The ThinkEquity Partners' report centered on SanDisk, which is not one of the four companies Apple actually buys its memory components from (Samsung, Hynix, Toshiba and Micron). However, the report says Apple's voracious appetite for flash RAM is affecting the entire market.

n his annual HBLED market review and forecast, Bob Steele of Strategies Unlimited said the market grew by 11% in 2008 but is likely to contract by 5% in 2009.

Over a five-year period, the City of Los Angeles' Bureau of Street Lighting will replace 140,000 existing streetlight fixtures in the city with LED units.

Kyocera has announced the construction of a new solar module manufacturing plant in Tianjin City, China in order to expand production capacity at Kyocera (Tianjin) Solar Energy. Construction of the new plant is timed to align the production capacity of solar modules with the increase in production of solar cells which Kyocera is set to expand to 650MW by March 2012.

Global semiconductor equipment maker Analog Devices on Wednesday reported better-than-expected earnings for its first quarter after a bout of cost-cutting, and forecast earnings in line with estimates for the current quarter.

Chipmaking equipment orders received by Japanese manufacturers fell to the lowest level in more than seven years in January, according to preliminary figures released by an industry group on Wednesday. The book-to-bill ratio, which stands for orders divided by billings, came to 0.55, the Semiconductor Equipment Association of Japan said.

VLSI Research predicted overall solar equipment growth of 8% this year. Suppliers of equipment for silicon wafer-based solar cell manufacturing are expected to see declining revenues this year, but thin-film equipment vendors will more than offset that with strong growth.

ProMOS has announced that it intends to commence a tender offer (the "Tender Offer") for its US$350mm Zero Coupon Convertible Bonds issuance due 2012 (the "Convertible Bonds"). Funding for this Tender Offer will be provided by a new NT$3 billion syndicated loan facility arranged by Bank of Taiwan with commitment letter dated February 17, 2009 (the "Facility"). This Facility is, as yet, subject to finalization by each of the participating banks and represents the entire and only source of funding for this tender offer.

The Welland, Ontario, company says the new light has 4x the efficiency of many halogen MR16 lamps.

Intel has announced that it has filed suit against Nvidia over whether or not the GPU and chipset designer has the rights to build solutions for Nehalem-based CPUs.

Verizon plans to have LTE ready for trial in two cities in the US by late 2009, with 25 to 30 cities deployed commercially in 2010. LTE handsets, however, may not appear until 2011.

South Korean electronic giant Samsung Electronics has said it had asked a US trade panel to block imports of Eastman Kodak's digital cameras in an ongoing patent row.

module supplier Kingston Technology has said it wants to help the DRAM chip sector consolidate as it remains mired in its worst downturn, and it expects to see an upturn as early as this year. "We want to play a helpful role," John Tu, president and co-founder of Kingston, told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of the Mobile World Congress trade show.

An estimated 2,000 people attended the job expo hosted by the Richmond Times-Dispatch at its Hanover County production plant. The event was held from 9am to 1pm. Many described a job market that is becoming more competitive as the economic recession continues.

Qimonda's works council urged German Chancellor Angela Merkel to help save the insolvent memory chipmaker. "Act now, dear Mrs Chancellor, so that technological dominance in semiconductors in Germany and Europe will not be lost."

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) announced today that its stockholders overwhelmingly approved a spinoff proposal to create The Foundry Company. The shareholder approval allows AMD to issue common stock and warrants to an affiliate of the Mubadala Development Co., paving the way for AMD and the Advanced Technology Investment Co. of Abu Dhabi to create the new foundry.

The market for TFT-LCD equipment may have grown 30% in 2008, but it is expected to drop 41% in 2009, according to The Information Network.