IBM has struck its second major chip deal in China, leaving some to wonder if Big Blue is handing over technology to that nation without thinking about the possible consequences. Thanks to IBM, the Chinese foundry vendor will ramp the 45nm technology in 2010 - a possible bad sign for its rivals.

"Demand for our XLR immersion lithography light sources and Installed Base Products rose sharply during the quarter, driven by increased investment from the foundry and memory sectors in support of transitions to the 5x nanometer node and below," said Cymer's CEO Bob Akins. Cymer's net income totaled US$10.79 million in the third quarter, compared to net income of US$5.33 million a year ago.

The major supplier of NAND flash silicon invested "millions" in Fusion-io, said Fusion-io President and CEO David Flynn, though he declined to give a more specific figure. The two will jointly evaluate technology for new applications of solid-state storage.

"We are encouraged by improved industry fundamentals and our increasingly diversified global markets, which bode well for further growth in Q4 and in 2010," said Eli Harari, SanDisk chairman and CEO.

Sun Microsystems plans to eliminate up to 3,000 jobs, or 10% of its worldwide workforce, as it awaits a takeover by Oracle, a deal being held up by antitrust regulators in Europe. Sun said the job cuts will happen over 2010 and affect all of Sun's major regions, including North America, Europe, Asia and emerging markets.

Price is still a huge barrier for solid state disks (SSD) in the enterprise, but for some datacenters the math already makes sense.

27-inch iMacs! Mac minis as servers! New cheap MacBooks! A magical new mouse! Apple opened the floodgates this morning with a bushel of new hardware updates—which should set the company up for a blingin' holiday season.

Samsung SDI, the world's second largest maker of lithium-ion rechargeable batteries, posted its biggest profit in five years, driven by record shipments and sales of the product and gains from its mobile-display unit. Third-quarter net income rose 48 percent to 87 billion won (US$75 million) from 58.8 billion won a year earlier.

The influential lobby group Consumer Electronics Assn. is fighting what appears to be a losing battle to dissuade California regulators from passing the nation's first ban on energy-hungry big-screen televisions.

Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou said on Monday the island has not considered allowing the island's LCD firms to make large panels on the mainland for now, saying it will only cautiously export its technology expertise to China.

Taiwan's government will invest in an innovative memory chip company to a maximum of NT$10 billion, and only if such an enterprise can secure core technology and help Taiwan to stay competitive in the field, Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-shiang said on October 15.

President Ma Ying-jeou suddenly realized it needed to focus on matters closer to home.

EDA company Mentor Graphics has entered into a multi-year software and services agreement with Globalfoundries which includes the provision of Calibre software for the design of 32nm and 28nm chips.