Elpida Memory executives met Taiwan officials in Taipei today (Feb 11) to discuss integration of the memory-chip industry, Chen Chao-yih, head of Taiwan's industrial development bureau, said in a phone interview.

Advanced Micro Devices has said that it failed to get enough shareholders at its special meeting in order to vote for the creation of The Foundry Company (TFC) and spin off manufacturing capacities for the company. The company will now delay the vote by more than a week to get a quorum.

Outbound shipments plunged for the sixth straight month by a record 44.1% on year last month, due to slumping demand as well as fewer working days, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday.

SanDisk is disclosing at a San Francisco technology conference Tuesday that it will begin mass production of memory chips that will allow consumers to store up to 64GB of data on tiny flash cards. The company's X4 technology will pack four bits of data into each memory cell. To date, flash memory chipmakers typically stored one bit or two bits per cell.

Qimonda AG, the German chipmaker that has filed for insolvency protection, has begun reducing production at its plant in Dresden to about one quarter of capacity, cutting the amount of silicon wafers it processes.

A Qimonda spokesman, Ralph Heinrich, said in a telephone interview that the division is in talks with potential investors in Asia. Wirtschaftswoche magazine reported that CSMC Technologies, a unit of China Resources Microelectronics, is interested in buying Munich-based Qimonda and has been negotiating with the company for months, citing an unidentified person in the industry.

Toshiba has developed a higher capacity version of its FeRAM (Ferroelectric RAM) memory that can send and receive data at eight times the speed of its previously detailed prototype.

Struggling German chip maker Infineon is considering a partnership in Europe or Asia even though it can survive alone, its chairman told a newspaper, but analysts said chances for an alliance were slim.

Recent production adjustments for NAND flash memory won't bring the desired effect of stabilizing and increasing prices, a research report published by Baird suggests. Manufacturers will have to brace for further production cuts and price declines in the second quarter, while consumers should benefit from this scenario through cheaper flash memory devices, especially in SSDs.

Japan's Pioneer Corp. is to quit its loss-making flat-screen television business in a sweeping overhaul of its operations, the Nikkei business daily reported on Saturday.

Japanese electronics maker Sharp Corp. said Friday it will cut 1,500 contract workers in Japan by the end of March, and is headed for a billion dollar annual loss, its first in nearly 60 years.

Toshiba is planning to allow a total of about 16,700 workers to take on second jobs while they are on temporary leave due to production cuts in its struggling semiconductor and LCD divisions, company officials said Thursday.

Tessera reported 4Q sales of $69.1 million, up 30% year over year, in line with estimates, and profit of 41 cents per share, excluding some costs, which was ahead of the average estimate of 36 cents. The company designs devices that attach chips to PCBs and gets royalty payments for the use of those designs by others.

German chipmaker Infineon Technologies AG reported Friday a ？404 million ($513 million) net loss for its fiscal first quarter as the global economic slowdown crimped demand and caused sales to fall.