Olympus' admission that three of its top executives colluded to hide losses from investors fails to address the roles played by other officials, according to the company's biggest overseas shareholder.

Prolific develops leading-edge IC design optimization software tools that significantly reduce development time and improve the performance of cell-based designs.

A public-private fund that will acquire the small- and mid-size LCD operations of Toshiba, Hitachi and Sony will also buy a Panasonic factory for about JPY20 billion (US$255.5 million), Japanese business daily The Nikkei said.

LSI will not limit the distribution of SandForce's flash chip controller technology, even to competitors, after its buyout of the company is completed. LSI's planned acquisition of SandForce was announced on October 26.

TI's authorized semiconductor distributors include Arrow, Avnet, WPG, WT Microelectronics, and so on.

The completion of the acquisition also marks the official introduction of Skype as a new business division within Microsoft.

According to the latest quarterly report from Mercom Capital Group, M&A activity in the third quarter could signal the start of a period of consolidation within the PV industry. Mercom Capital reported that there was US$563 million spent in 20 M&A transactions in the quarter with details disclosed for only eight of these downstream market deals.

Shares in the internet portal firm Yahoo have leapt 10% on rumours that Microsoft is considering a second attempt at a takeover.

PLX's UK Design Team has built a reputation for designing innovative and reliable system-on-chip (SOC) solutions and the acquired engineering team's expertise provides OCZ with additional resources for controller design.

Are Internet users in the US or Europe ready to entrust all their personal information to an online service controlled from China?

Toshiba and Amkor Technology have announced that they have signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding for the acquisition by Amkor of Toshiba Electronics Malaysia, Toshiba's semiconductor assembly operation in Malaysia, together with a license to Amkor for certain related intellectual property rights.

Atmel has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Advanced Digital Design, a Spain-based developer of power line communication solutions. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close in October.

TI will include National's contribution to financial performance in the company's third-quarter earnings announcement on October 24. TI's Analog semiconductor business now represents more than 50% of the company's revenues.

Infineon Technologies, flush with as much as US$3 billion in cash for acquisitions, is struggling to find an attractive target that would boost its most profitable business, power semiconductors.

Integrated Device Technology (IDT) and Qualcomm have announced the signing of a definitive agreement to transfer the design team of IDT's Hollywood Quality Video (HQV) and Frame Rate Conversion (FRC) Video Processing product lines and certain related assets to Qualcomm.

Research In Motion should explore transformational changes, including the breakup or sale of the company...

Synopsys has completed the acquisition of nSys Design Systems, a provider of verification IP.

IBM has announced a definitive agreement to acquire Algorithmics for US$387 million, subject to price adjustments at closing. Algorithmics is a risk analytics firm with operations in Toronto, Canada.

"If you get a buyer who is a significant part of the ecosystem, in which they already play a part, it is likely that they would be excluding part of the market and therefore diminishing part of the value of ARM...

MediaTek is looking at acquisition targets globally in a move to grow and acquire new technologies, its chief financial officer said in an interview with Dow Jones Newswires.

Samsung Electronics said Wednesday that it has no intention of taking over Hewlett-Packard's personal computer business.

Focusing on Bada may not be the answer, though. It seems as if the trend in the industry is to move from in-house proprietary platforms to more open models - look at Nokia's switch to the Windows Phone platform. With the struggles Nokia had in making Symbian a global success, I can't see how Samsung could do any better.

A Wall Street analyst has predicted that Intel may acquire Micron Technology as the move would diversify its product offerings.

Standard & Poor has downgraded Google's stock rating from "buy" to "sell" over a lack of confidence in the Motorola Mobility acquisition.

Fusion-io announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire IO Turbine, a provider of caching solutions for virtual environments.

Samsung Electronics has acquired Grandis, a maker of magnetic random access memory (MRAM) technology known as spin transfer torque (STT-RAM). Samsung said Grandis will be merged into its R&D operations "that are focused on developing the next evolution of memory, where new semiconductor materials and structures are reviewed for their long-term commercial value."

As of the end of June 2011, it had US$76 billion in cash and investments. No tech company has more.

Citing strong global smartphone adoption and the "expanded opportunities" afforded by its completed acquisition of Wi-Fi chipmaker Atheros, Qualcomm also raised its revenue and (non-GAAP) earnings guidance for the rest of the year.

Nokia Siemens Networks will remain under the full ownership of Nokia and Siemens after buyout firms failed to come up with a compelling offer.

Japan's Ricoh plans to acquire Pentax as part of a push to get into the digital single-lens reflex camera market, it said Friday.

Skype Technologies, the Internet-calling service being bought by Microsoft, is firing senior executives before the deal closes, a move that reduces the value of their payout, according to three people familiar with the matter.

Qualcomm has agreed to acquire substantially all of the assets of Rapid Bridge, a San Diego-based inventor of advanced techniques for the design and development of semiconductor products.

The acquisition will give RIM access to Scoreloop's developer toolkit for building cross-platform social mobile games. Scoreloop said it will continue to build toolkits for other platforms but that the experience would be better on a RIM device.

The speculation comes a week after Nokia's CEO Stephen Elop described as "baseless" a blog report that Microsoft wanted to buy the Finnish company, which has been rocked by a recent profit warning and downgrades from ratings agencies.

Infineon Technologies is on track for accelerated growth and is well-equipped to make acquisitions, Chief Executive Peter Bauer said at an investor event on June 7.