Semiconductor

TOKYO—Japanese vendor Matsushita Electric Industrial set up a new semiconductor manufacturing company in China, the firm announced on 31 January. The new firm, called Suzhou Matsushita Semiconductor, is located in Jiangsu Province and will initially provide discrete semiconductors for manufacturers …

TOKYO—Matsushita Electric Industrial, a leading consumer electronics manufacturer, on 28 January announced it filed a lawsuit against Samsung Electronics, claiming that the Korean company and three U.S. subsidiaries of Samsung infringed Matsushita’s patents covering dynamic RAM (DRAM) and related technologies. …

MIGDAL HAEMEK, Israel—Tower Semiconductor said it completed its offering of securities units in Israel, resulting in gross proceeds of US$23.2 million. The company will use the money for its Fab 2 project. The offering was oversubscribed by 205 percent with …

SCHAUMBERG, Illinois, United States—Motorola reported significant, but not surprising, losses for the fourth quarter and year ended 31 December, 2001, a year Christopher Galvin, Motorola chairman and chief executive officer, said “will go down in history” as one of the …

MIGDAL HAEMEK, Israel—Tower Semiconductor said it received a permit from the Israeli Securities Authority to publish a prospectus in Israel. The price of each security will be determined by a tender to be held on 22 January subject to a …

HONG KONG—Motorola said it plans to cut between 700 and 800 semiconductor jobs at its test and assembly facility in Hong Kong and move productions to its plants in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and the Chinese port city of Tianjin. The …

WASHINGTON-2002 offers the wayward wireless industry a chance to begin to redeem and redefine itself. But it won’t be easy, and survival skills will be essential. Indeed, with economic sluggishness persisting here and abroad, the industry is not totally in …

Shortly after Motorola Inc. reconfirmed its guidance for fourth-quarter sales and revealed another 9,400 jobs will be eliminated during the next year, the company boldly predicted it will increase its share of the global handset market from approximately 15 percent …

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif.-Semiconductor provider Conexant Systems Inc. made a series of major announcements, including a merger with Alpha Industries Inc., the separation of its business into three companies and improved sales for the first quarter. Conexant said it would merge …

LONDON—NEC announced it will close a semiconductor plant in Scotland, eliminating 1,260 jobs. The Livingston, West Lothian, plant closure is blamed on the widespread downturn in demand for cellular phone systems. The plant will cease operation in April 2002.

TOKYO—Toshiba Corp. announced it is selling its Virginia-based chip manufacturing plant to Micron Technology, thus exiting the dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chip manufacturing business. Toshiba expects the sale of Dominion Semiconductor to be completed by the end of January.

LONDON—NEC announced it will close a semiconductor plant in Scotland, eliminating 1,260 jobs. The Livingston, West Lothian, plant closure is blamed on the widespread downturn in demand for cellular phone systems. The plant will cease operation in April 2002.

GREENSBORO, N.C.-RF Micro Devices Inc. agreed to purchase IBM Corp.’s global positioning system development operation, the company said. The acquisition provides RFMD with advanced GPS technology and access to IBM’s chipscale packaging technology. As part of the transaction, IBM has …

BEIJING—Philips Semiconductor and China’s Huawei Technologies have agreed to jointly develop application specific integrated circuits (ASICs) for 3G products. Philips Semiconductor will mainly provide technical support and manufacturing services. The company will provide Huawei with 0.18 micron ASICs. Both companies …

While 802.11b, otherwise known as Wi-Fi, has made huge inroads as the wireless local area network technology of choice, many companies providing equipment and support for the technology acknowledge higher-speed alternatives will eventually displace Wi-Fi as the WLAN standard. Those …

SAN JOSE, Calif.-Hitachi Semiconductor Inc. said it has unveiled a new Flash memory product, called Mobile Media Chips, which saves space and enhances storage for multimedia functions in handheld PCs, personal digital assistants, mobile phones and pagers. “The benefits make …

SAN DIEGO—Qualcomm Inc. said it rolled out the first samples of its third-generation Mobile Station Modem, or MSM6050, which it claims to be the first baseband integrated circuit on 300mm wafers. The company produced the device in collaboration with the …

TOKYO—Citing sharp declines in demand, NEC Corp. is asking 6,600 semiconductor plant workers to stay at home with reduced pay for one to three days a month in November and December. The workers, who will be from eight different plants, …

ALLENTOWN, Pennsylvania, United States—Agere Systems announced its wireless platform and semiconductor will be used in Beijing-based PTIC Capitel’s new small C76088 and C6288 models, which recently began selling to the Chinese markets. According to the company, the new phones are …

TOKYO—Fujitsu, a leading communications vender in Japan, announced it is expecting to have a 310 billion yen (US$2.5 billion) net loss for fiscal year (FY) 2001, ending March 2002, due to reduced sales in its communications and semiconductor businesses. To …

TOKYO—NEC, a leading communications vender in Japan, announced that the firm is expecting its revenues for fiscal year (FY) 2001 ending March 2002 to decline by 2 percent, and the firm will have a 150 billion yen (US$1.2 billion) net …

BEIJING—China’s Datang Technology, China Electronics Corporation Wireless (CECW) and the Dutch firm Philips Semiconductors have agreed to form a joint venture to design and license core technology for TD-SCDMA mobile phones, including platform design, chipsets and software, China’s Business Weekly …

TOKYO—NEC Corp. and Sony Corp. reviewed their earnings outlook and NEC announced measures to move its businesses back to profitability. Sony cut its forecast for the fiscal year from $7 billion in to $84 million, while NEC cuts its outlook …

SALT LAKE CITY—Valence Semiconductor announced its VS7001 integrated circuit for GPS applications is now available. “The VS7001 represents a milestone in GPS design engineering and innovation moving toward the world’s first single chip GPS,” said Antony Beswick, vice president of …

DALLAS, United States—In a memorandum of understanding, L.M. Ericsson said it has agreed to combine Texas Instruments’ semiconductors with its mobile platforms. “TI’s wireless digital signal processor and analog products and proven semiconductor manufacturing have enabled superior performance in Ericsson …