IM Flash Technologies (IMFT), Intel and Micron's joint venture, released 25 nanometer (nm) circuitry a little over a year ago. In the next few weeks, IMFT plans to annouce 20nm NAND flash chip production.

TowerJazz has signed a non-binding term sheet contemplating its purchase of Micron Technology's fabrication facility in Nishiwaki City, Hyogo, Japan. The proposed purchase would nearly double TowerJazz's current internal manufacturing capacity, increasing production by 60,000 wafers per month.

Rumors, misinformation and speculation are spreading like wildfire across the industry today following recent reports about Android anti-fragmentation efforts and what this means for processor architecture openness. Will Google's anti-fragmentation initiatives for Android code impact providers of microprocessor architectures such as MIPS, Intel and ARM? Does anti-fragmentation mean that Google is standardizing Android for any specific architecture?

Hynix Semiconductor has developed 2Gb DDR4 DRAM and DDR4 DRAM-based 2GB ECC-SODIMM applying its 30nm-class process technology. Hynix plans to start volume production of this high performance DDR4 product in the second half of 2012.

Its top shareholders have sought to sell their stake worth about US$2.6 billion, but failed to find interested investors for a company that requires heavy capital investment to weather the highly volatile memory chip cycle.

Production was suspended at the plant in Iwate Prefecture after suffering damage in the March 11 earthquake. The plant makes microcontrollers and large scale integration chips.

OCI, the world's second-largest polysilicon maker, said it may sell global depositary receipts to raise funds for expansion.

Japanese manufacturing activity sank to a two-year low in March 2011, underlining the impact of the earthquake and tsunami on economic activity in the country.

Renesas Electronics America will sell its semiconductor wafer fabrication facility in Roseville, California, to Telefunken Semiconductors. The sale price is approximately US$53 million, and the closing for the sale is planned for May 2, 2011. Telefunken also will enter into a supply agreement with Renesas for manufacturing services at the Roseville factory.

What this may mean -- as BMO Capital's Keith Bachman and Jefferies & Co.'s Peter Misek explained to clients Wednesday -- is that for the first time since 2007, summer will come and go without a new iPhone.

Just days after a judge ruled provisionally against a claim before the US International Trade Commission that Apple's handsets, including the iPhone, had violated five of its patents, Nokia shot back with a further case over another five.

Hynix CEO OC Kwon said that Hynix had around 45 days of wafer inventory and was reassured by quake-hit Japanese raw materials firms that there wouldn't be any major disruptions in wafer supplies.

Firms across the world fear shortages of parts that used to be made in the Japanese factories now shuttered because of power and water shortages, or because of road and port closures, following the quake and the floods. And carmakers, whose products often contain some 20,000 individual parts, are expected to be among those worst hit.

Renesas is in talks to outsource production of auto microcontrollers to Globalfoundries Singapore, and some mobile phone semiconductor production to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), Shino Inokuma, a spokesman for Renesas, said by telephone.

David NK Wang, president and CEO of SMIC, has been elected to a two-year term on the board of directors of the Global Semiconductor Alliance (GSA).

By 2015, Windows Phone 7 will power 37 per cent more smartphones than Apple's iPhone, according to the prognosticators at International Data Corporation

Japan's unemployment rate fell to a two-year low in February 2011, government data showed. But economists said the rate may rise in the coming months as the devastating earthquake and subsequent power shortages could keep companies from boosting staff.