Walmart is officially tight-lipped about the buzz that its shelves could be hosting a US$99 4MB iPhone by the end of the month. But mobile device experts have plenty to say, and it's all good.

AMD and Abu Dhabi-based ATIC and Mubadala have renegotiated some of the financial details of their deal,inked in October, to transfer ownership of AMD's foundry business and assets, to more closely reflect the current market value of the sale.

Chinese and European leaders plotted their next steps as investors looked to governments to lead major economies out of recession because central banks could start running out of room to cut interest rates further.

Hynix Semiconductor has sought 1 trillion won ($691 million) in financial support from its creditors as it faces a liquidity crunch and struggles as chip prices are falling, reports say.

The growth pace of China's new energy industry is seriously dented by oil price slump and demand shrinkage due to the global financial crisis, according to analysts.

A spokesperson from TSMC says that from December 2008, employees who work in TSMC's manufacturing departments will take as many as five unpaid days each month and those who work in other departments will take one unpaid day each week staring from January 2009. At the same time, the transport allowance that was previously paid to the company's managing staff will also be canceled.

“In the area of memory, because of the supply overhang, it will be difficult for us to make a profit,” Executive Vice President Chu Woo Sik, head of Samsung’s investor-relations team, said today at an event in San Francisco. “LCD is struggling very hard to make a profit.”

Texas Instruments (TI) has lowered its expected ranges for fourth-quarter revenue and earnings per share (EPS). The company now expects its revenue will range from U$$2.3-2.5 billion, compared with the prior range of US$2.83-3.07 billion; and EPS will be US$0.10–0.16, compared with the prior range of US$0.30–0.36.

Due to the current global economic environment, customers across each of Broadcom's targeted end markets have requested adjustments in their deliveries for the fourth quarter, resulting in significant pushouts and cancellations since the company originally provided guidance for the quarter in October 2008.

Programmable chipmaker Altera has slashed its fourth-quarter outlook, citing weaker-than-expected sales across all market segments. The company said it now expects revenue to fall 9-12% from the third-quarter, implying a range of around US$312-323 million.

Apple has noted that they have reached the 300 million download milestone for the App Store, almost five months after the store went live.

Intel researchers have made the next advance in the field of Silicon Photonics by achieving world-record performance using a silicon-based Avalanche Photodetector (APD) that could lower costs and improve performance as compared to commercially available optical devices. The research results were published today in Nature Photonics.

After a dismal start to the holiday shopping season, Web surfers have picked up their spending since Thanksgiving, ComScore reports.

Shares of OmniVision Technologies tumbled Wednesday after the maker of camera image-sensing chips projected a third-quarter loss, disappointing most analysts who expected a profit.

A growing percentage of cell phones, PDAs, and high-speed microprocessors are assembled with flip chip technology today. If the reliability and cost reduction decades can be shortened to 3-5 years each, then high-volume production using TSVs could happen in 6-10 years, i.e., 2015-2020. If not, then high volume production will start after 2020.

The i6-Goal has been created by local phonemaker QIGI and mobile software developer TechFaith Wireless Communication Technology. The latter is likely to have a key input into China Mobile’s plans to create its own take on Android, and this could, in turn, enhance the influence of Qualcomm, which has come out as a major supporter of the Google system.

Sales of mobile phones are shrinking faster than expected as consumers are cutting spending, the world's top mobile phone maker Nokia said on Thursday in its second warning in three weeks.

The Labor Department said Friday the unemployment rate hit 6.7 percent last month, the highest since 1993, which adds up to 10.3 million Americans out of work, 2 million more than the population of New York City.

"The electronics group Hynix was already rescued once by the South Korean state bank and now has emerged as interested in Qimonda." Asked about the comment, a Hynix spokeswoman in South Korea denied any interest in Infineon or Qimonda assets.

"The joint venture is evaluating plans for operations over the holiday season, including a possible stoppage of some production lines," a SanDisk spokesman said Friday. "We constantly consider manufacturing schedules in light of market requirements and this is particularly true during the holiday season," he added. This follows a Bloomberg report that said Toshiba is considering a "partial stoppage" of flash memory production in Japan over the holidays.

Wafer shipments at the world's top two foundries, TSMC and UMC, are set to plunge further than anticipated in 4Q, but the picture for 1Q is even uglier with "historic lows" looming for utilizations, according to an analyst report.

Smart dust is based on microelectromechanical systems, or MEMs. These tiny computer chips can measure temperatures, vibrations or surface pressures. Smart sensors relay signals back to a command computer, which then compiles the data to give feedback to plant managers. Or the results could trigger an automatic response, such as turning down a building's temperature or reducing the flow of oil.

The world's second-biggest maker of memory chips will eliminate 30 percent of its executives and cut labor costs by more than 15 percent because of the global economic slowdown.

Hynix Semiconductor is facing a cash crisis as losses deepened to over 1.4 trillion won in 2008. The Korean Government support via Korean banks mirrors the potential intervention of the Taiwan Government in facilitating further credit instruments for Taiwan’s struggling DRAM manufacturers.