A law.com article (registration required) cites lawyers as saying that the US government bestowed amnesty on Samsung in the LCD probe. In the unique world of criminal antitrust law, the first company to step up and admit a conspiracy receives a pass from prosecution.

...Strong revenue growth in October confirmed the US game industry is weathering the macroeconomic turmoil very well... ..Besides gaming, LEDs are hot. For example, LED lighting is projected to be a US$400 million market in 2008...

...Analysts shadowing Dell have been busy this week cutting estimates and reducing the target price on the company's already-battered shares. Raymond James Associates once pegged earnings for 2010 at US$1.75 a share. That is now down to US$1.23, which is below the US$1.30 the firm thinks Dell will earn in 2009, which is below what the firm thinks Dell will earn for 2008.

The board of directors of the Empire State Development had been scheduled to vote on whether to transfer a US$1.2 billion package of state incentives from Sunnyvale-based AMD to The Foundry Co., a joint venture between AMD and UAE-based Advanced Technology Investment. Instead, that vote has been postponed until a December meeting, according to AMD and state officials. However, Travis Bullard, a spokesman for AMD, said the decision to push off a vote until the board’s December meeting does not delay the plant.

More rumors are afoot that Foxconn is looking to snap up Pegatron, the OEM arm of the Asustek Group, with the deal to go down as early as the end of this quarter or second-quarter 2009, depending on the source.

Amid a downturn in DRAMs, Samsung Electronics remains the top supplier in the arena, according to the new rankings from Gartner. In terms of sales, Samsung was the world's largest DRAM maker in the third quarter of 2008, followed by in order Hynix, Elpida, Qimonda, Micron, Nanya, Powerchip and ProMOS, according to the rankings. Germany's Qimonda AG gained share and took fourth place, surpassing Micron. But Qimonda's fortunes could be short lived.

Benchmark indexes in Japan, Hong Kong and South Korea all dropped by about 5% in early trading after the Dow Jones share index in New York fell to its lowest level in five years, amid fears of a protracted global recession.

At SC08 yesterday, Michael Dell, Dell’s CEO gave a presentation which included a slide showing an 80 core chip which should tip up sometime around 2010.

Legal disputes are rising as employers refuse to pay employees for the 20 or so minutes it takes for their computers to boot-up or shut down each work day.

German chemicals company BASF Wednesday said it will temporarily shutter 80 plants worldwide due to a "massive" demand decline in key industries, particularly the auto industry, as it warned of sliding profits. The move will affect 20,000 workers, including 5,000 in Ludwigshafen, Germany.

Siimpel announced today that it has completed an investment round in support of its groundbreaking MEMS technology and product development for mobile camera applications. DoCoMo Capital, the corporate venture arm of NTT DoCoMo, has joined Siimpel's existing strategic investors from the mobile market.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup has handed Apple its latest victory against cloners that create and sell machines based on Apple's software.

The idea of this tax isn't to inflict pain or get people out of cars - it's to make gasoline prices predictable so that automakers and consumers could make rational, long-term decisions rather than being subject to the rollercoaster ride we've taken in the past year. A high tax would hold down gas consumption, making it more difficult for oil-producing countries to gouge us again when the world economy recovers. Even though we'd be paying more than we're paying now, we'd be paying much less than the $4-plus we paid this summer.

HP expects earnings of 84 cents per share and adjusted earnings of $1.03 per share for the three months ended in October. This is slightly better than the $1.00 per share, excluding items, expected from analysts polled....

Market research group Gartner has lowered its forecast for semiconductor equipment manufacturing gear sales in 2009, just weeks after a previous downgrade.

In October, Qimonda sold its 35.6% interest in Korean chipmaker Inotera for US$400 million to Micron and is using those proceeds to restructure its core business. German newspaper WirtschaftsWoche said that after Micron has completed the restructuring process it could acquire Qimonda with the purchasing price of the Korean chipmaker being credited against the purchase of Qimonda.

Japan's largest mobile-phone operator and KT Freetel of South Korea will work together to develop a low-cost smart phone using free software from Google.

ARC International has introduced Virtual Bass audio enrichment technology that enables electronic companies to be more competitive and lower manufacturing costs while providing a more compelling multimedia experience to consumers.