South Korean telecom regulators have approved the sale of Apple's iPhone in a market currently dominated by local handset manufacturers. Officials at KT, the country's number-two mobile service provider, said they plan to start selling iPhones next month.

Korea Exchange Bank sent out bid notices to around 40 conglomerates on September 7, and four to five were believed to be interested. But only textile conglomerate Hyosung submitted a letter of intent.

GTM Research says boom in US solar manufacturing to create 20,000 jobs between 2009 and 2012.

The organization responsible for Serial ATA has announced the formation of a mini-SATA spec, suitable for small-form-factor SATA drives and mini SSDs. The mSATA connector will still transmit up to 1.5Gb/s or 3Gb/s SATA signals, but do so in a smaller connector.

A court in August had sentenced Lee Kun-Hee to a suspended three-year prison term and a fine of 110 billion won (91.2 million dollars) for his role in a 1999 bond issue.

LDK Solar is scheduled to complete the installation of more than 50 MaxEdge wafering systems in October.

"We continue to make progress in every aspect of the SunFab lines and are well on our way to delivering 10% efficient SunFab panels and US$1 per watt production costs in 2010," said company CTO Mark Pinto. He also laid out plans for SunFab panels with 12% conversion efficiency and module costs below US$0.70/watt by 2012.

Canon is reportedly telling customers it will no longer develop future, leading-edge lithography tools, namely 193nm dry and immersion scanners, according to industry sources.

Backend tool giant Kulicke & Soffa Industries has raised its revenue outlook for its fiscal fourth quarter ending October 3.