Sony plans to buy back a Nagasaki semiconductor plant from Toshiba for about 50 billion yen (US$597.2 million) to double output capacity for image sensors used in smartphones and other devices, the Nikkei business daily reported recently.

The upgrade reflects improving 2011 prospects for NAND flash memory demand, driven by tablets, smartphones and solid-state drives. The improving demand picture offsets concerns about higher supply due to new NAND fabs from Samsung, Toshiba and Micron expanding production in 2011.

Toshiba will spend about US$1.19 billion to build a new fabrication plant to produce the panels for Apple.

Toshiba's shipments of NAND flash memory chips may fall as much as 20% in January and February because of a power outage at a plant, the company said.

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."

Intel, Toshiba and Samsung Electronics will join hands to develop technologies that could more than halve semiconductor line widths to nearly 10 nanometers by 2016, the Nikkei daily reported.

Toshiba made 48% of its products in Japan in the period from April to September 2009 and bought 45% of its components from Japan-based suppliers. By the same period this year, the ratios were down to 44% and 42%, respectively. The change added 4.2 billion yen to Toshiba's operating profits in the half to September, or 700 million yen for each one-yen increase in the Japanese currency's value against the dollar.

Rambus saw its results improve in the third quarter of 2010 thanks to a licensing deal signed earlier this year with former legal opponent Samsung Electronics. It is negotiating to renew deals with Toshiba and Renesas Electronics after their patent licenses expired.

Toshiba's operating profits for the April-September period is set to come to more than 100 billion yen (US$1.2 billion), beating the company's forecast of 70 billion yen, according to the Nikkei business daily. Booming global sales of smartphones have boosted demand for the company's flash memory chips and small LCD panels.

Toshiba plans to scrap plans to mass-produce OLED panels at its unit Toshiba Mobile Display and focus on high-demand LCD panels instead.

Toshiba has posted its second straight quarterly profit on rising chip demand, beating analyst estimates for a loss.

When asked whether Toshiba would release smartphones anytime soon, Toshiba Australia's chief Whittard answered with "probably not."

Toshiba has started construction of Fab 5 at Yokkaichi Operations, its memory production facility in Mie Prefecture, according to the company. The chip vendor also announced it has signed primary agreements with SanDisk for a new joint venture to operate the new facility.

Toshiba plans to expand manufacturing capacity at its plant in Houston, Texas for production of high-performance drive motors for hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) and electric vehicles (EVs).

Fujitsu and Toshiba are merging their mobile-handset operations into a joint venture. In some ways this makes sense. Handsets aren't core to either business.

Fujitsu and Toshiba are in talks to combine mobile-phone operations and create Japan's second-largest handset producer, two officials at the companies said.

Toshiba, Hynix, Micron and Elpida all moved up at least one position in the top 20 list, with Elpida jumping six spots.

We all know that for the absolute best throughput of storage available to us today, it's in solid-state-drives. The problem with SSDs is cost and the limited storage capacity in comparison to the magnetic solutions. But upcoming solutions from Seagate and Toshiba may be able to come up with something in between.

The Commission has adopted a decision settling a cartel investigation and imposing a fine totalling about 331 million euros (US$409 million) on Samsung, Hynix, Infineon, NEC, Hitachi, Mitsubishi, Toshiba, Elpida and Nanya.

European Union regulators are expected to fine nine makers of memory chips, including Samsung, Infineon and Hynix, this week on charges of illegally fixing prices. Others set to be fined are Elpida, NEC Electronics, Hitachi, Toshiba, Mitsubishi and Nanya.

The factory will be Toshiba's fifth at its manufacturing base in Yokkaichi in western Japan. It will initially be used to produce conventional NAND flash chips, but Toshiba plans to expand this to new types of 3D memory where chips and components are stacked vertically.

Toshiba, one of Japan's largest electronics companies, has said it expects net losses of 20 billion yen (US$215 million) for the fiscal year ending March 2010. That's down from its previous estimtae of 50 billion yen.