"In view of the current global financial turmoil we are drawing $400 million under our revolving credit facility. This is a proactive financial decision in order to secure availability of this facility in a turbulent financial market environment," said Karl-Henrik Sundstrom, NXP's chief financial officer, in a statement.

The European Commission Wednesday cleared Swedish mobile telecommunications company Ericsson (ERIC) and STMicroelectronics NV to jointly produce chipsets for mobile phones.

Rambus shares surged for the second straight day Wednesday after the chip maker received a positive pre-trial ruling in California in its patent case against some of the largest semiconductor companies in the world. According to a court document on Rambus's Web site, on Monday a U.S. District judge issued a summary decision in favor of Rambus, saying the chip makers infringed on certain aspects of Rambus's patents. The chipmakers named in the case are Hynix Semiconductor, Samsung Electronics, Nanya Technology and Micron Technology.

The US bank called off talks with Panasonic on a sale of its stake in the Japanese electronics maker, unhappy with Panasonic's bid.

Lam Research has become the latest capital equipment industry company to announce layoffs, this week stating it would cut 600 jobs. The workforce reduction represents approximately 15% of Lam's total headcount and will impact regular, temporary, and contract employee positions, according to an SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) filing made Thursday.

In a report titled "Death by 1000 paper cuts: Cutting estimates and targets on most chip firms," FBR Capital Markets downgraded its estimates for several semiconductor industry companies including AMD, Maxim, and National Semiconductor.

Solar energy industry will receive moderate and no long-lasting impacts from global financial market, said Wang Runsheng, CEO of China's major solar cell producer China Sunergy. As the main driving force of solar photovoltaic (PV) industry, governmental subsidy policies haven't been removed or delayed due to the financial turmoil, said Wang, citing recent solar-favoring legislative adjustment in France.

Rushing to rescue Citigroup, the U.S. government agreed to shoulder hundreds of billions in possible losses and to plow a fresh US$20 billion into the stricken bank. "It would create chaos," said Winson Fong, managing director at SG Asset Management in Hong Kong, which oversees about $3 billion in equities in Asia. "Simply put, you couldn't borrow or lend for a while. This is a nightmare scenario."

When the American subprime crisis first knocked the dollar off its pedestal last year, boosting the euro to record levels, European chip-maker STMicroelectronics felt the pain. So in some ways, the threat of a truly global downturn has come as something of a relief to STMicro as the currency environment becomes more favorable and allows its restructuring efforts to shine through.

The new QFN package family, referred to as QFNs-se, features a higher number of thin I/O terminal pads as compared to conventional single or dual row QFN or leadframe-based Quad Flat Packages (QFP). The QFNs-se can accommodate three or more rows of terminals in a fine fixed or variable pitch, providing a wider pin count range of 50 to 250 I/O as compared to standard QFN packages which have 4 to 156 I/O. The QFNs-se is also considered to be a cost effective alternative to lower ball count Fine Pitch Ball Grid Array (FBGA) packages.

Shares of Analog Devices Inc. slid Tuesday after the chip maker warned first-quarter earnings will miss Wall Street's expectations by at least 11 cents by share. Goldman Sachs analyst Craig Hettenbach said the company's reluctance to cut jobs in order to bring down expenses has dragged on the stock. But he reiterated a "Buy" rating on shares, focusing on the company's "leadership position in data converters, where revenue increased" 8 percent year-over-year.

Spansion, one of the world's largest makers of flash memory chips, on Monday offered a grim sales outlook for the current quarter, citing a slowdown in demand as customers shut down factories. Spansion also said it is cutting cost of goods sold by about 25 percent and cutting operating expenses.

The global digital camera market may contract next year, the president of industry leader Canon warned, as sluggish economic conditions dampen consumer demand. Canon was aiming to cut $1 billion in costs with a new computer system to be completed by 2010.

Ever since it rejected a buyout offer from Microsoft early this year, Yahoo! has seen its share price head straight down and suffered a huge talent drain. This week's resignation of co-founder Jerry Yang as chief executive had an air of inevitability to it, as did the recent collapse of its search deal with Google.

“We have slowed our hiring, but we're still hiring,” Schmidt said in an interview that will be aired on Bloomberg Television at 9 pm New York time. Google fell $4.99 to $257.44 today in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The shares have lost 63 percent this year.