Chip maker ON Semiconductor said Wednesday it expects first-quarter revenue in the range of US$340 million to $380 million, which is below Wall Street's expectations.

ALLVIA, the first through-silicon via (TSV) foundry, has secured US$5 million from private investors in its next round of funding to expand manufacturing facilities and to build more capacity. This brings the total funding invested in the company to US$25 million.

Michael Jaffe, the insolvency lawyer for Qimonda AG, will fly to Asia by the end of this week to meet potential investors for the German memory-chip maker.

The US-Taiwan Business Council, in its "Semiconductor Quarterly Report--Annual Review, 2008," contends that Taiwan is facing a critical strategic crossroads that will impact the future of its semiconductor sector, and particularly the DRAM industry, for years to come.

The new federal rules limiting executive compensation announced by President Obama Wednesday may affect only a handful of the nation's most battered financial institutions currently.

STMicroelectronics and Ericsson has announced the closing of their agreement merging Ericsson Mobile Platforms and ST-NXP Wireless into a 50/50 joint venture. The deal was completed on the terms originally announced on August 20, 2008. Ericsson contributed US$1.1 billion net to the joint venture, out of which US$0.7 billion was paid to ST.

Planned layoffs at US firms in January reached their highest monthly level in seven years, according to a report released on Wednesday, as the more than year-old US recession took an increasingly heavy toll on employment.

The US switch to digital television signals will be delayed four months until June under legislation that cleared Congress on Wednesday. Obama supports the delay, sharing concerns that 20 million mostly poor, elderly and rural households were not ready for the congressionally mandated switch.

Unlike past US recessions, chipmakers can't count on boosting overseas sales this time because the economic slowdown has so quickly gone global. Slowing exports is a challenge for the chipmakers, which do most sales overseas. Three of the largest US chipmakers are taking different tacks to cut manufacturing costs in the face of a steep global recession.

The global economic downturn will continue to hammer computer networking giant Cisco Systems, chief executive John Chambers said Wednesday. In its current quarter, Cisco expects to see revenue decline between 15% and 20%.

Samsung Electronics on Wednesday said it plans to start selling by the end of 2009 a DRAM chip built with its new 40-nanometer technology, which is expected to use significantly less power than the current generation of memory chips used in PCs.