Chip and solar manufacturing equipment vendor Applied Materials Inc. announced it plans to cut 130 jobs, on a total of 280, at its Applied Materials Switzerland SA Precision Wafering Systems Division in Cheseaux, Switzerland.

ISA in PCs is due to Microsoft Windows' exclusive support.

Tilera Corp. will announced plans for a 100-core embedded processors at the Many-Core Virtual Conference this week where system maker Top Layer networks will discuss its use of Tilera's architecture.

The success of any technology should be measured years after its first adoption, not when it is fresh out of the development lab.

Freescale Semiconductor Inc. CEO Rich Beyer wants IC executives to add fixed costs cautiously as the sector begins to revive, noting recent sales growth must be deemed sustainable before suppliers boost manufacturing capacity to meet any expected bump in demand.

NOR flash supplier Spansion Inc. has put its 300-mm fab up for sale, according to sources.

Two Taiwan DRAM makers--Powerchip Semiconductor Corp. and Taiwan Memory Corp. (TMC)--are separately seeking state aid in an effort to survive, according to Gartner Inc.

After some delays, Nakaya Microdevices Corp. (NMD), Amkor Technology Inc. and Toshiba Corp. have signed definitive agreements for the formation of a joint venture to provide semiconductor assembly and final testing services in Japan.

The electronics industry is taking short cuts, or, in some cases, curtailing their in-house memory test procedures. This in turn has caused an inordinate amount of failures for DRAMs, NAND and related devices in the consumer market, warned an analyst.

China's semiconductor market is projected to decline by 6.7 percent to $68 billion in 2009, mainly due to falling exports, but is expected to rebound in 2010, according to market research firm iSuppli.

In a commentary of financial results for the third quarter of fiscal year 2009, European chipmaker STMicroelectronics NV (Geneva, Switzerland) expressed confidence as it expects to increase competitiveness going forward.

A new mobile robot promises to aid developers of artificial retinas and other visual prosthetics by testing the endless variations of video filters proposed to improve their effectiveness.

Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd. reported revenues of $415.2 million in 3Q 2009, down 10.4 percent from 3Q 2008 andup 19.0 percent sequentially.

Researchers at the Montpellier Laboratory of Informatics, Robotics and Microelectronics (LIRMM), in France, claimed they have developed a low power interface circuit for resistive sensors.

NXP BV (Eindhoven, The Netherlands) achieved a net profit of $412 million on third quarter sales of $1,034 million. This compares to a net profit of $344 million in the second quarter of 2009 and to a loss of $2,540

Programmable logic vendor Lattice Semiconductor reported a third-quarter net loss of $4.1 million on revenue of $49.1 million, and the company's top executive predicted that the worst of the semiconductor industry downturn has passed.

Two engineers in California went on trial this week on charges they were economic spies for the Chinese government.

South Korean memory maker Hynix Semiconductor returned to profitability in the third quarter on 26 percent sequential sales growth, the company said.