In the survey, 53% said they approved of the job Mr. Obama is doing as president, up eight percentage points from December. Forty-one percent said they disapprove of the president's performance, down from 48% last month. The poll surveyed 1,000 adults from Jan 13-17.

So far, this week's visit by President Hu Jintao has pretty much followed the same script. Supreme Leader denies his country engages in such practices, then promises it will stop them in its own sweet time, without any more meddling interference from Imperialist Running Dogs."

China's President Hu Jintao has said the international currency system was "a product of the past." He also implicitly criticized the Federal Reserve's recent decision to pump 600 billion dollars into the US economy, a move criticized as weakening the dollar at the expense of other countries' exports. The comments came ahead of a state visit to Washington on Wednesday.

Nintendo says it will ship about 1.5 million units of its 3DS console in the first month after debut, promising to avoid the huge shortages seen with the launch of earlier versions, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata told the Nikkei in an interview ahead of the February 26 release in Japan of the device.

Elpida Memory intends to launch capital tie-up talks with Taiwan firms that are currently the world's sixth- and seventh-biggest DRAM chipmakers. Elpida president Yukio Sakamoto plans to visit Taiwan early next month (January 2011) to start the talks and hopes to reach a deal by the end of the company's fiscal year, according to sources.

Broadcom now expects fourth-quarter revenues to reach about US$1.9 billion, the top end of its previous forecast range. "Our increased revenue guidance reflects stronger-than-expected demand for products in our Mobile and Wireless markets versus our initial expectations entering the quarter," said company president and CEO Scott McGregor.

China is awarding a peace prize to counter the Nobel recognizing imprisoned democracy campaigner Liu Xiaobo. Organizers of the Confucius Peace Prize will honor former Taiwanese vice president Lien Chan in Beijing for his efforts at building peace between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan.

Following the acquisition of Numonyx earlier this year, Micron Technology has reorganized its memory operations. The company has also recruited Tom Eby, a former executive vice president and chief marketing and sales officer at NOR rival Spansion.

Taiwan's dollar and stocks advanced as the island's ruling party won key local elections, prompting speculation President Ma Ying-jeou will extend pro- China policies that boosted investment.

Toshiba will shut its No.2 plant in Yokkaichi, central Japan, by the end of December and phase out low-end chips used in products such as memory sticks. The company will also farm out production of so-called logic chips next year to cut costs at a business that's "barely breaking even."

"Overall, the SIA forecast for 2012 looks like the "death" of the semiconductor industry, and we couldn't disagree more!" said Bill McClean, president of IC Insights. In IC Insights opinion, 2012 has tremendous upside potential for the semiconductor industry.

Singapore-based chip packager STATS ChipPAC has posted revenues of US$432.2 million in the third quarter of 2010, down by marginal 0.7% sequentially but up 10.9% on year. "We expect net revenues in the fourth quarter of 2010 to decline by single-digit level from prior quarter..."

Japan's largest mobile-phone operatormay beat its full-year smartphone sales target by as much as 30%.

"New Product sales were led by particularly strong growth from the Virtex-6 and Spartan-6 FPGA families," said Moshe Gavrielov, Xilinx President and CEO. "Combined sales from these families more than doubled sequentially in the September quarter..."

NOR flash supplier Spansion has named Saied Tehrani as senior vice president of research and development. Tehrani joins Spansion from Everspin Technologies, a supplier of MRAMs, where he was founder and chief operating officer.

"We booked EUR 1,297 million worth of systems in the third quarter of 2010 and expect bookings in the fourth quarter to exceed the Q3 level, confirming our potential for 2011 sales growth," said Eric Meurice, president and CEO of ASML.

"I love the Generation Y term 'frenemy,' because today we're partners, tomorrow we're competitors," Sharp Solar senior vice president Eric Hafter said of his rival solar makers.

"Memory chip prices are expected to continue their downtrend even through the first half of next year, but they will likely bounce back from the middle of the second quarter," said Kwon Oh-hyun, president of Samsung's semiconductor division. Hynix CEO Kwon Oh-chul echoed his view, but said a price rebound may not start until the second half of 2011.

"Silicon shipments reflect the tremendous recovery experienced by the semiconductor industry this year," said Stanley Myers, president and CEO of SEMI. "While current data suggest that growth rates are moderating, we expect that the industry will continue to be positive for the next two years."

Powerchip Technology, ProMOS Technologies and Winbond Electronics are among possible targets, Elpida President Yukio Sakamoto said in interviews this week.

Elpida Memory president and CEO Yukio Sakamoto said in an interview that the company is delaying plans to boost production capacity at its Taiwanese unit. "Through the summer, demand for PC memory didn't rise as much I had expected," Sakamoto said. "If there's no demand, there's no point in adding capacity."

"Targets will be companies that have technologies that Fujitsu doesn't have or that have customers that Fujitsu has never been able to reach so far," company president Masami Yamamoto said in an interview. "We would like to get engaged very actively in M&A activities."

The company will ship the dual-core QSD8672 chip with CPU cores running at up to 1.5GHz, said Mark Frankel, vice president of product management for Qualcomm CDMA Technologies. The chip could go into smartphones, tablets and low-cost laptops, he said.

During a question and answer session on Twitter, company executive vice president Niklas Savander made it clear that the company won't be turning to Android to reinstate its ailing market position.

Despite losses at ST-Ericsson, STMicroelectronics' revenues for the second quarter of 2010 totaled US$2.531 billion, up 8.9% sequentially and 27% on year. ST reported net profits of US$356 million for the quarter, compared to profits of US$57 million in the prior quarter and losses of US$318 million in the year-ago period.

"Because of this law, the American people will never again be asked to foot the bill for Wall Street's mistakes..."

Brian Toohey has taken office as president of the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), succeeding George Scalise who had led the association since 1997.

An interview with H-P's executive vice president for the company's imaging and printing group, Vyomesh Joshi, on web-enabled printers that allow you to print from smart phones and other mobile devices by storing documents and files in the "cloud.

Just once, it would be nice if a president would level with Americans on energy. Barack Obama isn't that president.

The company will "definitely go into" China with a Taiwanese chipmaker by as early as 2012 and seek support from the China government, said Elpida's president Yukio Sakamoto in an interview. It is also accelerating plans to add a second manufacturing plant at Rexchip Electronics.

"I think it'll be a story in 2011, and it'll be pretty good penetration in 2012. But, you know, maybe I'm wrong," said Mark Durcan, president and CEO of Micron Technology.

Research institute IMEC has appointed Kees Den Otter, former president of TSMC Europe, to the position of vice president of emerging business.

President Ma Ying-jeou argued Taiwan had no option but to sign the pact with China. Tsai Ing-wen, leader of the opposition DPP, insisted Taiwan would do better to negotiate with China slowly through existing WTO structures. Tsai also accused Ma of upsetting the regional balance of power, alarming Japan and South Korea...

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies is poised to secure net profits for the fiscal year ended December 21, 2010, according to company president and CEO Steve Milligan. Brisk demand for PC hard drives and fixed-cost reductions will contribute to its profit outlook.

In an interview with AFP, Taiwan president Ma Ying-jeou said the framework agreement was just a first step, but that he was confident it would lead to deeper trade agreements with China and continue to lower tensions between the former enemies.

Elpida Memory has decided not to receive capital from a Taiwanese company because businesses are improving, the Yomiuri newspaper reported, citing an interview with President Yukio Sakamoto.

"It is true that the sector is getting hotter and hotter. But it is premature to say the market will continue the current upbeat mood throughout this year," said Oh-Hyun Kwon, president of the company's chip division.

"Foreign firms have expressed a willingness to increase investment or make new investments in Taiwan" once the island signs the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement with China to remove bilateral tariffs, Ma told reporters at a news briefing to promote the pact. He didn't make any forecasts about the potential value of such investments.

Meeting that goal would require the president to engage in a fight to the death with the liberal wing of his own party, persuade China to allow its currency to appreciate 40%, get global economic growth to outperform the salad days from 2003 to 2007, and lower taxes for American companies that do business abroad. And, while he is at it, forget about strengthening the dollar in the foreseeable future.