European antitrust regulators fined nine semiconductor manufacturers more than €331 million (US$404 million) on Wednesday following a years-long investigation into price fixing in the market for DRAM memory chips.

Intel remained the world's largest chip maker by revenue for the eighteenth consecutive year in 2009, despite an overall decline in the global chip market, Gartner said Monday.

South Korea's Fair Trade Commission has closed an antitrust investigation of the flash memory industry, concluding that there is no evidence of a pricing cartel.

Hynix Semiconductor plans to raise some much needed cash from a joint venture in China to assemble memory chips.

Hynix Semiconductor on Friday reported its sixth straight quarterly loss in the first quarter.