Nikia will squeeze the current four big sales regions into two sales areas in China, namely the North and South sales regions, after its sales in the country dipped 18% to US$6.7 billion in 2011 compared with a 23% rise in 2010.

China's largest rare-earth producer plans to launch a trading platform, according to a company newsletter, in the nation's latest attempt to exert more control over the pricing of the strategically important minerals.

The US solar industry is undergoing some serious growing pains, with bankruptcies and mergers a necessary part of that process; meanwhile, competition from China-based solar panels has many believing that US solar simply cannot compete.

Imports of China-based solar cells and panels into the US decreased for the second straight month in May on year, according to the Coalition for American Solar Manufacturing (CASM).

Toshiba has announced that it will implement a series of functional reorganizations of its Digital Products business facilities in Japan that will enhance operating efficiency and the performance of its Digital Products businesses, including the LCD TV business.

The first production semiconductor fabs to use 450mm wafers are projected to commence operation in 2017, according to Christian Dieseldorff, a senior analyst with the fab tool vendor trade group SEMI's industry research and statistics group.

Applications for jobless benefits decreased by 26,000 in the week ended July 7 to 350,000, the fewest since March 2008.

AU Optronics Corp. (2409), LG Display Co. (066570) and Toshiba Corp. (6502) agreed to pay $543.5 million to resolve allegations they conspired to fix prices of flat-screen panels used in TVs and computer monitors.

Global investment in clean energy surged 24% in the second quarter, primarily on the strength of a rise in spending on solar parks and wind farms in China.

The company also revised its calendar year 2012 industry forecast for wafer fab equipment spending to US$30-33 billion, compared to its previous expectation of US$32-35 billion, in line with the market changes.

The LCD flavor of flat-screen TVs are by far the most popular, making up 84% of the market, yet demand for them is waning. Shipments of LCD units declined for the first time ever, dropping 3% to 43 million units in the first quarter, according to an NPD DisplaySearch report.

Nearly everyone is familiar with multi-touch screens, which allow users to make several finger gestures at once on the screens of their smartphones and tablets. Now, Microsoft is trying to push that technology into the world of desktop computing and beyond, with the acquisition of Perceptive Pixel.

Shares in Centrotherm (CTNG.DE) plunged on Wednesday after the German solar equipment maker became the latest victim of the industry's ongoing shakeout by filing for protection from creditors.

Canadian Solar is expected to decide within months whether to build a factory that could produce 700MW per year of new, more efficient solar cells, the firm's head said on Tuesday, with any facility likely to be in China.

Centrotherm Photovoltaics, a Germany-based solar manufacturing equipment-maker, sought bankruptcy protection.

The LED lighting industry of Guangdong province, which accounts for 70% of the national output, may suffer more than CNY4 billion(US$628.6 million) in losses with the higher technical standards set by the European Union, the United States, Chile and Uganda.

Cree has rolled out the new XLamp XP-G2 LED family, which is directly compatible with the prior XP-G components, including optics designed for those components, and which is based on the company's third-generation manufacturing-technology platform.

Samsung tablets do not infringe on a registered Apple design because "they are not as cool" and the Galaxy Tablets "do not have the same understated and extreme simplicity which is possessed by the Apple design," a UK judge said in a ruling on Monday.

ASML is negotiating with Samsung Electronics and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) over taking up to a 10% stake in the company under its equity-plus-research program.

Worldwide IT spending is on pace to reach US$3.6 trillion in 2012, a 3% increase from 2011 spending of US$3.5 trillion, according to Gartner, Inc. The outlook has been revised up slightly from the 2.5% projection last quarter.

Socle Technology and Globalfoundries have announced the tape out of Socle's first ARM Cortex-A9 based 28nm ASIC design using Globalfoundries' 28nm super low power technology (SLP) technology with Gate First High-K Metal Gate (HKMG).

Infineon Technologies has selected Spansion's FL-serial flash memory to provide a high-performance, quad I/O SPI data storage solution for its Hexagon Development Kit System. The Hexagon kit, a modular, expandable platform built around the XMC4000 microcontroller, provides engineers a fast method to prototype industrial applications such as motor control, industrial automation or any kind of power conversion like solar inverters.