Recession has hit much of Europe, data showed on Friday, confirming a widespread economic downturn that world leaders hope to tackle at a weekend summit in Washington. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called for more coordinated measures to spur economic growth, a policy area where there may be more consensus.

"The downturn trend in our economy is more obvious, especially since September. We hope a rapid downturn in growth will not occur," said Mu Hong, a deputy chairman of the nation's main planning agency. Beijing is moving quickly to launch the package and will distribute most of a planned 100 billion yuan ($15 billion) in additional government spending within the next two weeks. The plan calls for higher spending on infrastructure and social programs in an effort to spur domestic consumer spending and reduce reliance on exports.

Mitsubishi Pico-portable projector is not related to the palm-sized mobile Pico chipset projector built for handheld devices as we accustomed to, it is just another business class portable projector happens to carry the name of Pico.

Qualcomm has has stopped development of its next-generation, high-speed wireless technology Ultra Mobile Broadband (UMB) which was originally intended as an alternative to LTE and WiMAX 4G telecomunications standards.

...financial institutions will be allowed to loan a total of NT$600 billion to businesses under the program, which runs until 2010. Sources have suggested that the government should be more audacious in trying to raise funds to stimulate industry and public construction.

Leading chip-equipment maker Applied Materials warned that profit in the current quarter would fall far short of Wall Street expectations due to the weakening global economy. The company also said on Wednesday it would slash 1,800 jobs, or 12 percent of its workforce, to generate annual savings of $400 million.

ARM and Canonical, the commercial sponsor of Ubuntu, have announced that they will bring the full Ubuntu Desktop operating system to the ARMv7 processor architecture to address demand from device manufacturers. The addition of the new operating system will enable new netbooks and hybrid computers, targeting ARM technology-based SoCs.

DRAM makers have been cutting back their production in two waves already, but the economic downturn and reduced demand appears to make the situation even worse. DRAMeXchange said that it expects the industry to cut production by another 6% or 70,000 12” wafers in December, with more announcements possible in January.

National Semiconductor, hit by a downturn in wireless handset sales, cut its projected revenue for the fiscal second quarter Wednesday, and said it will cut 330 jobs.

German chipmaker Infineon said it would not honor a wage deal reached on Wednesday for the 3.6 million workers employed in the country's engineering sector. Only hours after employers and unions in the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg agreed on a pilot deal for a 4.2% wage hike through April 2010 in two stages, Infineon issued a statement declaring its intentions and withdrew from the VBM employers' federation. For the current fiscal year to end-September 2009, Infineon would not increase any wages for some 6,000 engineering workers.

...if you understand the reasons why people move from one technology to the next, i.e., 45 to 32, what are the things you're looking for? You're looking for increased performance, reduced power, and above all, you're looking for increased density. Density means size, size means cost, and cost means profit. In SOI, you're taking two of the three of those reasons to move, and providing them without moving. IMoving from 45 bulk to 45 SOI, if your application demands it, probably gives you a better performance increase than moving from 45nm to 32n

In 2009, the MEMS market could face negative growth for the first time," said analyst Marlene Bourne of Bourne Research. "There will likely be at least 18 months of slow consumer growth. The killer app during the slowdown over the next 18 to 24 months will be specific to individual companies–those that succeed will be the ones that identify a significant need and provide a solution.

Microchip Technology and On Semiconductor stepped up their US$2.3 billion takeover attempt of Atmel Wednesday, saying they will nominate a dissident slate of directors for the chip maker's board.

Samsung Electronics is considering cutting its supplier-vendor relationship with Circuit City Stores, the No. 2 electronics chain in the United States, after the retailer filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection from the court.

Shares of microchip-design software maker Cadence Design Systems have lost almost 80 percent of their market value in the last 12 months as the company grapples with management changes, job cuts, a depleted cash flow and an aborted acquisition attempt. As expectations from investors seem to have bottomed and estimates have been cut significantly, the company is now positioned such that any positive incremental news can have a pronounced impact on the stock.