Amazon.com's Kindle DX was introduced as a larger, souped version of the electronic readers for students, academics and newspaper readers.

India will finally have a product testing center. WiPro is setting up one in Bangalore that will help test and certify electronic products in the computer, automotive, aerospace, computing and communication markets.

Nearly 800 planes are set to feature in-flight broadband connections by the end of 2009 generating $47 million in revenue, according to market research firm In-Stat (Scottsdale, Ariz.).

The Speedster FPGA family from Achronix Semiconductor Corp. (San Jose, Calif.) is now available with a series of Advanced Encryption Standard IP cores developed with Signali Corp. (Portland, Ore.).

Semiconductor fab utilization rates are expected to bounce back during the second quarter of the year, with rises for the first time in a year to 60 percent compared with the low of just 49 percent during the first quarter, according to market research group iSuppli.

STMicroelectronics and Front-Edge Technology, the Baldwin Park, California-based developer of rechargeable batteries, have signed a licensing deal under which Franco-Italian chip maker gains access to FET's NanoEnergy ultra-thin lithium battery technology.

EDA company Mentor Graphics Corp. has agreed to acquire LogicVision Inc, a provider of built-in self test technology, in a stock deal valued at $13 million.

Motorola Inc.'s ex-Chief Financial Officer, Paul Liska, said in a lawsuit unsealed Thursday he was fired for warning company officials the 2009 business plan for its mobile devices unit was based on "unsubstantiated and misleading financial forecasts."

Spurred by pent-up electronic system demand and increasing average selling prices, the IC market will register double-digit growth in 2010 and 2011 after beginning to recover in the second half of this year, according to market research firm IC Insights.

Silicon wafer supplier MEMC Electronic Materials said it expects to report first quarter revenue of about $214 million, which would be a decrease of nearly 50 percent from $425.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2008.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. has cut three senior analysts and a handful of junior analysts from its North American equity research operation, according to a person familiar with the move.

GPUs, sold in millions to gamers, now have a terrific price/performance ratio for use in EDA simulators.

IBM Corp. and the Electronics and Information Technology Laboratory of the CEA (CEA/LETIi) of France said that they will collaborate on research in semiconductor and nanoelectronics technology.

Demand for brightness improvement films used in TFT LCD backlights is expected to grow by 30 percent year-on-year to 116 million m² in 2009 from 89.6 million m² in 2008 according to market researchers at DisplaySearch (Austin, TX).

Micron Technology Inc. and its Taiwan DRAM partner have rejected a plan to join a state-led memory venture on the island. And in a new twist, Micron and its partner are asking for aid from the Taiwan government.

Following Taiwan's labor laws, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC) this week said that it issued documents on April 3 to over 200 former employees ''certifying that their employment was terminated due to deteriorating business conditions.''

Solar cells currently have two weak points: Efficiency and operational lifetime. While dozens of research teams pursuit the task to improve the conversion efficiency, almost nobody seemed to be interested in the operational lifetime topic. Now this has changed; IMEC partners with Cytec Industries to develop PV devices with extended lifetime.

A group of researchers claim they have settled a long-standing debate over the source of the unusual electronic properties of silver niobate that potentially has great importance for wireless communications.

Micron Technology's chip plant in Avezzano in the Abruzzo region of Italy seems to have escaped damage following the devastating earthquake in the region earlier this week.

Sun Microsystems has reportedly lost one of its top microprocessor architects, Marc Tremblay, a Sun veteran who was leading the company's next-generation Sparc team now joining Microsoft, the latest in a stream of losses that have sapped Sun's top tech talent.