Japan fires up its semiconductor industry
611264
Chipmakers are again investing heavily to avoid the mistakes of the 1990s. But can they compete with overseas rivals and avoid a glut?
407848
Elpida Memory Inc., Japan&#39;s largest manufacturer of memory chips, plans to raise as much as 102 billion yen ($954 million) in an initial public offering to help finance the construction of a new plant.
311675
Tokyo stocks climbed to a two week high  on Friday after Tokyo Electron Ltd. and other chip-related  stocks were boosted by a bullish revenue outlook from industry  leader Intel Corp.
288369
By Kyodo News International, Tokyo  Sep. 20--TOKYO -- Shin-Etsu Chemical Co., the world's largest silicon  wafer maker, said Wednesday it will spend 120 billion yen to substantially  expand its group's 300-millimeter wafer production capacity to meet growing  demand.
766573
Worldwide sales of semiconductors rose 9.2 percent to $21.5 billion in January from a year earlier as economic confidence buoyed demand for consumer products like mobile phones and computers, Bloomberg News reported from Berlin.
525392
(InfoWorld) - Fujitsu will purchase two chip plants in Japan from Spansion Japan, a flash memory chip maker in which it holds a stake, the companies said Thursday. Fujitsu will pay Â¥17 billion ($145 million) to buy Spansion's JV1 and JV2 factories, which are in the city of Aizu-Wakamatsu in northeast Japan, where Fujitsu already operates its own chip factory. Fujitsu will use the plants to produce flash memory embedded microcontrollers, it said. Such chips are used in automotive and consumer electronics applications, and Fujitsu said it expects the market for the devices to grow. The company will also keep producing some flash memory chips at the factories for the time being, it said. SpansionÂ began life as a joint venture companyÂ between Fujitsu and Advanced Micro Devices, before listing its stock on the Nasdaq stock market in the U.S. late last year. ItÂ raised about $506 millionÂ in the public offering, which reduced Fujitsu and AMD's shareholdings to minority status.
384912
New Japanese research into silicon carbide growth could revolutionise the electronics industry. A team of scientists has developed a method of making near-perfect silicon carbide crystals.
44610
The Semiconductor Industry Association, based in San Jose, Calif., says worldwide sales of semiconductors grew 1.1 percent to $18.
648424
The Nikkei average rose 2 percent by late  morning trade on Monday as banks extended last week's gains and  strong gains in U.S. semiconductor chip stocks helped push up  Japanese peers such as Advantest Corp.
176181
Chipmaker ST Microelectronics is doubling its Indian workforce to 3,000 and making the country a centre for R&D.
670651
Asian shares jumped to multi-month  highs on Monday on a rally in semiconductor-related issues,  including Japan's Advantest Corp., and European stocks were set  to rise after a rally in U.S. markets.
335070
Japan's leading PC maker makes a bet on the upstart chip maker.
478359
Worldwide semiconductor sales totaled $18.8 billion in October, up 1.5% from September and 22% from a year ago, the Semiconductor Industry Association said.
475730
Semiconductor sales worldwide surged to a monthly record of $20.5 billion in August, fueled by higher demand for memory chips used in PCs and mobile gadgets such as cell phones and digital cameras, an industry group reported Monday.
699303
In the latest display of its manufacturing might, Intel Corp. is opening a new $3 billion factory in Arizona, widening its lead over rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc. in the industry's switch to a new chip-making technique.
169139
(InfoWorld) - Industry associations from India and Taiwan have signed an agreement to work more closely in the future on semiconductor technology, including building better business ties and finding further areas for collaboration. The India Semiconductor Association and Taiwan Semiconductor Industry Association pledged in a memorandum of understanding signed Monday, to host more meetings, organize more events, seek out business opportunities, help companies from each place find partners, create an information database and more as time goes on. The agreement ties together one of the world's largest semiconductor producing economies, Taiwan, to one of the fastest growing markets in the world, India. India is also keen to build up its semiconductor prowess, officials said. Taiwan is home to the world's two largest contract chip makers, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC) and United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC), as well as the biggest chip packaging and testing company, Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc. The island also boasts the second biggest chip design industry by revenue, behind only the U.S., and recent investment in computer memory chips has also transformed Taiwan into a DRAM powerhouse. The island makes nearly a fifth of the world's DRAM, and companies are fast moving into NAND flash memory. Some Taiwanese companies have already taken advantage of opportunities in India. MediaTek Inc., Taiwan's largest chip design firm and the biggest maker of chips for optical drives such as DVD players, has already set up a software development center in Noida, India. The center is key to one of MediaTek's top selling products, mobile phone chips. Not only does the Indian office create the user interface for MediaTek mobile phone products, but it is also a point from which the company can tap India's fast-growing mobile phone industry. MediaTek is already one of the top mobile phone chip makers in the China market. India boasts the fastest growing mobile phone market in the world, making it an important place for chip makers to set up shop. The nation added 8.06 million new subscribers in July, raising its total to 192.98 million, according to the according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). By comparison, the number of mobile phone subscribers in China rose to 508.56 million at the end of July, an addition of 6.9 million new users in the month, according to China's Ministry of Information Industry (MII). A number of chip companies from around the world have established research centers in India. Qualcomm Inc., the largest chip design house by revenue and a major U.S. mobile chip company, has also opened a software and chip development lab in India. The company uses it as a base for research and development as well as a place from which to promote its CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) technology, according to its Web site.
259433
Most major Japanese electronics makers reported improved earnings for the third quarter on Thursday as cost cutting pushed up profitability and demand surged for new digital products.