The trustee administering US$541 million in bonds from Suntech Power sent the solar company a notice of default yesterday as the deadline to redeem the notes passed, a person familiar with the matter said.

Suntech Power Holdings said it didn't make a required payment on US$541 million of bonds that matured Friday.

Microsoft has sold about 1.5 million Surface devices, people with knowledge of the company's sales said, a slow start in its bid to crack the fast-growing tablet market to make up for slumping personal-computer demand.

There used to be a clear divide: Taiwanese contract manufacturers made the well-known tablets like Apple Inc.'s AAPL +0.97%iPad, while Chinese companies made imitations for little-known brands. But with Hewlett-Packard Co.'s HPQ +2.86%newest device, the line is blurring, a sign Chinese companies are becoming more serious competitors.

Research and development of flexible display screens has been a growing trend amongst consumer electronics manufacturers attempting to commercialize the technology. The market prospects look promising for the prospective players in the flexible display screen devices ecosystem.

The International Touch Panel and Optical Film Exhibition 2013 (Touch Taiwan 2013), one of the most important exhibitions for the display and touch panel industry in Asia, is scheduled to be held Aug. 28-30 in Taipei, the event organizers recently said.

The EUR11.8 million (US$15 million) pan-Europe NEWLED project is aiming to develop a new generation of 50-60% energy efficient white light-emitting LED lights, which would be more than twice as efficient as existing LED-based bulbs.

It was a record year for solar installations in the US in 2012, boosting an industry still struggling with consolidation and bankruptcies.

Cadence Design Systems has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Tensilica, a leader in dataplane processing IP, for approximately US$380 million in cash.

In a rare interview a day before Samsung Electronics's launch of a new flagship smartphone, Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller on Wednesday played down the expected competition from the device. He also discussed how he believes products that run Google's Android software, such as Samsung's phone, are inferior to Apple's iPhone.

Just as users seemed to be showing a preference for smaller tablets, Amazon is giving them a bigger one - so what does that say about where the market is heading?

Xi Jinping was named China's president Thursday by the country's parliament, one of the final steps in China's once-in-a-decade leadership change.

China is over-reliant on imported goods for its semiconductor industry, and local chip companies supply only about 10% of its domestic needs as they remain in the development stage despite years of investments.

Most digital signage displays all have one thing in common: They use glass as the substrate on which images are shown.

The European Union has awarded Rs.17.77 crore (??.47 million) for a three-year project, known as GHOST "Generic and Highly Organic, Shape-changing inTerfaces" that aims at extending the next generation computer and mobile display surfaces beyond the rigid, flat surfaces which people are familiar with and allow users to physically push, pull, bend, fold or flex the display.

The won dropped for a fifth day, the longest run of declines in 10 months, after South Korea's unemployment rate unexpectedly climbed to the highest in a year.

Cree Lighting and Philips Lighting both announced 60W-equivalent LED lamps at less than US$15, but the companies took decidedly different design approaches to the SSL retrofits.

Five Wall Street investment and hedge funds have the most to lose as China's Suntech Power seeks more time to repay US$541 million of convertible debt.

Korea, China and Japan will hold three days of talks starting on March 26 on forging a trilateral free trade agreement.

The Japan solar market has significantly changed since the introduction of feed-in-tariffs (FITs) last July. With domestic demand growing faster than expected, Japan's government has proposed a FIT reduction of around 10%.

Despite continued rumors that Apple has been working very hard to transition away from Samsung for production of A-series chips, it appears that Apple has not yet been able to make that step on a mass production basis, as this new smaller A5 is still being fabbed by Samsung.

The reason is quite understandable really: demand for DRAM is still dropping, so how can there be a price improvement?