Figures released by the Japanese government show that the country's economy has grown for a second successive quarter.

Taiwan's economic minister Shih Yen-hsiang met his Chinese counterpart behind closed doors in Singapore Sunday to work out an agenda for bilateral talks on a proposed bilateral economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA).

Suntech Power has announced that its first US manufacturing plant for the growing North American market would be located in the Greater Phoenix, Arizona area. The plant will have an initial production capacity of 30 megawatts (MW) and is expected to begin production in the third quarter of 2010.

Price pressure, caused by overcapacities in the worldwide solar panel business are exerting pressure on the solar panel value chain.

The growing influence of Brazil and China in the world economy received further recognition this week when the most commonly used benchmark for emerging-market stocks increased the weighting of companies in those nations.

Besides adding manufacturing capacity through ATIC's acquisition of Chartered and the construction of a new plant in New York, Globalfoundries is counting on advanced process technologies to help it win customers and compete with rivals like TSMC.

Consumers are changing buying patterns, placing a new emphasis on value and gravitating toward products that promise to improve their lifestyles, such as netbooks, portable navigation devices (PNDs), digital TVs, DVD recorders and video game consoles.

OCZ Technology has announced its collaboration with SandForce on its next-generation mainstream and enterprise solid state drives (SSD).

South Korea's Hyosung has withdrawn its bid for Hynix Semiconductor, throwing the future of the world's second-largest memory chipmaker into doubt again.

Applied Materials has announced it will cut 10% and 12% of its global workforce over the next 18 months, with half of the cuts in the US. Applied saw net income for its fiscal 2009 fourth quarter slip 40% on year.

China's National Bureau of Statistics says the country's latest economic data shows it is well on track to meet its target of 8% growth this year. The statisticians also see evidence in the data that Chinese consumers are starting to make more of a contribution to economic growth here.

"The problem for Applied and the problem for semi equipment in general is that it's highly unlikely that we're going back to 2007 capital spending levels..."