Panasonic is mulling fresh job losses on top of 17,000 recent lay-offs as the Japanese electronics conglomerate looks to engineer a profit rebound, a source said.

Loss-making Japanese chipmaker Renesas Electronics plans to cut 6,000 jobs, about 15% of its workforce, and raise JPY50 billion (US$630 million) through a third-party share allotment, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported on Tuesday.

Samsung Electronics has started producing the industry's first 4Gb, low power double-data-rate 2 (LPDDR2) memory utilising 20nm class technology.

LG Electronics Inc. posted its first profit in three quarters, beating expectations thanks to a revival in its mobile business and demand for high-end TVs.

Samsung Electronics probably overtook Nokia as the top handset seller for the first time, helped by the popularity of the Galaxy smartphones, according to analyst estimates.

Lextar Electronics Corp., an LED subsidiary of LCD maker AU Optronics Corp. (AUO), will target Europe, North America and Japan with the LED bulbs it recently rolled out as direct replacements for 40W and 75W incandescent bulbs.

Samsung Electronics has said it expects its profit for the first three months of 2012 to almost double as its smartphone sales continue to grow. While Samsung's phone unit has prospered, other divisions, including memory chip manufacturing, have been going through a tough time.

Intel and Qualcomm have provided US lawyers with source code that will help prove Apple isn't infringing patents of Samsung Electronics, an Australian lawyer for the maker of iPhones said.

Chang-Sik Choi, former executive vice president of Samsung Electronics, has been named president and CEO while Chan-Hee Lee, former executive vice president of MagnaChip Semiconductor, has been named president in charge of Dongbu HiTek's foundry business.

Patent holding company Pragmatus has filed an ITC compaint against six electronics vendors including Samsung and HTC.

The chairman of South Korean electronics giant Samsung is being sued by his brother over a multi-million dollar inheritance of company shares.

Konica Minolta IJ Technologies has announced that is has developed a silicon MEMS-based inkjet printhead for printed electronics applications. It is due to begin sampling in the second quarter of 2012.

Toshiba and Fujitsu booked deep losses during the October-December quarter, blaming a spike in component costs caused by Thai flooding and a tough market for consumer electronics. Both companies slashed their earnings targets for the current fiscal year through March, but said they are still on track to book an annual profit.

MagnaChip Semiconductor announced that its Korean subsidiary has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Dawin Electronics, a privately held semiconductor company that designs and manufactures Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor (IGBT), Fast Recovery Diode (FRD) and MOSFET modules.

"It's inevitable Intel will get a few smartphone design wins - we regard Intel as a serious competitor," said ARM CEO Warren East in an interview at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. "Are they ever going to be the leaders in power efficiency? No, of course not. But they have a lot more to offer."

The company has sent requests for proposals to banks to borrow as much as US$1 billion to expand production capacity at its factory in Austin, Texas, said James Chung, a Seoul-based spokesman for Samsung. The bonds will be issued by Samsung's US unit and may have maturities of five years.

Samsung Electronics has won government approval for its plans to set up a memory-chip factory in China.

Samsung Electronics and Hyundai Motor, South Korea's largest companies, told employees to brace for intense competition in a weak global economy as the government called for contingency planning.

Smartphones are relatively new, but will likely follow the path of more mature electronics industries, in which "you typically see large cross-licensing agreements between the big players because they've all got lots of patents the others are infringing."

Samsung Electronics has revealed plans to provide the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich update for Galaxy devices. The platform update for Galaxy S2 and Galaxy Note will start in the first quarter 2012, and other Galaxy devices will soon follow.

Toshiba plans to sign JPY150 billion in syndicated loans, according to three people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified because the details are private.

Panasonic will expand its smartphone business beyond its home country of Japan, starting with Europe in March 2012, the electronics giant said today.

The Black Friday glad tidings from consumer electronics makers continued on Tuesday, with Sony announcing a big rise in US sales and Microsoft reporting a record week for its Xbox 360 console and Kinect controller. The news followed Nintendo's announcement on Monday of receord sales of its Wii and 3DS gaming machines.

Renesas Mobile will initially deploy Imagination's technologies in its cellular platforms for high-performance smartphones, tablets and in-car infotainment, but the technology will also be used by Renesas Electronics in its SoC lineups for other consumer markets.

Samsung Electronics plans to invest a record KRW38 trillion (US$34 billion) in 2012, sharply up from around KRW30 trillion this year, local online news provider Edaily reported Wednesday, citing unnamed industry sources.

The deal provides LG with a license to IV's extensive patent portfolio.

In the face of slumping TV sales and a glut of panels for liquid crystal displays, Sony is considering options for its LCD panel joint venture with South Korea's Samsung Electronics, including possibly ending the alliance, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Samsung Electronics' president expects Thailand floods to further hit the computer memory chip market by hurting PC production until the first quarter of 2012.

SMK Electronics has put together a new capacitive touchscreen that's designed to work not just with those wonderfully conductive fingers of yours, but also with gloved hands and perhaps more.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd has revealed new figures highlighting a staggering 50% month-on-month growth in GCC sales of its Smart TVs since the product's regional launch just six months ago.

Americans put the brakes on purchases of LCD TVs and other electronics this summer. That didn't help manufacturers like 3M Co. - which rely on those expensive goods to drive their business.

Japanese electronics maker Panasonic will scale back domestic semiconductor output by the end of March 2012 and cut about 1,000 jobs, reflecting its recent move to reduce TV panel production, the Nikkei business daily said.

Philips Electronics said it was considering its options should the sale of its TV business collapse as it reported plummeting third-quarter profits and little hope of a material improvement in the near term.

The Japanese semiconductor industry, which has been in decline for more than 20 years, needs to select key technology areas and refocus to rise again, Junshi Yamaguchi, former chairman of Renesas Electronics, told the International Electronics Forum being organized here.

SMSC has announced that Samsung Electronics has licensed its patented Inter-Chip Connectivity (ICC) technology.

Intel is disbanding its Digital Home Group, which builds SoC Atom variants for smart TVs and other similar consumer electronics devices. Boxee Box and Google TV are both based on Intel's CE4100 Atom SoC.

Industrial Technology Research Institute(ITRI) introduces HyTAC(TM), the world's first environmentally friendly polarizer protective film for LCD displays used in consumer electronics.

Apple's major touchscreen supplier TPK Holding said Thursday Steven P. Jobs, chairman and co-founder of Apple, is a legend in the global consumer electronics industry. "Mr. Jobs revolutionized the human/machine interface. We really appreciate his contributions to the industry," said Chief Financial Officer Freddie Liu.