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"In my personal opinion, most plants are unlikely to actually cut back because of profit factors. The smelters agreed to cut back mainly because of tight power and high power costs, but for some, supply is not much affected, only costs have gone up. But the cost of shutting down and restarting might be even higher than the increased power prices," a source from Shaanxi Tongchuan aluminum said July 11. A source from Chuangyuan aluminum said, "We also signed the agreement, but that's just a piece of paper; there is no definite ruling to say we must cut output. We have no plans to cut output at the moment or in the short term, but we may consider cutting back in the future." The Chuangyuan source also cited the power versus shutdown cost ratioand noted that in any case the company has its own power plant. "We don't expect many of the other smelters at the meeting to cut either, including Chalco ... everyone will wait and see," he said. "Domestic prices have risen slightly, but mainly affected by the rise on the LME yesterday - there seems to be little fundamental impact within China itself," an analyst from Beijing Antaike said July 11. "People are all very uncertain and maybe confused now since there are no definite details on what the cutbacks will be." A Chinese trader said domestic demand and trade activity were also expected to slow due to the Olympics, and those plants that actually shut may be able to restart in the fourth quarter, so the impact on domestic prices would be minimal.

Kulicke & Soffa Industries Inc (K&S) has announced that the company has entered into definitive agreements to acquire substantially all of the assets of Orthodyne Electronics Corporation, a supplier of wedge bonders, and sell the K&S wire business unit to WC Heraeus GmbH, a precious metals and technology group. Under the terms of the Orthodyne agreement, K&S will fund the acquisition of Orthodyne with approximately 7.1 million shares of K&S common stock, plus $80 million in cash. If the transaction is not consummated by October 31, 2008, the purchase price will be approximately 19.6 million shares of K&S common stock and no cash. The deal includes possible earn-out consideration up to an additional $40 million in cash if certain financial objectives are met by Orthodyne over the next three years. The closing of the transaction, which is expected within approximately 60 days, is subject to certain working capital adjustments and closing conditions, including regulatory approvals. "The acquisition of Orthodyne is in line with our stated strategy and positions K&S to capitalize on our strengths in equipment manufacturing and further cement our position as the leading supplier of interconnect solutions," commented Scott Kulicke, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of K&S. "Orthodyne is a fast growing, profitable market leader and provides us with deeper penetration into the discrete side of the semiconductor market, particularly in the attractive power management and hybrid module markets."

RUEIL-MALMAISON, FRANCE, August 15, 2008. Schneider Electric has signed a CAD 498 million definitive arrangement agreement with Xantrex Technology Inc for the acquisition of all common shares of Xantrex. Xantrex is said to be a top three global player in the solar and wind inverter market with strong growth potential. It also has a leadership position in the North America. Awaiting approval from Xantrex shareholders, the deal is expected to be closed by October 2008. Schneider Electric says it expects to realise significant synergies in acquiring Xantrex, leveraging the strengths of both companies. Xantrex provides experience in advanced power electronic technology for renewable energy, and dedicated solar and wind channel access. Schneider Electric boasts a wide international footprint with solution centres and leverage with APC in purchasing, technology and operations. Xantrex Chairman Mosaadiq Umedaly comments: "We think it is the best way to develop our business, taking advantage of our leading technology, products, market knowledge, and distribution channels together with Schneider Electric's global sales, service, supply chain, and solutions capabilities."

BHP Billiton is disappointed by today's High Court decision on the definition of 'production process'

Thin-film solar company Nanosolar has been sitting on a big secret for much of this year, it turns out: The company took a $300 million financing this March, and has remained mum ever since, only detailing it on the company's blog this morning after VentureWire reported the funding. While Nanosolar hasn't been entirely secretive about its technology, with chief executive Martin Rosencheisen showing off a rapid manufacturing technique early in summer, but apparently it didn't want details leaking on this giant-sized investment until necessary. Word slipped out in April about $50 million of the total, but at the time, Nanosolar didn't want to talk - and it's now clear why. The race for funds, and ever-larger production targets, is definitely on for thin film. Secretive thin-film silicon company Optisolar has raised over $200 million this year, and Nanosolar's thin-film CIGS competitor Miasole is trying to close on a similar amount. And while dozens of other startups are also on the hunt, large companies like Oerlikon Solar and Applied Materials are pouring money into ventures of their own. In many ways, it looks like an overheated sector. But on the other hand, Optisolar's recent deal with PG&E to provide 550 megawatts of electricity suggests that the potential for thin film panels is larger than previously expected, even when considering one analyst firm's prediction earlier this year that the sector will grow at 45 percent annually. That figure could now be much higher, especially for a few big winners - of which Nanosolar will likely be one. The company will be doing some utility-scale projects of its own, Rosencheisen tells us, with experienced partners. It also has a panel built specifically for use by utilities. And one of the backers of this funding, AES Corp., is also one of the world's biggest power companies. At the moment, Nanosolar is still working toward a gigawatt of annual manufacturing capacity, but it will grow be

SureWest had said it was contemplating such services when the company began offering broadband via bonded ADSL2+ in its incumbent territory last fall, including 10-megabit-per-second services. The company already offers IPTV through its fiber-to-the-premises network, but its bonded ADSL2+ customers have so far only had access to SureWest's voice and data services. (The company has offered IPTV over copper on a very limited basis even before it began line bonding. It offers IPTV over copper to about 2500 customers today, mostly to those with short loops and modest standard-definition video needs.) The new copper-based IPTV services, which will be available to 15,000 homes in December and another 10,000 by next June, are enabled in part by the company's recent switch from Minerva middleware to Microsoft's Mediaroom and by its use of MPEG-4 encoding for video compression.

Bill Baldwin -- Baldwin Anthony -- Analyst When we see the price of aluminum in relation the price of copper become more favorable for aluminum, does that show up in your demand for aluminum fairly quickly or not at all or over a period of time? Daniel Jones -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Well that's been debated over time. We prefer Encore Wire consistently and will continually prefer to ship and sell copper. That's just the way it is. The aluminum piece of that that you're referring to is a substitution depending on the relationship between the cost of each. Normally if aluminum is more expensive so is copper and vice versa. When copper gets to a certain dollar amount, there's no question that in the conversation the substitution question comes up. There are other costs involved with that most of the time. It's not a new scenario, but it doesn't necessarily increase the demand for aluminum beyond what the increase in the demand of copper would be. But it does enter into the conversation in the quote stage pretty early on when copper gets really expensive about what would it take to substitute aluminum for this piece of copper. And so in that, it's definitely in the conversation.

Prysmian Cables & Systems has announced the signing of a four year frame agreement to design and supply flexible pipes for offshore oil and gas extraction with Petrobras of Brazil. Prysmian said it is to invest around $110 million constructing a new plant in Brazil and that the deal with Petrobras represented a major step forward in the company's operations in the Oil, Gas and Petrochemical services industry. Prysmian also announced the acquisition of the German cables manufacturer Facab-Lynen. Facab-Lynen generated sales of €62 million ($96 million) in 2007 and Prysmian said the acquisition will enable the company to further increase its production capacity and develop its market position in the special cables market, particularly in the fast growing renewable energy sector.

Deal worth $900 million

LS Cable and Superior Essex have announced the signing of a definitive agreement for LS Cable to acquire Superior Essex. The board of directors for both companies approved the agreement under which Superior Essex share holders will receive $45 per share making the deal worth $900 million. The acquisition, once complete will create the world's third largest wire and cable manufacturing company with Superior Essex continuing to operate under its current name as a wholly owned subsidiary of LS Cable. Nexans and Prysmian are the world's first and second ranked cable makers. LS Cable has a strong presence in the power and communications cable sector and in the Asian and Middle Eastern markets. Superior Essex is the world's largest magnet wire producer and leads in the North American communications market as well as having operations in North America, Europe and China.

It seems that in the last decade scientists have switched goals from producing efficient LEDs to producing "natural light" LEDs. However, whenever this was achieved, significant efficiency sacrifices were made to enable experimentation to work. Through use of a nano-crystaline coating, it seems that scientists at Bilkent University, Turkey have succeeded in creating an LED that "produces attractive white light while wasting next-to-no electricity". The definition of attractive is that for each watt of light produced, around 300 lumens are visible to the human eye. This compares with fluorescents which produce around 80 lumens per watt, according to the article. There is however a barrier to market. This is because the nano-crystalline coating is expensive and apparently difficult to produce.