Mentor Graphics has announced the qualification and immediate availability of its Olympus-SoC place-and-route system for chip designs targeting TSMC's 40nm process. These include the efficient 40nm (LP) process for handheld and wireless devices, and the 40nm General Purpose (G) for performance-oriented CPU, GPU, game consoles and networking devices.

"There is a reasonable probability ... of the U.S. economy starting to recover at the end of 2009 or the start of 2010," the IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said in a newspaper interview on Thursday.

"My ministry will provide financial assistance amounting to 12 rupees (30 cents) per kilowatt hour in case of solar photovoltaic and 10 rupees per kilowatt hour in case of solar thermal power fed to the electricity grid," Vilas Muttemwar said in a press conference.

FormFactor has announced that it expects revenues and earnings per share for fiscal fourth quarter 2008 to be below the financial guidance previously provided on October 28, 2008. The company now expects revenues to be between US$37 to US$41 million, lower than the previous expectation of US$48 to US$55 million, and earnings per share, operating expenses and gross margins to be below the guidance previously communicated.

"Never before have we witnessed such a sharp and sudden fall-off in lithography system demand, triggered by an unprecedented mix of falling end-demand for semiconductors, weak memory prices and restricted access to capital for our customers," said Eric Meurice, President and Chief Executive Officer of ASML. "This steep decline in our business activity is forcing us to adjust our organization in order to lower our cost base significantly."

Bit-tech has learned from several anonymous tipsters that AMD has culled a large portion of its workforce at its UK headquarters in Frimley. Details are light at the moment, but it is said that the sales team has remained relatively unaffected while engineering, marketing and administration have been hit pretty hard.

"We are taking advantage of the company-wide vacation period starting in late December to achieve the cuts," a Hynix spokeswoman told Reuters. "We will reevaluate our decision early next year depending on the market situation."

Programable chip maker Xilinx lowered its fiscal third-quarter guidance Tuesday, saying sales in December have been weaker than anticipated. Xilinx shares dipped 13 cents to $18 after hours Tuesday, after closing up 5 percent for the day.

OPEC oil ministers agreed their deepest output cut ever on Wednesday, cutting 2.2 million barrels per day from oil markets in a race to balance supply with rapidly crumbling demand for fuel. The cut, effective January 1, comes atop existing curbs of 2 million bpd agreed by OPEC since September.

Canon says it will delay the construction and start-up of a US$196 million digital camera plant in Japan due to slow demand, becoming the latest company to modify investment plans amid the global downturn.

The US International Trade Commission agreed to investigate Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics based on a complaint filed by Eastman Kodak. Kodak submitted its complaint in November, charging LG and Samsung with violating patents in their camera phones and other mobile products. The relevant patents cover technology related to image capture, compression and data storage, and a method for previewing certain images.

France's competition authority Wednesday temporarily barred an exclusive distribution deal between the country's dominant telecommunications group France Telecom and Apple over the blockbuster iPhone mobile phone.

Apple's shares fell almost 4% on Wednesday on concerns about the health of its chief executive and whether the company had any new products planned after it said Steve Jobs would not deliver the keynote speech at its upcoming technology show.

Amkor Technology has announced that as part of the company's overall cost reduction efforts in response to current economic conditions, its Compensation Comittee approved the recommendation by senior executives that their base salaries be reduced beginning in January 2009. The salaries of the Company's US payroll named executive officers will be reduced by 10%, except for the Company's CEO, who recommended that his salary be reduced by 50%.

STATS ChipPAC (Singapore), which provides semiconductor test and advanced packaging services, has responded to the global semiconductor downturn with a restructuring plan that results in ~1600 employees being laid off, ~12% of the company’s workforce.

"We deeply regret that the state of Saxony has not taken our proposals into account," says Peter Bauer, CEO of Infineon Technologies AG. "In spite of the extremely difficult situation of the world market and the semiconductor industry, Infineon has offered to provide a loan in combination with the sale of a substantial package of Qimonda shares to the state of Saxony. This offer represents the largest possible burden we can reasonably take on."

A source at China Telecom revealed recently that Qualcomm has decided to lower CDMA patent licensing fees for Chinese manufacturers--possibly even lower than the patent licensing fees levied by the WCDMA camp. Specific fee rates have yet to become clear.