Japan's Panasonic said it aims for double-digit sales growth this business year in the five major emerging markets it focuses on, including China and India, despite an estimated 10% decline in overall revenues.

Sharp said it may appeal a ruling by a US trade panel that said the Japanese electronics maker had violated an LCD patent held by South Korea's Samsung Electronics.

Samsung Electronics' memory chip business is expected to return to the black in the second quarter thanks to production cutbacks and steady rises in chip prices.

Struggling chip maker Elpida Memory has applied for a new government financial aid program in a bid to shore up its capital base and ride out a severe industry downturn, sources said.

In an oddly uncharacteristic move, Apple has quietly changed the way it is spelling the new iPhone 3GS, which now appears without a space all of Apple's press materials.

The slump in Japan's exports showed little sign of relenting in May, with auto exports to the US down more than half, adding to doubts about a quick recovery from the global recession.

The US and EU said China was giving its domestic industry access to cheap materials.

Rambus has showcased an XDR memory system that delivers data rates of up to 7.2Gbps, with Elpida's recently-announced 1Gb XDR DRAM device.

According to the complaint, LSI initially contacted SanDisk in 2007 to initiate patent license negotiations for several of SanDisk's digital media players. LSI eventually alleged that SanDisk's media players violate a total of eight patents held by LSI, according to the complaint.