Around the web
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AFP (via Google)
Moody's Investors Service downgraded MEMC's corporate family rating to B3 from B2 and its 2019 notes to Caa1 from B3 yesterday, while raising the company's speculative grade liquidity rating to SGL-3 from SGL-4.
Bloomberg
The solar power industry has continued to forge ahead in Northwest China's Qinghai province since it topped the list of the province's top 10 major industries in 2010.
China Daily
Shares of Nokia rose more than 7% Friday on speculation Samsung Electronics might be eyeing a takeover.
IBTimes
LSI has announced several demonstrations of its SandForce SF-2000 flash storage processors using Toshiba 19nm and Intel 20nm NAND flash memory - the most advanced flash memory technology currently available for SSD applications.
Company release
Olympus, the Japanese camera maker recovering from an accounting scandal, has announced a five-year plan that includes cutting 2,700 jobs.
BBC News
Facebook was expected to be the poster child of success when it went public two weeks ago but since its May 18 debut, shares have slid 33% from the initial public offering price of US$38.
Fortune
Currently head of Samsung's components business, which oversees chips and display, Kwon Oh-hyun will succeed Choi Gee-sung, who is moving to a new role as head of group corporate strategy to focus on future growth engines.
Reuters
Improving lighting efficiency is an investment in the future. Yet costs have been prohibiting many people from becoming early adaptors of energy efficient commercial lighting such as LED lighting.
Triple Pundit
Japan's public broadcasting network says new television technology will offer viewers a picture with 16 times the resolution currently available on HDTVs.
UPI
Wieberneit has spent more than twenty years in the consumer and communication semiconductor space, serving in different R&D, CTO and GM positions at Trident Microsystems, Micronas and Infineon Technologies.
Company release
Multinational semiconductor companies are no longer able to compete with China's fabless chips vendors in the consumer electronics IC business, according to Vincent Tai, CEO of RDA Microelectronics. "It's game over" for them, Tai asserted in a recent interview.
EE Times
STMicroelectronics is the first company in the world that mass-manufactures MEMS microphones in plastic packages. The patented technology breakthrough saves space and increases durability in consumer and professional voice-input applications, from mobile phones and tablets to noise-level meters and noise-cancelling headphones.
Company release
Freescale Semiconductor shares are trading sharply higher after the company this morning named Greg Lowe as CEO effective immediately. He comes to the company from Texas Instruments, where he was senior VP of the analog business.
Forbes
"In five to eight years they are going to disappear in the way that Yahoo has disappeared," said Eric Jackson, founder of Ironfire Capital while appearing on CNBC's Squawk on the Street.
Computerworld
Call it the tweet that launched a thousand cries of sexism. Electronics company Asus tweeted, then deleted, a photo showing a woman demonstrating one of its products at Computex 2012. The caption of the picture, taken from behind and showcasing the woman's backside, read, "The rear looks pretty nice. So does the new Transformer AIO."
Yahoo! Finance
ARM, whose chip designs power most smartphones, expects its processors to account for as much as 20% of those used in notebook computers by 2015, boosted by the release of Microsoft's Windows 8 software.
Bloomberg
Problems at two Japanese microchip makers highlight the potential dangers in a gathering effort to reshape the country's tech industry, as struggling conglomerates try to revive their fortunes by shedding unprofitable businesses.
The Financial Times
Having scrapped import duties on solar systems, Pakistan could be become a highly viable emerging market for photovoltaics, due to its high insolation values and growing energy demands.
PV-Tech
The Seattle Times
The massive gray market for cellphones is propelling sales of lower-cost flash memories like embedded multimedia card (eMMC) and serial peripheral interface (SPI) NOR, as manufacturers of the unregulated phones strive to keep production costs low, according to IHS iSuppli.
Company release
ARM chips made with an advanced, 20-nanometer manufacturing process could appear in smartphones and tablets by as soon as the end of next year, the head of ARM's processor division said Monday.
PC World
Cadence Design Systems has contributed to STMicroelectronics having taped out a 20-nanometer test chip, incorporating custom analog and digital methodologies to enable mixed-signal SoC design at this advanced process node.
Company release
Germany may call on the European Union to apply high import tariffs on Chinese solar panels that are sold at less than production costs, Environment Minister Peter Altmaier told the WirtschaftsWoche busniess magazine.
Bloomberg
China-based energy group Hanergy is set to buy part of Q-Cells, the insolvent Germany-based solar-panel maker, in a deal that highlights the buying power of Chinese energy companies in the troubled European solar market.
The Financial Times
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