Nokia may announce as soon as Friday a partnership with Microsoft or Google to adopt a new operating system.

"The first iPhone shipped in 2007, and we still don't have a product that is close to their experience. Android came on the scene just over 2 years ago, and this week they took our leadership position in smartphone volumes. Unbelievable," said CEO Steven Elop in an internal email.

Apple has started production of a new version of its iPad tablet computer. It will have a front-facing camera for the first time. The new iPad will be available through Verizon and AT&T, but not Sprint or T-Mobile in the U.S.

China's central bank said Tuesday it will raise its benchmark deposit and lending rates by 0.25 percentage point each effective Wednesday, in its latest move to tighten liquidity and manage inflation. The People's Bank of China said in a statement it will raise the one-year yuan lending rate to 6.06% from 5.81%, and the one-year yuan deposit rate to 3.00% from 2.75%.

"There are certainly server applications today for which ... a lack of 64-bit is not a barrier..."

Fabless LCD developer Pixel Qi has announced it has struck a manufacturing partnership with Chunghwa Picture Tubes (CPT) of Taiwan.

Japan's economy will emerge from a lull soon and is certain to pull out of deflation over time, a Bank of Japan policymaker said, offering a somewhat upbeat take on the outlook on budding signs of a recovery.

Taiwan's dollar rose past NT$29 against the greenback for the first time since 1997 on speculation the central bank is letting the currency strengthen as foreign funds buy the island's assets.

On January 19, 2011, the 3.5 billionth CoolMOS high-voltage MOSFET came off the production line at Infineon's manufacturing facility in Villach, Austria.

Unemployment fell sharply for a second straight month in January. Still, many economists find the two-month drop, the largest since 1958, too good to be true and expect it to edge back up in the months ahead.

Rising demand for vehicles in China has boosted profits at Infineon. Back orders are expected to last through summer.

The profit gain was largely due to "a significantly improved performance in electronic devices, driven mainly by the return to profit of the LCD business and demand expansion in NAND flash memories," Toshiba said in a statement.

"In 2010 there was a big bounce in the semiconductor market marking a recovery year which has seen the industry overall grow about 15%," said Tim Score, ARM's CFO. "ARM grew about 30%, and this year we expect the industry to grow about 5% to 8%, and that we will grow faster."

Speculation ARM could become a takeover target is misguided and ignores the importance of the chip designer staying independent, ARM's president said.

"A fall in DRAM prices, the appreciation of the yen, and inventory valuation losses resulted in a 26.9 billion yen operating loss," said CFO Yasuo Shirai. Elpida shares closed 0.24% higher in Tokyo trade ahead of the earnings announcement on February 2.

When a final agreement is reached, Powerchip will phase out the sales of own branded DRAMs and Elpida will purchase all PC DRAMs from Powerchip to sell them as its own branded products. Powerchip currently has 80,000 wafers per month capacity for commodity DRAM production.