Marconi has expanded its penetration of the Chinese communications market, with a wave of new contracts to supply leading-edge solutions to provincial telecoms operators, regional utility companies and a cable television enterprise which is moving into internet technology.

IDT has announced that it will acquire telecommunications IC provider, Newave Semiconductor Corporation.

Siemens has broken what it claims is a world record for data transmission capacity by transmitting 3.2 Terabits per second of traffic on standard optical fibre under real conditions.

Toshiba is establishing a joint venture to manufacture low temperature polysilicon LCD (liquid crystal display) panels in Tampines, Singapore. The joint venture company was incorporated in March with production of panels scheduled to start in July 2002. Production capacity is expected to be 55,000 730 x 920 mm glass substrates per month by 2003.

Redfern Integrated Optics has received its first external investment funding worth $23.5 million. Tallwood Venture Capital and New Zealand-based TMT together with the original investor Redfern Photonics also participated in the round.

Matsushita Electric Company (Aust) Pty Ltd has unveiled its plans to produce lead free soldered printed circuit boards for its locally produced television sets.

The Extreme Ultra Violet (EUV) LLC and IBM have announced that IBM has joined the industry consortium to support the development of EUV lithography technology.

In the wake of the Federal Government's new Innovation Action Plan, leading industry groups have called for more to be done to raise the profile of R&D and innovation in Australia.

The Government Business Programs Seminar to be held on 5th March helps companies find out about the range of government assistance available to their business.

Melbourne-based Innovonics Ltd has agreed to design, build and supply EDI Rail with communications and surveillance equipment sets for the first 20 trains of Sydney's latest fleet over the next two years.

Advantech is pleased to announce the acquisition of Priority Electronics Pty. Ltd. and the new name change to Advantech Australia Pty Ltd.

Motorola in the US has said it would cut up to 4,000 jobs from its semiconductor manufacturing division as a cost-cutting move.

Alstom has been appointed as the Australian distributor for the recently formed Ferraz Shawmut. The company will offer both Gould Shawmut and Ferraz, including the union of two fuse brands.

Researchers at Lucent Technologies' Bell Labs have created the first all-silicon chips for the part of wireless networks that receives radio signals from mobile handsets.

Motorola Labs, partnering with the DigitalDNA Laboratories of the Semiconductor Products Sector, has disclosed an industry milestone in developing MRAM (magnetoresistive random access memory).