First Solar Inc.Thursday reported a quarterly profit that handily toppedWall Street estimates, but its shares tumbled in extended tradeafter the company said it would start offering rebates todefend its position in Germany, the world's top solar market. Sponsored Topics: -

Japan's Tokyo Electron, theworld's second-largest chip equipment maker, reported asmaller-than-expected quarterly loss and raised its annualoutlook as orders start to rise in the latest sign of a spreadingrecovery in the chip sector. Sponsored Topics: - - - -

Economic pressure and customers' requirements will urge car manufacturers to look at the PC market when meeting design decisions for future head units, predicts market researcher iSuppli. Thus, the differentiating features move into the software — with some interesting consequences.

HTC, the world's No. 4smartphone brand, drastically lowered its 2009 revenue forecaston Friday, standing in stark contrast to other Taiwanese techcompanies that have given given upbeat forecasts in recentdays. Sponsored Topics: - - - -

In the competitive foundry landscape, Globalfoundries might be not a leader in terms of volume, but in any case it is a leader in terms of technology, finds Gartner analyst Bob Johnson. Sponsored Topics: - - - -

Wolfson Microelectronics plc (Edinburgh, Scotland), a supplier of mixed-signal circuits for consumer electronics, made an operating loss of $2.4 million on second quarter revenue that reached $33.2 million, a rise of 32 percent sequentially but down 38 percent from Q2

Sponsored Topics: - - - -

Here's why one IC analyst is upbeat and worried. Sponsored Topics: - - - -

Mentor Graphics' acquisition of Embedded Alley will make them a real player in the embedded arena. Sponsored Topics: - - - -

Researchers from Advanced Micro Devices and Hewlett-Packard have written two extensions to the PCI Express 3.0 specification which aims to enable lower cost chips that could support multiple protocols and reduce processor overhead. Sponsored Topics: - - - -

Graphene nanoribbons below 20-nanometer widths will carry 1000-times more current, and run up to 12-time cooler, than copper interconnects according to carbon semiconductor researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology. Sponsored Topics: - - - -

International Rectifier has reached an agreement to settle a class action lawsuit for $90 million, the company said. Sponsored Topics: - - - -

Jing Hua Wu, who was accused of murdering three executives at SiPort Inc., will not face the death penalty if convicted. Sponsored Topics: - - - -

Second quarter global handset shipments increased 4.7 percent in the second quarter, marking the first sequential growth since the second quarter of 2008, according to market research firm iSuppli. Sponsored Topics: - - - -

The SEMI trade group has suffered another layoff. Sponsored Topics: - - - -

Opportunities for EDA to generate more revenue from outside the semiconductor industry frequently surfaced in discussion at this year's Design Automation Conference, with executives suggesting that EDA could play in markets including medical devices, military/aerospace, automotive and clean energy technology.

Here are todayâ⠬⠢s notable headlines. You can get News To Know via email alert and RSS daily. For continuous updates see BNETâ⠬⠢s around-the-Web tech coverage. Ryan Naraine: Researchers find insecure BIOS 'rootkit' pre-loaded in laptops Microsoft

Natural user interfaces will be big. Anyone that sees Microsoft's Project Natal demo comes away impressed. Once Microsoft execs try to extend that to the business world you can't help but snicker. That clunky transition from the Xbox to the