The chairman of China Unicom finally has some sales figures to report.

Rich states meet emissions targets by paying poor countries to do the cutting, under Kyoto's Clean Development Mechanism. However, rich countries account for most of the past emissions that now fill the air, but less than half the world's current emissions.

Non-volatile memory supplier Numonyx could add a refresh cycle to its chalcogenide phase-change memory to allow it to work at elevated temperatures.

The Korean government and private sector will jointly inject 58.4 billion won (US$50.5 million) over the next three years into building up the local semiconductor manufacturing equipment sector, according to government officials.

Panasonic, which runs a hybrid and electric car battery joint venture with Toyota, has secured a controlling stake in rechargeable battery maker Sanyo.

The sector's recovery depends on what happens at the global climate change summit taking place in Copenhagen and incentives for the renewable resource in China, according to Mark Pinto, CTO and general manager of Applied's Energy and Environmental Solutions group.

Elpida Memory may post its first annual operating profit in three years as growth in demand outpaces industry production, according to company CEO Yukio Sakamoto.

Hynix Semiconductor plans to invest about 2.3 trillion won (about US$2 billion) in its semiconductor business – 1.5 trillion won in DRAM and 800 billion won in NAND flash memory and logic – in 2010, a 130% jump from one trillion won this year.

Robust German exports have helped calm fears that the economic recovery in Europe's largest economy is losing momentum.

Xilinx and Altera, which together control more than 85% of the programmable logic market, are poised to grow twice as fast as the broader semiconductor industry going forward, according to a Wall Street analyst.

Europe's top antitrust regulator agreed to end its investigation of memory chip maker Rambus on December 9, after the firm agreed to change the way it licenses its industry-standard technology.