Due to the current slowdown in the global economy, Geneva-based chip maker STMicroelectronics NV expressed its plans to close its fabs in Italy over the Christmas period, according to <i>Bloomberg</i>.

Seeking to cut costs, Japan's Panasonic Corp. will absorb one of its chip units, Panasonic Semiconductor Device Solutions Co. Ltd. (PSCDS).

Geneva-based chip maker STMicroelectronics NV told a workers' council it would take partial unemployment measures at its manufacturing site in Tours, France.

Cabot Microelectronics Corp. (Aurora, Ill.), a supplier of chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) polishing slurries, has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Epoch Material Co. Ltd. for $66 million.

The fab-tool market is sinking, as Lam Research Corp. and Rudolph Technologies Inc. have separately lowered their forecasts.

Synopsys, Inc. announced it has completed its acquisition of the CHIPit business unit of ProDesign.

Panasonic Corp. said it would spend up to $9 billion to take control of smaller rival Sanyo Electric Co. Ltd., creating Japan's second-largest electronics maker behind Hitachi Ltd.

ASM International NV (Bilthoven, The Netherlands) has said it has granted a license to Tokyo Electron Limited allowing the company to use currently filed and issued atomic layer deposition (ALD) patents for batch ALD processing.

Some of the major players in streaming media, including device and receiver makers, radio broadcasters and music service providers, have joined forces to launch an industry forum dubbed the Internet Media Device Alliance to develop and promote a set of open, interoperable standards and device profiles to drive the market for Internet-connected media devices.

The on-off sale by Goldman Sachs of its stake in Sanyo Electric Co. to Japanese electronics conglomerate Panasonic Corp. is back on, after Panasonic raised its offer by Yen 1 a share, clearing the way for Japan's largest consumer electronics acquisition.

Ultra low power chip specialist GreenPeak (Utrecht, the Netherlands) is rolling out an IEEE802.15.4-based RF technology reference design that it says can be used to build home remote controls that can run almost forever on a single battery.

Infineon Technologies AG and Primarion, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Infineon Technologies North America Corp. have filed a counterclaim against Volterra Semiconductor alleging fraud on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, as well as for antitrust violations.