Hynix Semiconductor, the world's second biggest chipmaker behind Samsung Electronics, said it expects prices of computer memory chips to decline by about 30% in 2009, and prices of NAND flash memory chips to fall 40% further from this year. "The slowdown in both personal computer and motherboard sales will weaken the demand for DRAMs, which will hurt prices," a Hynix executive told The Korea Times, Wednesday.

oshiba, the largest Japanese chip maker, reported a quarterly loss Wednesday as the global economic slowdown aggravated a glut in the market for chips used to store data in consumer electronics, helping drive down memory prices. The net loss was ¥26.8 billion, or about US$275 million, in the three months that ended September 30, compared with a ¥25 billion profit a year earlier, the Tokyo-based company said. Sales fell 7%to ¥1.88 trillion.

Pioneer was awarded US$59 million after a federal jury found South Korea's Samsung Electronics and Samsung SDI Co. violated two patents used to make plasma- television displays.

Open Mobile Alliance DM extension will make it simpler to put new apps on phones

"We've decided to set up a direct sales office in central Seoul by 2009, as time is ripe to effectively spur our products," Kevin Du, a general manager responsible for the Korean and Japanese markets, told The Korea Times in an interview, Tuesday. "Asustek is fully set to strengthen product portfolios, ranging from the Eee PC, notebooks, and desktops to LCD monitors and increasing the number of direct sales offices has become a major trend for foreign electronics makers, here," he said, citing similar aggressive moves by Hewlett-Packard.

HP's US online store has revealed that company's Mini-Note line is due to be expanded with a new model, the Mini 1000. An ad for the Mini 1000 appeared on the site over the weekend, though it now seems to have been pulled. Screengrabs of the banner reveal not only the machine's name but also that it's less than 25mm thick and weighs just over a kilo.

For the day, shares in the Taiwan stock market suffered a losing streak of 4.65% – or 212.75 points – decline, closing at 4366.87 points on turnover of NT$35.87 billion. Shares plummeted sharply by 278.29 points as it opened today as the 7% limit took effect beginning today after two weeks of halving the downward limit to 3.5% by the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC).

Google, Motorola and Microsoft are among the companies that want the unused spectrum for a new generation of wireless devices. Rep. John Dingell, chairman of the House of Representatives House Energy and Commerce Committee, sent a list of questions to Martin, including whether an FCC engineering report was peer reviewed, and how the agency would deal with interference from broadcast signals if it occurs. "Why did the Commission decline to adopt a licensed approach to some of all of this spectrum?" Dingell asked.

...Huang said that much of Global's work these days goes into gathering and validating IP-based platforms: libraries of functions, often in hard-macro form, that are necessary for a particular application space. If the functional IP is on the shelf, verified, outfitted for power management, are DfM-friendly, then creating a specific chip for a customer becomes mainly a matter of IP assembly rather than a physical design effort...

...The won is the worst in performance against the dollar among the major economic powers and its stock markets are gyrating more severely than other countries. ...39 of the 92 highest-cap firms in the domestic Korea bourse, or 42.4%, have a price-to-book ratio (PBR) less than one. Posco's ratio amounts to 0.9 and Hyundai Motor's is 0.8. Those of LG Display and Samsung SDI are both 0.7. The figures are likely to be lower in consideration of Friday's market crash.