citing company sources.

The global semiconductor industry is likely to have hit its bottom in the fourth quarter of last year, the chief executive of South Korea's Hynix Semiconductor said Thursday.

The German state of Saxony isn't ruling out taking up an indirect stake in bankrupt computer chipmaker Qimonda AG anymore, the state's governor said Thursday.

An end-of-March deadline for Qimonda AG to find investors has been extended, and liquidation of the memory-chip maker is still a possibility, according to court officials in Munich.

"We want to make sure the government will not simply inject capital into any industry, but hope we could use our leverage to help build up the industry again," Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou said in a speech.

"We are considering a number of choices best for our firm, but are putting top priority on a technological alliance with Taiwan Memory," Elpida said in a statement.

Shares in Asia's major makers of DRAM chips fell sharply Friday (March 6), on profit-taking and concerns that Taiwan's proposal to realign its struggling chip sector through mergers may take time and do little to change weak industry fundamentals.

DRAM manufacturers may not see the financial benefits of the expected rebound in memory device prices until the second-half of 2009, but can take comfort from the latest forecast from IC Insights that prices will rise from 1Q09 onwards, calling a bottom to the precipitous declines year-on-year, due to the massive overcapacity and now weakening demand.

Hundreds of laid-off Qimonda Richmond employees will not be paid their final paychecks or receive wages for vacation days and time off they earned before being dismissed by the memory-chip maker.

Micron Technology's decision to cut as many as 2,000 jobs and scale back memory chip production is a "prudent" move, a Deutsche Bank analyst said.

ProMOS has announced that it intends to commence a tender offer (the "Tender Offer") for its US$350mm Zero Coupon Convertible Bonds issuance due 2012 (the "Convertible Bonds"). Funding for this Tender Offer will be provided by a new NT$3 billion syndicated loan facility arranged by Bank of Taiwan with commitment letter dated February 17, 2009 (the "Facility"). This Facility is, as yet, subject to finalization by each of the participating banks and represents the entire and only source of funding for this tender offer.

module supplier Kingston Technology has said it wants to help the DRAM chip sector consolidate as it remains mired in its worst downturn, and it expects to see an upturn as early as this year. "We want to play a helpful role," John Tu, president and co-founder of Kingston, told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of the Mobile World Congress trade show.

Qimonda's works council urged German Chancellor Angela Merkel to help save the insolvent memory chipmaker. "Act now, dear Mrs Chancellor, so that technological dominance in semiconductors in Germany and Europe will not be lost."

According to new market share figures from Gartner, both Samsung Electronics and Micron Technology have gained the most share in the DRAM market in the fourth quarter of 2008, as rivals struggle to preserve cash by cutting production. Samsung held a 29.5% market share in 3Q08 but saw this increase to 31.1% in the 4Q08. Micron saw its share increase from 8.8% in 3Q08 to 11.0% in 4Q08, thanks to strong bit growth. Micron also moved into fourth place in Gartner's DRAM company rankings.

Samsung Electronics, the world's top maker of memory chips and flat screens, is planning to reduce its capital expenditure by 35% in 2009, the Korea Economic Daily has reported.

For the troubled memory maker Qimonda things may get even tougher as the company is facing a class-action lawsuit from the former employees of its plant based in Richmond, Virginia.

Commenting on the negotiations with the Taiwanese manufacturers, Elpida's President and CEO Yukio Sakamoto said, "Basically, we would like to form a capital alliance with them. As for DRAM business, it's best if Japan and Taiwan come together."

Elpida Memory will raise about 40 billion yen ($435 million) to 45 billion yen from partners, the Nikkei reported, citing President Yukio Sakamoto.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.'

Qimonda has four weeks to find an investor to save the core of its insolvent memory chip business before having to close production and dismiss 12,000 workers, say people close to the company. Rival chipmakers have shown the "first signs of interest" in Qimonda, since it filed for insolvency last week.

The collapse of German chip-maker Qimonda into insolvency sparked worries over its parent company Infineon. Qimonda has more than 12,000 workers worldwide, with some 3,500 in Saxony, 1,500 in Munich and several thousand in Portugal. Its New York-listed shares have fallen 95.0% over the past year, while Infineon's Frankfurt shares have fallen 88.2%.

Battered Asian memory chip makers will get some respite from oversupply in the long term after German chipmaker Qimonda filed for insolvency but the industry's recovery depends on a pick-up in demand.

Samsung Electronics announced that it has developed the first 4Gbit DDR3 DRAM chip using a 50nm lithography process. The new chip doubles the density of earlier DRAM chips, yielding modules with up to 32GB capacity.

The bailout of financially troubled German memory chip maker Qimonda AG could be at risk as the company has an additional financing gap due to detoriating memory chip prices, people familiar with the matter told Dow Jones Newswires Thursday. The financing gap is around EUR300 million, these people said. One of them said additional financing needs may rise by the end of current calendar year.

Taiwan stocks reversed course to inch up 0.13% on Wednesday, the last trading day before the Lunar New Year holidays, with DRAM makers rallying amid growing investor expectations for a long-awaited industry restructuring.

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.

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.

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.

Elpida Memory announced that it has completed the early redemption of the outstanding unsecured convertible bonds (CBs) worth 44 billion yen (US$1.33 billion).

Silicon foundry giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) is mulling plans to buy ProMOS, according to sources. In the plan, TSMC would buy ProMOS' fabs and would shed the company's memory business, sources said.