The new iPhone would be similar in design to the iPhone 4 currently sold by AT&T but would be based on an alternative wireless technology called CDMA used by Verizon. The phone, for which Qualcomm is providing a key chip, is expected to be released in the first quarter of next year.

Powerchip Technology, ProMOS Technologies and Winbond Electronics are among possible targets, Elpida President Yukio Sakamoto said in interviews this week.

Motorola alleges that Apple's iPhone, iPad, iTouch and some Macintosh computers illegally use Motorola's technology.

The phone, which is on show at this week's Ceatec electronics show in Japan, is only a concept and Fujitsu doesn't have a firm commercialization plan at present, but it was developed with an eye to future LTE data services.

Adesto Technologies, a memory startup funded by Applied Materials and others, is readying its first conductive-bridging random access memory (CBRAM) product. CBRAM is seen as a potential candidate to replace conventional flash memory. Other candidates include FRAM, MRAM, phase-change and RRAM.

"The iPad did not seem destined to be a runaway product success straight out of the box," Bernstein Research analyst Colin McGranahan wrote, according to CNBC. "By any account, the iPad is a runaway success of unprecedented proportion."

MOtorola today announced the Droid Pro, which is clearly going after the BlackBerry segment and will be on sale in the first week of November on Verizon Wireless. Motorola Mobility's CEO Sanjay Jha, said: "34% of BlackBerry users are ready to switch to Android if it supports what the IT department wants."

As of August 10, Android phones represented 32% of the smartphones sold this year. In comparison, Apple iPhones accounted for 25% of devices sold and RIM BlackBerry handsets represented 26% of sales.

"We're considering various options of outsourcing as well as strengthening our own production capacity because of rising demand," a spokesperson for Sony said. The Nikkei English News recently reported that Sony plans to hire Fujitsu for the bulk of the production process for complementary metal-oxide semiconductor sensors used in digital cameras and camera phones.

"Although discussions are ongoing with Sony and Renesas Electronics to secure their continued access to our semiconductor packaging technology through a licensing relationship with us, these discussions have not sufficiently advanced, thus necessitating this lawsuit," said Henry Nothhaft, chairman and CEO of Tessera.

"In the DRAM sector, Hynix, which focuses its production on 44-nano DRAM products, aims to finish its development of 38-nano products within this year for mass production early next year," a company spokesman said.

Elpida Memory president and CEO Yukio Sakamoto said in an interview that the company is delaying plans to boost production capacity at its Taiwanese unit. "Through the summer, demand for PC memory didn't rise as much I had expected," Sakamoto said. "If there's no demand, there's no point in adding capacity."

The recent dust-up between China and Japan suggested how neighbours can have incompatible interests. But in business, things are often rather different. In one example, China's emergence as a producer of sophisticated technology is helping strengthen one of the few big microchip businesses left in Japan.

LG Electronics said that it had scrapped a plan to launch a tablet computer based on Google Inc's Android 2.2 operation system known as "Froyo," a decision that may delay the rollout of its first tablet PC slated for next quarter.

According to the the SEC filing, Ballmer was eligible for a bonus this past year of between 0% and 200% of his base $675,000 salary. He received 100%.

More reports on the Motorola Stingray tablet, which is scheduled for 1Q11. The Stingray reportedly will be a full 10 inches with Android 3.0 Gingerbread, 16GB of on-board storage, and Tegra 2. It will also be "hardware upgradeable to LTE," initially launching with CDMA alone.

Toshiba plans to scrap plans to mass-produce OLED panels at its unit Toshiba Mobile Display and focus on high-demand LCD panels instead.

Some analysis on China-based solar companies.

Rising competition from Chinese solar companies and high entry costs are likely to limit the number of start-up companies going into the PV manufacturing market, a managing director at private equity firm CMEA Capital said.