Samsung started a 30MW solar cell production line for research and development last September and will incrementally increase capacity to 130MW next year, company spokesman James Chung said today.

...and if Apple misses out, it will likely never get another chance to acquire the wireless technology necessary to do so because the entire mobile component value-chain is consolidating and the remaining players are giants.

Indonesia has no plans to ban services for RIM's BlackBerry services, according to a Wall Street Journal report Thursday, citing an information ministry statement, whch said it has "no plan whatsoever to implement the banning policy which is being undertaken by United Arab Emirates, as we haven't seen any urgency ... also because there's no specific regulation regarding this issue," according to the report.

Android isn't only about smartphones - not for long, anyway. Google's mobile operating system is set to make its way onto all sorts of high-tech stuff, ranging from the mundane and to the just plain strange.

This week RIM delivered on both these key requirements with the launch of the BlackBerry Torch 6800 - the first touchscreen "slider" BlackBerry and the first to run BlackBerry 6, the latest version of RIM's smartphone operating system.

Hynix will pay an estimated US$422.89 million for the 19.3% stake in the China-based joint venture, Hynix-Numonyx Semiconductor, according to Micron.

The announcement comes weeks after Taiwan signed a major trade deal with China - the first since the two split at the end of the civil war in 1949.

Chip equipment maker UMS, which counts Applied Materials as its biggest client, will boost capacity utilisation to 85% in the third quarter from 65% in a booming industry.

It took firefighters from Boise about a half an hour to put out the fire, which broke out in a building that helps support the company's development of solar panels.

A new solar energy capture technology is able to generate electricity from light and heat at the same time, producing double the efficiency of existing solar panels.

Infineon Technologies is in discussions with interested parties about a transaction concerning the segment Wireless Solutions (WLS), according to the company.

Rambus has introduced a high-performance, low-cost DDR3 memory controller for HDTVs, Blu-ray players and digital set-top boxes.

[A] team of researchers at MIT has found that silicon, the most widely used material for computer chips and solar cells, can exhibit "retrograde melting" when it contains high concentrations of certain metals dissolved in it. This could make it possible to produce some silicon-based devices, such as solar cells, using a less pure, and therefore less expensive, grade of silicon that would be purified during the manufacturing process.

Robert Krakauer succeeds Bruce McDougall, CFO of Globalfoundries since the company's launch in March 2009. McDougall will assume a new role as CFO of ATIC, the majority shareholder of Globalfoundries.