Taiwan Vice Premier Eric Chu has said a breakthrough in the negotiations with Beijing on cross-strait financial regulation was expected in a matter of days.

The increase in GDP has not translated into jobs yet because of firms' strong tendency to work each employee harder early in a recovery before hiring more of them.

Applied Materials has acquired substantially all the assets, including the intellectual property, of Advent Solar for an undisclosed cash amount. Advent Solar is a developer of advanced technology for crystalline silicon (c-Si) PVs.

Samsung unveiled a multi-chip memory package that it claims is the thinnest ever, for smartphones, portable media players, laptops and other mobile electronics.

The capacitors are hollow - no more hemispherical-grain polysilicon to increase the surface area. Which implies that a high-k dielectric has been used, to keep the cell capacitance up.

"Chartered shareholders have spoken overwhelmingly in favor of the acquisition...as we believe this offer enables Chartered to accelerate its goal of becoming a leading player in the semiconductor industry," said Jim Norling, chairman of the board of directors at Chartered.