The company also revised its calendar year 2012 industry forecast for wafer fab equipment spending to US$30-33 billion, compared to its previous expectation of US$32-35 billion, in line with the market changes.

Worldwide IT spending is on pace to reach US$3.6 trillion in 2012, a 3% increase from 2011 spending of US$3.5 trillion, according to Gartner, Inc. The outlook has been revised up slightly from the 2.5% projection last quarter.

Hewlett-Packard (HP) said it will hold off selling tablets based on ARM technology when the next version of Microsoft's Windows operating system debuts later this year.

The current global economic uncertainties led to a softer than expected development in the company's operating business, Infineon said in a statement.

Although smartphone shipments grew 41% year-over-year to 144.6 million as of the quarter ending March 2012, many smartphone OEMs are not enjoying the benefits of a rapidly expanding market. The question remains: can anyone break away to become a strong third in this market?

Call it the tweet that launched a thousand cries of sexism. Electronics company Asus tweeted, then deleted, a photo showing a woman demonstrating one of its products at Computex 2012. The caption of the picture, taken from behind and showcasing the woman's backside, read, "The rear looks pretty nice. So does the new Transformer AIO."

Revenues for core semiconductor components used in mobile handsets, including platform ICs and wireless connectivity ICs, are expected to reach almost US$37 billion per annum in 2012.

Spansion's five-year technology roadmap includes 1Gb-8Gb SLC NAND solutions on 4Xnm technology today, 3Xnm technology by end of 2012 and 2Xnm in 2014.

Its semiconductor unit ATIC had an accumulated deficit of 4.1 billion dirhams (US$1.12 billion)as of the end of 2011 and made losses in the past two years, Mubadala said in the filing. "No assurance is given that ATIC will be profitable in 2012 or in subsequent years," Mubadala said.

Toshiba has predicted profit will rise 83% as sales recover from a slump caused by the strong yen, falling prices and natural disasters.

Unemployment in the eurozone reached a record high again in March 2012 as spending cuts continued to hit the working population.

Barclays Capital is raising its total lithography units forecast by more than 10 systems, from 234 to 251 in 2012. As many as 260 litho tools could be purchased for semiconductor manufacturing, as foundries are seeing high demand for 28nm chips.

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.

"It is likely that it will be raised, but we can't confirm until April 26" when the company's quarterly investor conference will be held, Elizabeth Sun, a spokeswoman for the Hsinchu, Taiwan-based company, said by phone today, without commenting on the size of the increase.

Despite an amended wafer supply agreement that gives AMD the right to use other foundries to make its 28nm accelerated processing units (APUs), Globalfoundries expects AMD to increase its business with the firm in 2012.

Advanced Micro Devices has said it agreed to a negotiated wafer price mechanism with Globalfoundries for 2012 and also agreed to transfer its remaining ownership interest in that company to the firm itself.

Flash memory vendor SanDisk is looking for a director of processing engineering management for a 3-D resistive RAM team based in Milpitas. A job ad for the position was posted in SanDisk's website dated Feb. 15, 2012.

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.

China's exports and imports both fell in January 2012, raising fresh concerns about the impact of a global slowdown on its economy.

In its China Economic Outlook report released Monday, the IMF said China's growth rate, which stood at 9.2% last year, would drop abruptly if the euro zone experienced a sharp recession.

The US economy created 243,000 jobs in January 2012, the highest total for nine months, official figures show.

Dutch semiconductor equipment maker ASML said Wednesday it expects a healthy start to 2012, as its customers invest in chip production to drive faster and more powerful smartphones and tablets.

2012 could bring a big boost to the category thanks to LEDs (light emitting diodes) - those long-lasting, energy-efficient and often colorful gems that are quickly replacing the disgraced incandescent.

South Korea's Samsung Group announced it would invest a record 47.8 trillion won (US$41.56 billion) this year and hire an all-time high of 26,000 new employees despite global economic gloom.

For years, Nokia has led all handset vendors in unit shipments. But this year (2012), Samsung believes it can change that.

Globalfoundries and IBM have announced an agreement to jointly manufacture advanced computer chips at both companies' semiconductor fabs in New York's "Tech Valley." The new products recently began initial production at IBM's 300mm fab in East Fishkill and Globalfoundries' Fab 8 in Saratoga County, and are planned to ramp to volume production in the second half of 2012.

Hard disk drive supplier Seagate Technology has provided a financial update, reiterating that demand for HDD units will exceed supply in 2012 in the wake of flooding last year in Thailand.

After several years of rapid capacity expansion driven by high-brightness LED used in TV backlighting applications, a 40% decline in world metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) purchases in 2012 will reduce overall LED equipment spending for the first time in over five years.

The world's top maker of memory chips and smartphones is set to report a robust quarterly profit rise on Friday, starting 2012 on an upbeat note aided by record-smashing sales of smartphones.

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.

But he said that the biggest goal was stability, and that aid-for-disarmament talks could resume if Pyongyang halted its nuclear activities.

Rohm is scheduled to resume full-scale production of all products affected by the flooding in Thailand on January 1, 2012.