Hitachi Global Storage Technologies and Intel are teaming up to produce solid-state drives (SSDs) for servers and workstations, the companies said Tuesday. Under terms of the deal, drive maker Hitachi GST will only use NAND flash chips obtained from Intel in its high-end SSDs. The two companies will jointly develop drives that use Serial Attached SCSI and Fibre Channel interfaces, with products expected to hit the market in 2010, they said. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Investors are also expecting a decline in mobile phone demand in 2009. Dow component Intel Corp slid 1.3 percent to $13.80 while Applied Material was off 0.9 percent to $9.64 and National Semiconductor slid 1.8 percent to $11.05.

Intel fell to a new 2 year low. Yahoo fell US$2.04, or 10.8%, to US$16.88. That's a new 5 year low. Dell fell US$1.59, or 9.4%, to US$15.41. That's a new 10 year low. Sun fell 89 cents, or 11.7%, to US$6.75. That's a new 13 year low. AMD fell 87 cents, or 16.9%, to US$4.29. That’s a new 17 year low. Qimonda fell 48 cents, or 32.4%, to $1. That’s a new all-time low, but it still could go lower; there are growing concerns that the memory chip maker is headed for nsolvency.

An engineer and professor by training, Barrett is a typically cool character. But in a 30-minute conversation, the silver-haired technology veteran vented his anger and frustration over Washington’s inability to solve America’s long-term problems. He is particularly upset that Washington failed to write a check for the US$1.2 billion in increased funding for basic research and science and technology education authorized by the America Competes Act, which President Bush signed into law in August of 2007.