Samsung Electronics and Toshiba said they have received notices from the US Justice Department informing them that an antitrust investigation into the flash-memory chip market had ended.

Memory chip makers will offer more sophisticated flash drives for smartphones - technology that will be comparable to the solid-state drives (SSD) found in laptops today.

Taiwan's leaders have approved a three billion US dollar Typhoon Morakot relief budget as public outrage grew over their response to the floods and mudslides that left up to 500 feared dead. "The cabinet lacks credibility in the typhoon victims' and the general public's eyes. A cabinet that cannot command the people's trust and respect should of course be replaced..."

When we asked Jensen about Globalfoundries, the big man from Nvidia said that Nvidia likes to work with companies that are customer centric. Since TSMC has 200 customers its kind of hard to be in center of attention, while such a thing might be possible with some alternative fab companies, such as Globalfoundies.

MEMS packaging may take an evolutionary leap forward into wafer-level packaging, driven by large IDMs and foundries, analysts said. "TSMC (Hsinchu, Taiwan) and others are talking about making MEMS parts...and they have the resources to do the package too.

Eli Harari, founder, chairman and chief executive of SanDisk, made the predications during a keynote. He also warned that the NAND industry is at the "crossroads," as there is a "disconnect" between future capacity requirements and demand.

Advanced Inquiry Systems, a developer of wafer-level sensing systems for memory testing, has closed an US$11 million Series B financing round with all its current investors participating.

Nano Solar Technology has ordered Oerlikon Solar's 120MW end-to-end Micromorph production line for making thin film solar modules.

Countries must rebalance their economies to make it sustainable, IMF chief economist Olivier Blanchard commented. Economies dominated by consumption - such as the US - would have to focus more on exports, while Asia turned more to imports.