S&P's decision to lower the US credit rating was proceeded last week by a downgrade of US debt by a less-known Chinese rating agency, Dagong Global Credit Rating Co. It was Dagong's second such downgrade, moves Xinhua painted as prescient.

The rating agency's move to downgrade US debt could make it a leader among rating agencies or blow up in its face.

Fusion-io announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire IO Turbine, a provider of caching solutions for virtual environments.

Sharp and Pioneer gave A/V specialty and custom-installation dealers reason to celebrate Thursday when both companies paired up to formally unveil the first Elite brand high-performance LCD TV line that is to be sold exclusively through Elite authorized dealerships.

Sony ruled out dumping its television business or dissolving a TV panel partnership with Samsung Electronics Co even as it looks to overhaul its loss-making TV unit.

Rebates for Los Angeles solar panel installations are 32% lower under the newly relaunched Solar Initiative Program, which will start accepting applications next month.

Not be outdone by rivals such as Yingli Green in the utility-scale PV power plant business in China, Trina Solar has secured a 30MW module supply agreement with Huanghe Hydropower Development Co. Huanghe Hydropower is planning two ground-mounted solar projects in China's Qinghai Province, of which delivery is expected to start from August and continue through October of this year.

Bridgelux Inc., a maker of light- emitting diode, or LED, lighting technologies, received $60 million in financing led by Craton Equity Partners

The Ontario government has negotiated a 75-per-cent cut in its controversial subsidy to a Korean consortium that is building new wind and solar farms in the province.

Dow Corning Corporation has announced that its subsidiary Hemlock Semiconductor Group is selling all of the polysilicon it produces, and remains sold-out "for the foreseeable future".

Hitachi, Ltd. will pull the plug on TV production before the current fiscal year ends next March as it has suffered deteriorating profitability amid intensifying price competition with South Korean and other foreign rivals, the company said Wednesday.

MEMC Electronic Materials Inc., which makes wafers for solar panels, said Wednesday that its second-quarter profit climbed, helped by a boost in revenue from the resolution of a wafer supply agreement with Suntech Power Holdings Co.

Toshiba is planning to withdraw from its mobile phone joint venture with Fujitsu in the first half of 2012, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported Wednesday.

While global semiconductor revenue is projected to expand by 7.2% in 2011, Walden Rhines, chairman and CEO of EDA vendor Mentor Graphics, sounds a note of caution about maintaining this growth in 2012.

Samsung Electronics has acquired Grandis, a maker of magnetic random access memory (MRAM) technology known as spin transfer torque (STT-RAM). Samsung said Grandis will be merged into its R&D operations "that are focused on developing the next evolution of memory, where new semiconductor materials and structures are reviewed for their long-term commercial value."

Best Buy will begin selling Insignia Internet-enabled TVs with TiVo-powered interfaces and Chumby online widgets.

LED Roadway Lighting will supply 2580 SSL street lights to Edmonton, Canada, Kingsun Optoelectronic completes LED highway lighting project in Shenzhen, China, and Las Vegas and UK SSL updates.

Having cited weaker-than-expected financial results for the first quarter of 2011, due in part to the halt in PV installations in the key Italian market , Trina Solar has revised its second-quarter guidance, which points to the demand issues in Italy for the company's lower sales expectations.

Photovoltaic cells are best known for turning sunlight into electrical power - and they're big business. But did you know that there's a type of PV cell that eats heat instead of light to make power? It could replace the Li-ion battery in your cell phone, and it may also be used to scavenge waste heat from almost anything that normally dumps it into the environment, from your TV's electronics to your car's engine (even an electrical one).

HiSilicon Technologies has licensed a range of ARM technology for use across the breadth of its communications chip design activities including: 3G/4G basestations, networking infrastructure and mobile computing applications.

Weeks of political infighting in Washington have produced a budget deal that aims to cut the US government budget deficit by US$2.4 trillion over 10 years.

A single SuperScale controller equipped Z-Drive R4 is capable of transferring up to 2800 megabytes per second (MB/s) and completing over 500,000 input-output operations per second (IOPS), while a dual SuperScale controller card reaches an astounding 5600 MB/s and 1.2 million IOPS.

Kingston Technology has announced it is shipping the HyperX SSD, its first SATA Rev. 3.0 6Gb/s solid-state drive. The Kingston HyperX SSD features the latest SandForce controller and is designed for enthusiasts, gamers and performance users.