What a long, strange trip it's been for the South Korea-US free trade agreement. The two sides announced this weekend that they've reached a deal on revisions to the draft that was signed in 2007 but never ratified. It comes not a moment too soon, given the boost this will give to a US economy stumbling its way to recovery and with tensions rising on the Korean peninsula.

Applied Materials and Samsung Electronics have reached a settlement agreement that resolves potential civil claims and removes the risk of civil litigation between the parties relating to the alleged acquisition, misappropriation and misuse of Samsung's confidential semiconductor information in Korea.

North Korea fired artillery at South Korea's Yeonpyeong island in the Yellow Sea off the countries' west coast, setting houses on fire. South Korea returned fire, according to residents on the island speaking on South Korea's YTN television network.

Instead of using China as a production base, Hynix in its early days produced a wide range of high-tech products in South Korea that it then exported to China and other countries.

South Korea's SK Telecom said that it will supply mobile content for smartphones made by China's top personal-computer maker Lenovo in a move that would help the mobile phone carrier to strengthen its presence in the highly-competitive content distribution market.

Samsung Electronics and LG Display, the world's top two flat-panel makers by shipments, received approval from the Chinese government to set up LCD manufacturing plants in the mainland, two people familiar with the matter said Friday, highlighting the next big wave for LCD makers, which had previously preferred to keep their technology at home.

Solar energy and wind power will be strategic industries leading Korea's economy, with the government deciding to invest 40 trillion won in the renewable energy field by 2015 in partnership with the private sector so they can take the place in the nation's economy semiconductors and shipbuilding had in the past.

South Korea's Hyundai Heavy Industries and France's Saint-Gobain will jointly build the largest thin-film solar cell plant in South Korea.

Korea-based specialty IC foundry Dongbu HiTek has revealed plans to open sales offices in France and Italy, gearing to expand its customer base in Europe.

In 2005, chairman Lee Kun-hee's youngest daughter also committed suicide in her apartment in New York, where she was studying arts management as a graduate student at New York University.

Samsung Electronics said it would establish a 836-million-dollar fund to help South Korean contractors. The "mutual development" fund would be set up jointly with Industrial Bank of Korea, and was aimed at helping contractors receive low-interest loans for R&D from October.

Hynix said in a filing to the Korea Exchange that it plans to invest 677.0 billion won (US$572.7 million) to expand an existing facility.

South Korea's LG Display said on Thursday it would invest 618 billion won (US$513.5 million) in an LCD plant to boost capacity for small-sized flat screens.

Google posted a note on the Nexus One website to explain that it no longer will sell its Nexus One phones online. While it will continue to sell through Vodafone in Europe, KT in Korea and a few others, the experiment of Google selling a phone direct to consumers online is dead.

The Federation of Korean Industries (FKI), South Korea's most powerful business lobby, has asked Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Kun-hee to head the group. Lee was once convicted of tax evasion.

South Korea, Asia's fourth-biggest crude oil importer, is considering expanding the list of alternative-energy equipment eligible for a tax benefit to cut reliance on fossil fuels.

Korea-China free trade talks will start next year, according to a senior Chinese government official.

Korea Finance, a state-run financing group, plans to provide more than US$80bn in policy loans over the next five years to support Seoul's push into strategic industries such as renewable energy and nuclear power plants.

Samsung Electronics' foundry business, Samsung Foundry, has qualified 32nm low-power (LP) process with high-k metal gate (HKMG) technology. The process has successfully completed reliability testing at Samsung Foundry's 300mm logic fabrication line in Giheung and is now ready for production of customer designs.

Samsung Electronics has said due to projected heavy demand for its advanced logic chips, it will invest US$3.6 billion to expand capacity at its plant in Austin, Texas, and hire 500 more workers there by 2011.

Creditors rescued Hynix after it almost collapsed in 2001 under the weight of its debts. However, they have since struggled to find a local strategic buyer for Hynix, having excluded foreigners from the auction because of worries about sensitive technology information leaking outside of the country.

A reported visit by Tim Cook, Apple's chief operating officer, to LG Display last month has prompted speculation that the world's second-largest maker of liquid crystal displays may supply the display panels for the new 4G iPhone.

ASML has announced that four TWINSCAN XT:1900Gi lithography systems have joined its "One Million Wafer Club" of scanners that have processed more than one million silicon wafers within 12 months, underlining the importance and acceptance of this advanced technology in mainstream chip manufacturing.

North Korea's ban on all ties could also bar South Korean aircraft from North Korean airspace, adding fuel cost and time to many international flights. Tensions on the peninsula are hitting the currency and stock markets of Asia's fourth-biggest economy.

South Korea's won fell the most in more than a year and the nation's stocks slumped following a report by a defector group that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il ordered the military to prepare for conflict.

Many South Koreans joke they inhabit "the Republic of Samsung." But a one-time insider at the powerful Korean conglomerate has launched a scathing attack on his former employer, saying Korean politicians and media turn a blind-eye to the company's misdeeds.

South Korea's leading mobile company, SK Telecom, said Monday that it is planning to expand into the Chinese mobile game market beginning in the second half of this year

South Korea plans to invest 60 billion won (US$54 million) until 2015 to build up its analog chip industry to help local companies expand their presence in the global semiconductor market, according to the government.

Hwang Chang-gyu, former president of Samsung Electronics, was named to a government committee to oversee national research and development projects, officials said yesterday.

The former boss of Samsung Electronics, who was convicted of tax evasion and later given a presidential pardon, has returned to head the company. Analysts see Lee's return as good news for the electronics giant.

Samsung Electronics, Asia's biggest maker of chips, flat screens and mobile phones, has said it aims to post higher operating profit this year than in 2009.

MagnaChip Semiconductor has filed to raise up to US$250 million in an initial public offering of common stock under the proposed trading symbol of MX on the New York Stock Exchange.

Hynix Semiconductor creditors sold a 923.2 billion won (US$814 million) stake in the world's second-largest maker of computer-memory chips after three failed attempts.

The share of exports of the Big Five of 1999 fell to 34% in 2009. That loss of nine percentage points was matched by a similar gain for China, India and South Korea, with most of the gain going to China.