"We are considering a number of choices best for our firm, but are putting top priority on a technological alliance with Taiwan Memory," Elpida said in a statement.

Deposition equipment maker Aixtron AG of Aachen, Germany has reported revenue of ？274.4m for full-year 2008, up 28% on 2007’s ？214.8m (and the third consecutive year of growth).

G Electronics, the local arm of the world's biggest IT&C and electronics supplier, recorded a 20 percent increase in turnover last year, to 152 million U.S. dollars, on important sales on all the company's main sectors, NewsIn informs.

LG beat Samsung in the final rankings to emerge as the channel champion in the LCD category. LG did better than Samsung in four out of the five parameters— price-performance, marketing and branding, service and support, and channel relationships.

Samsung said statistics showed that it had achieved top revenue in the UAE with a 27 per cent market share.

Here's one group you won't hear complaining too bitterly about government spending: Tech executives. While they're careful to avoid promoting any particular political ideology, there's a common refrain among them that with the economy in such rough shape and with customers afraid to spend, it's only natural for governments to step up.

The financial crisis is taking its toll on the world's richest people, wiping 332 names off Forbes magazine's "rich list" of world billionaires.

LED lamps were compared to other technologies in a recent issue of National Geographic magazine, and LED lighting was also discussed by the UK parliament last week.

Flat-screen maker LG Display expects a more than 50 percent rise in shipments of LCD TV panels in China in 2009, Gyo-Young Song, sales chief in charge of south China, said on Wednesday.

Samsung Electronics may shed jobs through a voluntary retirement program as the consumer electronics giant faces a sharp drop in profits amid a global economic slowdown.

Seiko Epson will consolidate production at its unprofitable liquid-crystal-display and semiconductor units as part of a plan to focus on faster growing businesses including printers and projectors

The NAND rally continues. Vendors continue to increase their component prices, while SanDisk separately raised its flash card tags, according to an analyst. Amid component shortages--and reported "quality issues" at the Intel-Micron joint venture--NAND prices could jump again in 2Q.

Mario Morales, an analyst with market researcher IDC, is in the unenviable position of following one of the most bedraggled sectors in technology right now: semiconductors. "The biggest question I am getting is, when is the bottom?" Morales said last week. He doesn't see any growth coming to the semiconductor business until at least mid-2010.

With revenues falling by as much as 50% in some electronics sectors and with entire markets undergoing fundamental changes, the old ways of doing business are not enough to thwart this downturn.

The economic slump has become so pronounced that even outsourcing is getting scaled back. Executives who once relied on outside firms to handle certain IT tasks to cut costs are now reining in some outsourcing plans on concern they're too expensive.

Faced with a steep decline in sales, chipmaker National Semiconductor said Wednesday it will eliminate more than one-quarter of its work force, or 1,725 jobs.

China exports dropped an "ugly" 25.7% in February after January's 17.5% fall. The government is trying to boost domestic spending to alleviate the pain