Elpida Memory has entered the final stage of negotiations on a merger with Micron Technology and Taiwan's Nanya Technology, sources said.

Dutch semiconductor equipment maker ASML said Wednesday it expects a healthy start to 2012, as its customers invest in chip production to drive faster and more powerful smartphones and tablets.

Solar-power stations take up a lot of room.

Samsung spokesman James Chung said that his company has not "considered acquiring" RIM and is "not interested" in buying the BlackBerry maker. He added that neither company approached the other to try to create an acquisition deal.

Traders said they had heard that ZTE had lost a patent lawsuit with Ericsson and had to pay a penalty of EUR500 million (US$640.83 million), although a ZTE executive told Reuters that the outcome of the lawsuit was not out yet.

ARM hopes for a serious impact on the server market starting in 2014 when its 64-bit processor design reaches the market, CEO Warren East said.

MEMC Electronic Materials Inc said on Tuesday it has not firmed up plans to build solar power plants in Japan because the government there has yet to determine a key solar subsidy.

"It's inevitable Intel will get a few smartphone design wins - we regard Intel as a serious competitor," said ARM CEO Warren East in an interview at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. "Are they ever going to be the leaders in power efficiency? No, of course not. But they have a lot more to offer."

The company has sent requests for proposals to banks to borrow as much as US$1 billion to expand production capacity at its factory in Austin, Texas, said James Chung, a Seoul-based spokesman for Samsung. The bonds will be issued by Samsung's US unit and may have maturities of five years.

Audience, a maker of sound processing chips used in Apple products, plans to raise as much as US$75 million in an initial public offering.

According to data from Bloomberg New Energy Finance, the global new solar capacity grew 54% to nearly 28GW in 2011 with Germany and Italy leading in installations.

2012 could bring a big boost to the category thanks to LEDs (light emitting diodes) - those long-lasting, energy-efficient and often colorful gems that are quickly replacing the disgraced incandescent.

Advocates of renewable energy say an electricity supergrid could enhance the clean-power industry by connecting power sources like wind farms in Scotland and solar arrays in Spain or North Africa to the population centers of Europe.

The Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao, yesterday expressed his country's interest in collaborating with the UAE on renewable energy projects.

Foxconn will lay off 600 people in its Slovak plant where it makes LCD TVs for Sony due to low demand, Slovak business daily Hospodarske noviny reported on Monday.

Prior to joining Globalfoundries, Michael Noonen served as executive vice president, sales and marketing as a member of NXP Semiconductors' executive management team from 2008 to 2011.

South Korea's Samsung Group announced it would invest a record 47.8 trillion won (US$41.56 billion) this year and hire an all-time high of 26,000 new employees despite global economic gloom.

Elpida Memory aims to put together a drastic restructuring plan by the end of January, which it then hopes to show to its creditor banks, as the struggling chipmaker faces a slew of upcoming corporate bond and loan repayments, the Mainichi Shimbun reported in its Sunday morning edition.

Gold's skepticism arises from the lack of backwards software compatibility on the platform and said the danger is that if the market doesn't quickly take up Windows on ARM, Microsoft will stop spending resources on it, as has been the case with other platforms beforehand.