If the current IC recovery will continue or fall back into a dreaded double dip, specialty foundry vendors also see a new competitive threat on the horizon: TSMC.

As China primes its energy market for explosive growth, the country could see one gigawatt of solar power generation capacity by 2011, said a new report by GTM Research.

By the end of 2011, ARM will be a "small but significant" PC processor architecture, said a Gartner analyst.

Samsung Electronics has said it is considering absorbing its camera-making unit Samsung Digital Imaging. Samsung Digital Imaging currently develops and manufactures cameras, which are sold, distributed and marketed by Samsung.

Samsung Electronics has estimated it made a record quarterly operating profit of 4.1 trillion won (3.5 billion dollars) in July-September. Consolidated sales for the quarter are estimated at 36 trillion won, up from 30.27 trillion a year ago.

...It's a superficial update, and not a very thorough one. It's an interim product, and a vain attempt to hold onto the thinning ranks people who still choose Windows Mobile despite not being somehow tethered to it until the tardy Windows Mobile 7 comes out, whenever that may be. And it won't work...

The R&D costs for process technology are expected to climb from US$310-to-US$400 million for the 90nm to 65nm nodes, to US$600-to-US$900 million for 45nm to 32nm, to US$1.3 billion for 22nm to 12nm. A fab would run from US$2.5-to-US$3.5 billion for the 90nm to 65nm nodes, to US$3.5-to-US$4 billion for 45nm to 32nm, to US$4.5-to-US$6 billion for 22nm to 12nm.

In recent times, copper has been rapidly gaining a foothold as a substitute material for gold in wire bonding. Some of the advantages include superior electrical and thermal conductivity, less intermetallic compound growth and greater mechanical stability.

"We spend many months developing and then fine-tuning the controller and firmware technology for our SSDs, working very closely with most of the major PC OEMs..."

For the quarter ended Aug. 28, Smart Modular reported a loss of US$289,000 compared with a loss of US$3.53 million a year ago. Gross margin rose to 21.4% from 15.5% on the price gains.

Murata Electronics North America has asked the US International Trade Commission to investigate whether two subsidiaries of Samsung Electronics have been importing electronic components into the country that infringe four of its patents covering ceramic capacitors.

Micron's recent performance was "a really strong signal" that things have been improving in the chip market, which had suffered from an industry-wide glut that drove prices into the ground, according to an analyst.

Fans have been holding their breath since Sony released its new Slim version of the fabled console system. How has the console held up in the market? Has Sony rebounded from the previous years of lagging sales and criticism?