Trina Solar announced its research agreement with the Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore to develop an all-back-contact high-efficiency silicon wafer solar cell using Trina solar's monocrystalline wafers.

"ATIC is not in a position to do this in this stage of our capital deployment," said Ibrahim Ajami, CEO of Advanced Technology.

Hynix Semiconductor said on May 31 it would raise its capital expenditure by a third to 3.05 trillion won (US$2.5 billion) this year to take advantage of a strong recovery in the global technology sector.

Toshiba, Hynix, Micron and Elpida all moved up at least one position in the top 20 list, with Elpida jumping six spots.

Steve Ballmer was unconcerned that Apple overtook Microsoft as the world's largest technology firm.

Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC) is still in talks with Texas Instruments (TI) about taking over the operation of a 200mm fab in Chengdu, China, according to sources.

Greenliant, a new company headed by SST's former management, will use the acquired product lines to form the core of its solid-state storage product portfolio for the embedded system, data center, and mobile Internet markets.

Daimler AG and BYD set up a 50-50-owned new joint venture-Shenzhen BYD Daimler New Technology-to develop a new green-car brand for the Chinese market.

There are signs Apple's trendy iPhone is making inroads into boardrooms and offices.

The phone is designed to capture both wind and solar energy to maintain a charge anytime, anywhere. However, there are a few hiccups.

A color version of Amazon.com Inc.'s Kindle e-reader may come eventually, but it won't be soon. Speaking Tuesday at the online retailer's annual shareholder meeting in Seattle, founder and CEO Jeff Bezos said that adding color to the Kindle's "electronic ink" display is a difficult technical challenge and that a color screen is "still a long way out." Bezos said he's seen things "in the laboratory" that are "still not ready for prime-time production."

Penguin books said on Wednesday it reached a deal with Amazon.com to again sell its new titles for Amazon's Kindle e-book reader in another step in book publishers' ongoing efforts to find profitable pricing models for e-books.

Aixtron and Veeco dominate what's known as the MOCVD market for LED applications and have been seeing strong demand amid increasing display sales for items such as TVs. But some investors have worried demand and bookings could soon weaken as the LED market sees excess supply.

ASML has announced that four TWINSCAN XT:1900Gi lithography systems have joined its "One Million Wafer Club" of scanners that have processed more than one million silicon wafers within 12 months, underlining the importance and acceptance of this advanced technology in mainstream chip manufacturing.