South Korea plans to invest 60 billion won (US$54 million) until 2015 to build up its analog chip industry to help local companies expand their presence in the global semiconductor market, according to the government.

Samsung Electronics said workers at its semiconductor factories face no heightened cancer risk as the world's top maker of memory chips tried to quell health fears following employee illnesses and deaths.

Applied Materials has opened its new Singapore Operations Center, Applied's first facility in Asia for manufacturing its advanced semiconductor equipment.

Elpida Memory has filed a lawsuit in the US against Infineon Technologies and Best Buy, in response to a complaint filed earlier brought against it.

Nanda Technologies has raised US$4 million from Capital-E and KfW working alongside existing shareholders. The company said it will use the money to support pre-production evaluations at semiconductor manufacturers.

The IC industry is recovering, but there are also signs of growing chip inventories in the channels. VLSI Research said IC inventories reached US$24.38 billion worldwide in February, a 46% increase from the same month in 2009.

Hynix Semiconductor plans to reduce its debt by one trillion won (US$870m) in 2010 due to forecasts for record sales and supply shortages in the global semiconductor industry.

Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC) has been talking to Texas Instruments (TI) about taking over operation of the government-owned factory, according to company sources. It was not immediately clear whether TI was interested in only taking over management of the facility, or in buying it as well.

Hynix Semiconductor has appointed Oh Chul Kwon as the new CEO of the company.

NXP, the Dutch chipmaker bought by KKR & Co. four years ago, plans to raise at least US$1 billion to cut debt in a deal that would be this year's largest initial public offering, two people with knowledge of the matter said.

IDC analysts have said the global chip industry will grow in 2010 but offered one of the least optimistic industry revenue forecasts so far this year, saying the global recession remains a problem.

The largest semiconductor companies will need to shoulder much of the burden for the expensive R&D projects facing the chip industry, including the development of 450mm equipment and the inspection tools needed for EUV masks, said Dan Armbrust, the new CEO at Sematech.

TriQuint Semiconductor, which provides chips for mobile gadgets such as Apple's iPhone, has hiked its profit forecast for the quarter, a sign that demand is improving.

Two of China's top chipmakers and Intel's lone China factory are all running at or near full capacity, as China's sector rebounds more quickly than the rest of the world, according to senior executives at the three firms.

MagnaChip Semiconductor has filed to raise up to US$250 million in an initial public offering of common stock under the proposed trading symbol of MX on the New York Stock Exchange.

A strong earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.6 jolted northern Japan on Sunday, shaking buildings in the capital Tokyo some 240km (150 miles) away. Fujitsu has said operations at its semiconductor plant in Fukushima prefecture, northeast Japan, were not affected by the quake.

Hynix Semiconductor has said it would invest 465 billion won (US$410 million) to expand and upgrade its production capacity and research and development.

FormFactor, which makes probe cards used for testing wafers directly, has opened a new facility in Singapore as part of efforts to grow its business in Asia.

Tessera Technologies has signed an updated technology licensing agreement with United Test and Assembly Center (UTAC), which provides test and assembly services for a wide range of semiconductor devices. The initial term of the updated license agreement runs through the end of 2016.

The deal will end years of litigation between companies - like Micron Technology, Hynix Semiconductor and Infineon Technologies - and indirect purchasers of DRAM memory chips, which includes California and several other states.

Hynix Semiconductor creditors named Kwon Oh Chul as the new CEO of the world's second-largest maker of computer-memory chips. They also plan to sell 8% of Hynix in the first half of 2010 and another 5% in the second half if they fail to find a buyer.

Formosa Plastics Group, one of Taiwan's largest industrial conglomerates, has announed it plans a stainless steel plant in Vietnam, with local media citing a budget of over US$3 billion.

Leading shareholders of Hynix Semiconductor have attracted no bid for the memory chipmaker's controlling stake by the extended deadline and will likely have to unload a large chunk of their US$3.1 billion stake into the market.

Creditors of memory-chip maker Hynix Semiconductor plan to name a new chief executive to replace Kim Jong-Kap, whose three-year term ends in March 2010.

Last summer, TSMC made a surprising decision to use a gate-last deposition method for the high-k/metal gate stack of its 28nm transistors. TSMC'S decision to use a replacement metal gate technique was guided by history, said SY Chiang, in charge of R&D at the foundry.

European Union regulators are to charge ten memory chipmakers, including Samsung Electronics, Infineon and Hynix Semiconductor, with fixing prices in breach of EU antitrust rules.

India has seen how the Gulf state of Abu Dhabi has, with a budget of US$10 billion, set about manouvering its way into a key place in the semiconductor industry with the creation of Globalfoundries.

Creditors rescued Hynix after it almost collapsed in 2001 under the weight of its debts. Spurred on by the company's strong turnround and a brighter outlook for the semiconductor sector, creditors have been anxious to sell to recoup their original investment worth US$4.6 billion.

Korea Exchange Bank has confirmed that the creditors of Hynix Semiconductor failed to receive any bids for their stake in the chip maker by the deadline.

A vice president of Samsung Electronics has committed suicide. He joined Samsung in 1992 and mostly worked at its semiconductor and flash memory division.

"These comments beg the question how will the equipment market grow 50-plus-percent in 2010 with no new fabs and no new capacity additions, when it dropped nearly 50% in 2009 with no new fabs and no new capacity additions?"

MoneyToday, citing unnamed industry sources, said that Samsung was expected to set this year's capital expenditure for the semiconductor business at about 7 trillion won (US$6.1 billion). The Korean vendor is also planning a new chip production line in its domestic plant, marking the first time in years that it would add a line.

We closed the year as planned with improved sales and strong bookings, as the semiconductor business recovers driven by technology and capacity buys from major Foundry customers and the memory market segments, according to ASML president and CEO Eric Meurice.

The world's largest maker of semiconductor lithography machines, which map out electronic circuits on silicon wafers, was forecast to report a further rise in bookings from the third quarter, driven by consumer spending on end products.

In addition to Intel acquiring an FPGA vendor, other acquisitions could be possible including Analog Devices buying a power management IC company and Microchip Technology buying a company to expand its presence in the microcontroller market.

China was fast with its stimulus program...even though the country has been climbing nicely out of recession, the government still plans to spend the full US$600 billion of stimulus money.

Vendors were hit hard by the downturn. 2010 looks better, but fab tool makers still face a number of challenges.

Having recently completed the acquisition of Singapore's Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing, Globalfoundries is expected to launch the new, combined entity this week.

Answer: Yes and no.