"In the US, energy policy is made on the state level," CEO Mike Ahearn said. "Every state has a different approach." In contrast, Ahearn said China has designated a region within the country for renewable energy production and transmission.

T-Mobile and Orange are to merge their UK businesses, creating a mobile phone giant with 28.4 million customers. The deal between Orange-owner France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile UK will see a business with sales of 9.4bn euros (US$13.5 billion).

Creditors of South Korea's Hynix Semiconductor have started the sale process for their controlling stake in the second-largest memory chipmaker.

The picture painted by the report is varied, but the general pattern is one of fewer people moving to foreign countries for work. For example, there was a sharp decline in the number of Mexicans moving to the United States.

Toshiba is in talks with Singapore's Chartered Semiconductor and Globalfoundries about outsourcing production of some of its next-generation system chips to help cut costs, two company sources said.

A new super central processing unit (CPU), jointly developed by Japan's big chipmakers and funded by the Tokyo government, is coming up to challenge Intel.

"Taiwan is politically similar to South Korea where real power sits with the president, and there is unlikely to be much political instability as a result of the premier's resignation," said an economist.

Despite its increased cost cutting course, Infineon plans no further job cuts.

Elpida Memory said it has developed a copper through-silicon via technology (Cu-TSV) and applied it to an 8Gb DRAM with vertical connections among eight memory die and an interface chip.

Japan's Sumco, the world's No.2 maker of silicon wafers used to make chips, said it tumbled to a first-half loss on weaker wafer demand from chipmakers.

Word on the street is that Micron is seeking to enter the NOR flash market. Some also speculated that Intel wants to unload its interest in Numonyx.

Shares of memory chip developer Rambus rose 8% on September 4 on speculation that Samsung Electronics would buy the company, but Samsung said it had no such plans.

Because "LED TV" implies that displays are comprised totally of LEDs, which is not the case, the Advertising Standards Authority wants Samsung to change its ads in the UK.

LG Electronics, the world's second-biggest maker of LCD televisions, said the company aims to increase shipments by about 47 percent next year, driven by demand from emerging markets.