The sleek racing machine that was the US economy is unlikely to return any time soon despite the huge repair efforts now underway. Instead, it probably will continue to sputter and threaten to stall for years to come.

Speaking in Egypt, at a summit on the Gaza crisis, Mr Brown said he hoped the move would make it easier for firms and households to obtain credit. What the government wanted was to get "the resumption of lending" he added.

In his usual no-nonsense manner, CEO TJ Rodgers described how he is navigating Cypress Semiconductor through bad economic conditions, and denied that the solar industry is losing competiveness as oil prices decline.

Infineon Technologies (Kulim) Sdn Bhd, Germany-based Infineon's front-end wafer fabrication plant at the Kulim Hi-Tech Park, will not retrench any of its 1,000 workers despite of the global economic downturn.

The deepening financial crisis, which is undermining the government's rescue efforts, is prompting federal officials to revisit the original bailout measures. "There's no doubt that we needed to stabilize the banking system," Obama told CNN's John King Friday.

Cymer. which makes lasers used in semiconductor manufacturing, is cutting 10% of its work force and slashing pay and benefits as sharply lower demand cuts into revenue, the company said late Thursday.

Samsung Electronics, the world's largest mobile phone maker, said on Thursday it would pay US$400 million in royalties for patents held by wireless technology firm InterDigital.

Samsung Electronics on Friday streamlined its businesses into two major groups, joining its chip and LCD units and combining its telecom and media divisions.

Yahoo will pay new CEO Carol Bartz at least US$19 million in cash and stock during her first year on the job and top it off with an incentive package likely to yield a huge windfall if she can turn around the long-struggling Internet company.

The Palm Pre may be sold exclusively through Best Buy Mobile (in addition to at Sprint stores) for the first two months of its release.

Helping capitalists out of a predicament of their own making is a delicate business, but any rescue mechanism should have built-in sanctions to raise risk awareness and reduce the probability of future crises. Banking regulators, central banks and governments should answer bankers' cries of help with a consistent and robustly capitalist approach.

ASML Holding NV, a key equipment supplier to Intel and other chip makers, swung to a fourth-quarter net loss, hurt by a slumping semiconductor market as customers struggled to get credit.

An economic stimulus bill being crafted by Democratic leaders in the US Congress and aides to President-elect Barack Obama will cost about $850 billion, according to a government source.

Spansion, the NOR flash manufacturer which bought Israel NROM company Saifun last year, has hired Barclay's Capital to investigate ways of selling itself to another company, or entering a partnership with another company.

ON Semiconductor has introduced the industry's first 4-amp supercapacitor LED flash driver for high-megapixel camera phones and standalone camera applications.