Hynix Semiconductor creditors named Kwon Oh Chul as the new CEO of the world's second-largest maker of computer-memory chips. They also plan to sell 8% of Hynix in the first half of 2010 and another 5% in the second half if they fail to find a buyer.

About this time last year, Intel and TSMC announced a groundbreaking deal. The deal was seen as a response by Intel to the growing popularity of customized ARM chips, but a lack of customer demand has put the partnership on hiatus.

The drives have arrived more than a year after SanDisk announced them, and more than six months after they were originally supposed to ship. A spokeswoman said the delay was due to a desire to "optimize" the product.

Elpida Memory aims to list subsidiary Rexchip Electronics on the Taiwan stock exchange in its fiscal 2010, according to a person familiar with the matter. Although the company had said it was considering listing Rexchip, it had yet to decide on concrete plans.

Now that Bloom Energy has unveiled its innovative fuel cell technology to the world, it appears the much-hyped Silicon Valley startup's "Energy Server" shows a lot of promise, particularly for Fortune 500 companies that can afford the parking lot-sized power boxes priced up to $800,000 apiece.

The lawsuit essentially alleges that the heavily funded startup runs an "extortion scheme" and has "unscrupulous sales practices" in place to generate revenue, in which the company?s employees call businesses demanding monthly payments in the guise of advertising contracts, in exchange for removing or modifying negative reviews.

Like others with a stake in EUV lithography development, maskmakers are being asked to contribute money to a Sematech effort to close the funding gap in mask inspection development. It's a tough question, however, given the low probability of a return on that investment anywhere in the near future.

The "oil crunch" or "peaking oil" will start to destabilize economies, politics and society in general as early as 2015. "The rise in the oil price will have a major impact on anything from fertilizer to computers to clothes," Virgin Airlines owner Richard Branson has warned.

Japan enjoyed its biggest on-year increase in exports in almost 30 years last month. The value of exports rose 40.9% in January 2010 from a year earlier, the fastest pace since February 1980.

If the bearish options traders are right, First Solar should soon slip below the century mark. A pair of analyst downgrades and price decline of as much as 7%, to US$106.30, fueled bearish options activity on the manufacturer of solar modules. First Solar was cut to underperform from neutral and given a 12-month target share price of US$90 at Wedbush.

The potential impact of lesser subsidies has been an anchor on First Solar in recent sessions, after the company said last week that such cuts could pressure earnings in the second half of 2010.

"It is true that the sector is getting hotter and hotter. But it is premature to say the market will continue the current upbeat mood throughout this year," said Oh-Hyun Kwon, president of the company's chip division.