Texas Instruments laid off a small but undisclosed number of people mainly in Silicon Valley as part of a restructuring of its Analog and Embedded Processing groups. No products will be eliminated in the reorg.

China's National Silicon Industry Group, a state-backed semiconductor investment fund, is interested in acquiring a majority stake in German silicon-wafer maker Siltronic, the latest potential Chinese takeover that could face political opposition, according to people familiar with the matter.

Moore's Law may be coming to an end, but chipmakers and system designers continue to find ways to deliver better performance and integrate more features. In fact, as the industry approaches the fundamental limits of silicon CMOS technology, it seems to be getting more creative, not less. Over the next few years we are likely to see some revolutionary changes to system architecture.

Apple's products announced today pack at least three new chips including its first wireless SoC to date, showing the company's increasing silicon prowess.

Given Apple's focus on pushing the performance of its silicon, and TSMC's packaging advancements, it makes sense that TSMC has been able to gain sole possession of Apple's chip orders for at least this generation.

Okmetic Oyj (Vantaa, Finland), a supplier of engineered wafers for MEMS and analog applications and the eighth largest wafer supplier in the world, has recommended acceptance of an offer from National Silicon Industry Group (NSIG) of Shanghai, China.

Globalfoundries has announced a next-generation radio-frequency (RF) silicon solution for its Silicon Germanium (SiGe) high-performance technology portfolio. The technology is optimized for customers who need improved performance solutions for automotive radar, satellite communications, 5G millimeter-wave base stations and other wireless and wireline communication network applications.

The MIT team is one of several working on Hyperloop, a vision for rapid travel put forth by Silicon Valley's most interesting man, Elon Musk.

China's Tsinghua Holdings has disclosed an unspecified investment in Marvell Technology Group, a Silicon Valley chipmaker that recently replaced its leadership team in the wake of an accounting investigation and other problems.

Samsung will have the thinner, 10-nanometer chipmaking technology in production later in 2016. Samsung also announced plans for a new cost-optimized 14-nanometer process as well as a second generation of 10-nanometer technology that it says will offer 10% better performance than the first generation.

The Kumamoto Prefecture is relatively small, contributing only 1.1% of Japan's GDP. But it is home to several semiconductor production plants and is sometimes called Japan's Silicon Island.

The semiconductor industry needs to consider new business models based on open source hardware, re-programmable silicon and Features-as-a-Service to drive its next phase of growth.

Andy Grove, a technology pioneer credited with helping build Silicon Valley, died on Monday, bringing tributes from across the tech industry.

Globalfoundries has announced new advanced radio-frequency (RF) silicon solutions, further expanding the portfolio of Silicon Germanium (SiGe) power amplifier (PA) technologies designed to enable performance-optimized cellular and Wi-Fi solutions in increasingly sophisticated mobile devices and hardware.

"In the next five years, there will be more innovation, more invention, more entrepreneurship happening in China, happening in Beijing than in Silicon Valley," said Travis Kalanick, CEO of Uber Technologies.

Though the Apple Pencil is simple on the outside, the inner workings of the iPad Pro stylus are a major technological achievement, a new analysis from the silicon experts at Chipworks has found.

Apple just paid $18.2 million for a small 70,000 square foot silicon chip fab, formerly owned by Samsung, located in North San Jose, California, about a 20 minute drive from its current Infinite Loop headquarters in Cupertino.

VeriSilicon and Vivante have announced a definitive merger agreement under which the companies will be combined in an all-stock transaction. The combined company, to be called VeriSilicon, will offer robust IP-centric, platform-based custom silicon solutions and end-to-end semiconductor turnkey services.

Apple is building a self-driving car in Silicon Valley, and is scouting for secure locations in the San Francisco Bay area to test it. Documents show the oft-rumoured Apple car project appears to be further along than many suspected.

The bidding war for Integrated Silicon Solution (ISSI) intensified with rival chipmaker Cypress Semiconductor further sweetening its offer to US$22.60 per share.

Silicon-based nanowire transistors (NWTs)-otherwise known as gate-all-around transistors-are getting ready to replace FinFETs at the 7nm or 5nm integrated circuit (IC) manufacturing nodes, according to experts in the field.

Integrated Silicon Solution (ISSI) has finalized a definitive agreement to be acquired by Cypress Semiconductor for US$20.25 per share in cash, according to the fabless memory supplier.

Microchip Technology through its Silicon Storage Technology (SST) subsidiary and Globalfoundries have announced the full qualification and availability of SST's 55nm embedded SuperFlash non-volatile memory (NVM) on Globalfoundries' 55nm Low Power Extended (LPx)/ RF enabled platform.

eMemory Technology's One-Time Programmable (OTP) NeoFuse technology has been successfully verified in 16nm FinFET process, with full silicon IP development and customer application deployment expected to be completed by the end of 2015.

Integrated Silicon Solution (ISSI) and a Chinese consortium of investors led by Summitview Capital have entered into a definitive merger agreement under which the consortium will acquire all of the outstanding shares of ISSI for US$19.25 per share in cash. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2015.

A judge has approved a US$415 million settlement in a Silicon Valley employee hiring case, calling the amount "substantial" to settle claims that Apple, Google, Adobe Systems and Intel conspired not to hire each other's workers.

TCL said on Tuesday that it had acquired the rights to the Palm name and would "re-create" a new company based in Silicon Valley.

San Diego-based chipmaker Qualcomm is laying off more than 100 workers in San Jose and Santa Clara, according to a recent state filing.

Xiaomi, the fast-growing Chinese smartphone maker, is making its first US investment, as part of a $40m fundraising for internet-of-things start-up Misfit.

Amtech Systems, a supplier of production and automation systems and related supplies for the manufacture of solar cells, semiconductors, and sapphire and silicon wafers, has received approximately US$10 million in new solar orders.

"If we can use our silicon to provide the best computing, we'll do it," Intel CEO Brian Krzanich said. "You will see us focusing on a much broader set of customers."

Moore's Law - the ability to pack twice as many transistors on the same sliver of silicon every two years - will come to an end as soon as 2020 at the 7nm node, said a keynoter at the Hot Chips conference here.

Samsung is putting down roots in Silicon Valley.

The cost of designing system-on-chip silicon at 28nm went up by 78% over the previous node, but the software cost was larger and more than doubled.

It's clear Samsung is serious about expanding its footprint in Silicon Valley. In December the Korean company announced it is building a 1.1-million-square-foot R&D center in San Jose and an incubator in Palo Alto. This week it also unveiled a "Strategy and Innovation Center" in Menlo Park, which Sohn oversees.

Samsung Electronics has acquired Nvelo, a Silicon Valley vendor of products for caching data on flash-based SSDs.

British microprocessing firm Imagination Technologies' US$60 million pursuit of the operating business of MIPS Technologies faces competition after the US company received a higher bid from a rival firm.

Cadence Design Systems has announced that the first products in the Cadence DDR4 SDRAM PHY and memory controller design IP family have been proven in silicon on TSMC's 28HPM and 28HP process technologies.

At next week's DAC, Globalfoundries plans to demonstrate an enhanced silicon-validated design flow for its 28nm SLP technology with gate-first HKMG. The flow provides proven and complete front-to-back support for advanced analog/mixed-signal (AMS) design using the industry's latest design automation technology.