History has shown that crisis breeds opportunity. Business leaders may have to cut costs to survive 2009, but the smart ones are also out there looking for prospects. If you have to cut costs, start at the top. If you can't give staff more money, look for ways to give them more power. In addition, innovating now can leave you nicely situated for a turnaround. For those who are willing to take some risks, 2009 can be a time of great possibilities.

As the economy heads deeper into a recessionary abyss, business tax cut ideas that seemed to be nonstarters just a few short months ago are suddenly back on the table. Take the incoming Obama Administration's embrace of a measure that would lengthen the period for money-losing companies to write off net operating losses against profits from the current two years to four or five years.

Ulrich Schumacher, former Chief Executive Officer of Infineon Technologies AG, has been charged in a bribery case, the Munich Public Prosecutor said.

The SD Association unveiled a new SD card specification this week at the 2009 International CES that it said can support data storage capacities of up to 2TB with read/write speeds up to 104MB/sec. The specification, called SDXC (eXtended Capacity), uses Microsoft's exFAT file system to support the large capacity and interoperability in a broad range of PCs, consumer electronics and mobile phones.

Micron Technology has announced that the US District Court of Delaware has found that patents Rambus had asserted against Micron are unenforceable. The Delaware Court found that “the spoliation conduct was extensive, including within its scope the destruction of innumerable documents relating to all aspects of Rambus’ business.”

One Laptop Per Child - the non-profit organisation aiming to give kids in the developing world their own laptops - is laying off half its staff and cutting salaries for those who are keeping their jobs.

Elpida Memory announced that it has completed the early redemption of the outstanding unsecured convertible bonds (CBs) worth 44 billion yen (US$1.33 billion).

ARC International has warned of lower than expected revenues from semiconductor IP licensing at the end of 2008. "For 2009, management continues to remain cautious due to continuing uncertainty in the economic environment and fundamental industry changes," said the semiconductor IP developer.

Unlike the SEMI Worldwide Semiconductor Equipment Market Subscription (WWSEMS) data, the World Fab Forecast and its related Fab Database reports track any equipment needed to ramp the fab, upgrade, expand, or change its wafer size regardless if it is new equipment, used equipment, or transferred equipment, while WWSEMS tracks only new equipment.

Palm executives say the touch-screen device and the new operating system inside it, WebOS, break new ground in the fiercely competitive smartphone market. The phone's selling points include an emphasis on fast Web browsing and efficient multitasking.

"We have ramped down the N810 WiMax Edition tablet. It has reached the end of its lifecycle," said a Nokia spokesman. Nokia unveiled the model only nine months ago, while usually even the most trendy models have a shelf life of well over a year.

Nearly a dozen retailers, including Macy's and Target Corp, told investors that profits would take a further hit in the fourth quarter, which includes key holiday sales. The results confirmed that the U.S. recession, job losses and winter storms right before Christmas produced the most dismal holiday shopping season in nearly 40 years.

US President-elect Barack Obama wants to delay next month's nationwide switch to digital television service because of "major problems" for consumers.

Responding to the IC downturn, Microchip Technology has lowered its forecast, taken pay cuts and reduced its IC production rates. "General economic and semiconductor industry conditions have continued to decline since our October earnings call," said Steve Sanghi, Microchip's president and CEO, in a statement. "As a result of these conditions, we are continuing with a pay cut for all of our worldwide non-manufacturing employees which was implemented during the December quarter."

The SD Association has announced the next-generation SDXC (eXtended Capacity) memory card specification which will provide up to 2TB storage capacity and accelerate SD interface read/write speeds to 104MB/s this year, with a road map to 300MB/s. Specifications for the new SDXC standard will be released in the first quarter of 2009.

STMicroelectronics, Infineon Technologies, NXP, and Renesas Technology each said they received surprise visits from investigators in late October. All of them were raided by European Commission investigators seeking information of collusion in the market for chips used in smart cards.

CSR is claiming it is possible to simplify and speed the development of Bluetooth headsets with high quality stereo audio with a new type of software development kit.

Silicon foundry giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) is mulling plans to buy ProMOS, according to sources. In the plan, TSMC would buy ProMOS' fabs and would shed the company's memory business, sources said.

The IEEE P1901 Working Group has confirmed and approved the baseline for IEEE's standard related to broadband over power lines (BPL), IEEE Std 1901, "Draft Standard for Broadband over Power Line Networks: Medium Access Control and Physical Layer Specifications."

Taiwan's exports slumped by a record 41.9% in December on weaker demand from the US and China for laptops, mobile phones and computer chips.

Driven by increasing demand from mobile devices and automotive applications, wafer-level packaging (WLP) is moving up to higher I/O counts and finer pitches, experts said. Other WLP trends to watch in 2009 include high-power and high-accuracy precision devices, through-silicon vias (TSVs), fan-outs, and embedded flash.

SanDisk unveiled a portable digital music system based on memory cards preloaded with songs, signaling a shift in its strategy to compete against the iPod. The Sansa slotRadio player and companion line of slotRadio music cards were announced at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Wednesday.