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MIDLAND, MI -- Dow Corning's Photonics Solutions business development program will be merged into its Electronics business and the company will increase sales, marketing, and product development activities to support creation of "light-management" applications for a vast range of markets, including automotive, displays, and telecommunications.

The new Light Management group will focus on helping customers develop and commercialize applications that rely on the emission, transmission, amplification, detection, modulation, and switching of light.

BRUSSELS -- Technical experts from EU member states this week reviewed a draft environment assessment of the brominated flame retardant TBBPA.

The assessment is being carried out by the UK on behalf of the EU under the EU Existing Substances Regulation.

EL SEGUNDO, CA -- Market revenue for wireline VOIP equipment is expected to more than triple between 2004 and 2010 due to an explosion in the number of residential VoIP users during the next few years.

That's according to research firm iSuppli Corp., which forecasts the number of residential VoIP subscribers worldwide to rise to 197.2 million in 2010, from 4.8 million in 2004.

Worldwide VoIP equipment revenue will reach $24.5 billion in 2010, up more than 300% from $8.04 billion last year. This year, VoIP equipment revenue is expected to be $12.9 billion.

Residential is be the fastest-growing segment for equipment, iSuppli said. The firm forecasts revenue to rise to $10.6 billion in 2010, from $1.4 billion in 2004.

Japan and U.S./Canada account for 83% of the total residential wireline VoIP subscribers.

Eindhoven, The Netherlands – Royal Philips Electronics (semiconductors.philips.com) announced a worldwide franchise agreement allowing Digi-Key Corp. to distribute Philips’ semiconductors. Philips will continue to work with its established global partners.

Digi-Key specializes in assisting the engineering community with component sourcing and getting to market quickly. Its order fulfillment process enables 99% of all orders placed to be shipped the same day they are ordered.

“Digi-Key provides customers with extremely fast turn-around capabilities that can give them the edge in the market,” said Bill Galione, VP of sales and marketing, Americas, Philips Semiconductors. “Digi-Key also excels at delivering extremely small orders that other organizations might have difficulty with, and this makes it easier for the engineering community to obtain prototype quantities that could help to speed the development cycle of new products.”

LOS ALTOS – Have semiconductor inventories gotten out of whack? That’s the assessment one researcher is concluding, saying that the disparity between strong sales of end-use items and the drop in IC shipments suggests a “major inventory adjustment.”

TAIPEI -- Foxconn Electronics shrugged off falling margins to record revenues of NT$142.7 billion, up 49%, during the first six months of 2005, the company reported. Pretax profits were up 18% to NT$10.2 million.