"I think in the next four years or five years, it's probably going to be the case that NAND will no longer be the storage medium," said a flash memory analyst with Forward Insights. "Everybody's looking at alternatives."

Prosecutors have arrested two executives from Applied Materials in Seoul, South Korea on charges of allegedly stealing Samsung process technology details and passing them on to Hynix.

Intel wants to avoid the cyclical, market share game in the NAND flash chip sector against the likes of Samsung, Hynix and Toshiba. But Intel dropped hints it wants to unseat Samsung as the No. 1 player in SSDs.

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.

Toshiba has announced that Toshiba LSI Package Solutions will transfer its memory backend function from Fukuoka to Yokkaichi, Mie prefecture, in order to be closer to Toshiba's main memory production facility, Yokkaichi Operations. The move will take place by November.

The company plans to focus on leasing space on its WiMax network to other telecommunications companies like Time Warner Cable, Sprint Nextel and Comcast.

A homeowner could earn up to 900 pounds (US$1,433) each year for a typical 2.5 kilowatt solar PV system and save an additional 140 pounds on their annual electricity bill, according to an announcement by the UK's Department of Energy and Climate Change.

Samyang Optics has said it will sell electric cars produced by US-based ZAP in South Korea from April. It also expects to eventually assemble electric cars using ZAP's technology.

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.

Intel will build PV installations targeted at eight US locations in four states, generating around 2.5 MW, and has increased its renewable energy credit purchases by 10%, powering more than 51% of its estimated US electricity use.