Sony plans to buy back a Nagasaki semiconductor plant from Toshiba for about 50 billion yen (US$597.2 million) to double output capacity for image sensors used in smartphones and other devices, the Nikkei business daily reported recently.

Skype suffered a serious server outage Dec. 22 that left swaths of its 560 million or so worldwide users without PC calling capabilities for most of the day.

The amount of noise coming out of Germany about proposed additional solar feed-in tariff cuts is an annual rite of passage -- and period of unrest -- for solar investors. Yet there's been a major change of tone this year in the battle of the future level of installations in the solar sector's leading market.

China is defending its subsidies for wind and solar power against a U.S. complaint to the World Trade Organization that such support is unfair, but says it will work to resolve the dispute.

Crude-oil futures on Wednesday settled above US$90 a barrel for the first time since October 2008, riding a growing wave of optimism about the global recovery.

Micron Technology said it expects prices for NAND to drop another 10% in the current quarter but pointed to signs of improvement as demand for the chips used in smartphones, tablets and solid-state hard drives grows.

The upgrade reflects improving 2011 prospects for NAND flash memory demand, driven by tablets, smartphones and solid-state drives. The improving demand picture offsets concerns about higher supply due to new NAND fabs from Samsung, Toshiba and Micron expanding production in 2011.

Auriga analyst Daniel Berenbaum has reiterated a Buy rating on Micron Technology and an US$11 price target, writing that the company's in much better shape to weather plunging DRAM prices.

Shares of Tessera Technologies, which owns and makes money licensing numerous patents for combing computer chips together, are up 7% at US$22.09 after an appeals court ruled in favor of the company in its suit against Qualcomm, Spansion and STMicroelectronics.

The decreased sales guidance is primarily related to weaker than anticipated sales to a few large communications customers, specifically in the wireless segment, according to the company.

Germany's solar energy industry is open to accelerating part of a reduction in subsidies should installations grow too quickly, a lobby group said.

A look at the big events and trends in a pivotal year for the solar power industry.

One of Verizon Wireless' official Twitter accounts "announced" that Android-based LTE products are on the way.

The medical and health agreement will help the two sides set up a system to share information about infectious diseases, ensure drug safety and develop new medicines, as well as address emergency medical needs, according to the Straits Exchange Foundation.

"Chip prices remained strong until the first half of this year, but they dropped sharply, especially during the fourth quarter," CEO OC Kwon said in a recent interview. "Due to the sharper-than-expected fall, a considerable decline in both our sales and profit is inevitable in the fourth quarter."

Globalfoundries and the Institute of Microelectronics (IME), a research institute of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research, are joining hands to develop MEMS capacitive sensor platform technology for power-efficient and highly sensitive motion sensing applications that are relevant to consumer electronics, automotive and aerospace industries.

Copper advanced for a third day from London to Shanghai on optimism the economic recovery in the US remains on track, boosting the demand outlook for the metal amid supply disruptions at the world's third-largest copper mine.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating the circumstances surrounding Mark Hurd's departure from Hewlett-Packard, in a broad inquiry that includes claims that the former H-P chief executive shared inside information about a pending acquisition.