NXP BV's announced restructuring plan has left analysts pondering the company's future and dusting off age-old European chip company merger ideas. The plan is expected to cost about $800 million but it is hoped it will save US$550 million annually

Solar companies' success in ramping up new production lines and factories could leave the fast-growing renewable energy market awash in solar panels next year, driving down prices and profit margins in the nascent industry. The recent move by this year's hottest solar market, Spain, to cut its cap on subsidies for new solar panels has sparked fears that big producers may see their selling prices drop by as much as 20% as they scramble to sell out their production.

Solar power, with its promise of emissions-free renewable energy, boasts a growing number of fans. Some of them, it turns out, are thieves. Just ask Glenda Hoffman, whose fury has not abated since 16 solar panels vanished from her roof in this sun-baked town in three separate burglaries in May, sometimes as she slept. She is ready if the criminals turn up again. “I have a shotgun right next to the bed and a .22 under my pillow,” Ms. Hoffman said.

Last year, US technology exports fell for the first time in five years amid lower demand from some of the biggest importers, according to the AeA, a tech industry trade group formerly called the American Electronics Assn.

The WTO will examine whether Japan is complying with a ruling against its punitive import charge on South Korean computer chips. The WTO has twice ruled against a 27.2% charge Tokyo levies on dynamic random access memory made by South Korea's Hynix Semiconductor. Earlier this year, the WTO gave Japan until Sep 1 to bring the tariff in line with international trade rules. A third ruling against Japan in the dispute could lead to South Korean trade retaliation against Japanese goods or services.

...The debate boils down to how much speed you need," Crump said. DRAM storage is faster, but that's at a cost that's much higher than Flash-based storage. For example, 2TB of Flash-based storage costs about US$180,000, compared to about US$1 million for the same amount of DRAM-based storage. "DRAM is faster, but if flash does it for you, why spend the extra money?" he asked. In that case, it depends on the needs of the business, he said...

On Oct. 8, Sprint, Intel and other companies will host a WiMAX commercial launch party that will give live demonstrations of WiMAX devices and technology. Sprint CEO Dan Hesse will address the gathering, as will Sprint’s Xohm CTO Barry West.

Homeowners also would get a 30%tax credit for eight additional years for the cost of installing solar equipment. Homeowners could claim a tax credit of up to 10% of the cost of all qualified energy efficiency improvements, such as insulation, replacement windows, water heaters and heating and cooling equipment. To reduce demand for petroleum, the bill creates a tax credit for plug-in electric cars, whose buyers will get a tax break of from US$2,500-$7,500, depending on battery capacity of the vehicle.

NanoTech Institute offers tantalizing insights into a new, lightweight, reliable means of delivering power via the mighty supercapacitor. “Our electrode preparation procedure is an extension of conventional bucky-paper [a film made of 100% carbon nanotubes] fabrication technique for the multi-component system,” Oh said. “This procedure is easily scalable for device fabrication on an industrial scale.”

The United States, Japan and Taiwan say the EU, officially known at the WTO as the European Communities (EC), is violating a 1996 WTO deal to limit barriers on trade in high-tech goods such as satellite boxes, flat panel computer monitors and digital scanners and printers.

An engineer and professor by training, Barrett is a typically cool character. But in a 30-minute conversation, the silver-haired technology veteran vented his anger and frustration over Washington’s inability to solve America’s long-term problems. He is particularly upset that Washington failed to write a check for the US$1.2 billion in increased funding for basic research and science and technology education authorized by the America Competes Act, which President Bush signed into law in August of 2007.

Workers at the doomed Freescale Semiconductor plant in East Kilbride are attempting to challenge the legality of the company's slashed redundancy terms amid allegations of bullying by management, The Herald has learned.

Moser Baer's solar photovoltaic subsidiary has raised approximately US$93 million from an international group of investment houses in its bid to expand production of both crystalline solar wafer and thin film operations. Moser Baer is currently establishing a thin film PV plant near Chennai with a proposed 500MW annualized capacity, using Applied Materials ‘SunFab’ turnkey amorphous silicon production technology.

"Yes, Samsung is still in (merger) talks with SanDisk," Kwon Oh-hyun, head of the company's semiconductor division told The Korea Times on the sidelines of a business forum held at the National Assembly. "Samsung's legal team has reviewed measures to calm down a possible anti-trust issue in the United States if the deal succeeds," Kwon said. U.S. financial regulators would most likely reject the proposed deal because it would create a near monopoly in the flash memory market, analysts say.

The new 1.67-micron pixel sensor features 1/2.3" optical format, and a parallel/serial frame rate of 7.5fps (parallel) and 15fps (serial). It is the first 10MP CMOS image sensor for point-and-shoot digital cameras and the first product to integrate Aptina's High-Speed Serial Pixel Interface (HiSPi). This high bandwidth serial interface is based upon the JEDEC SLVS signaling standard and enables faster data transfer rates (up to 2.8 Gbps). Aptina's new sensor features HiSPi and allows a camera to capture and process data in HD (1080p/60fps)

Jim Chang, head of Foxconn's Czech arm, told local economic and political daily Hospodárské Noviny on Tuesday that the opening of the group's Székesfehérvár (60 km west of Budapest) unit is but an expansion on the Hungarian market. Hungarian business daily Világgazdaság said on Monday that Foxconn would replace the assembling of Acer PCs from the Czech Republic to Hungary.

"We don't have plans on manpower reduction," UMC said in a statement, in response to an Apple Daily report on Tuesday that UMC was considering laying off 1,300 employees, or about 10%of the company's headcount...

...Even India's government ministries responsible for facilitating the belated start of semiconductor manufacturing in India seem to have focused solely on the financial aspects (e.g., subsidies), and at the same time, underestimated the overwhelming importance of securing scarce technical knowhow that still dominates the viability of this most high tech of industries. The fact that nanoscale devices are already in production at the latest wafer fabs seems to have escaped them as well...

(the industry is now in a) digestion phase, during which the semiconductor market will absorb the production capacity built up over the past quarters.