Automotive chipmaker Renesas Electronics plans to halt production at six plants in Japan for up to two months this year as it braces for a further slowdown in Chinese demand, the company said on Thursday.

Japanese chipmaker Renesas Electronics will cut almost 1,000 workers from its payrolls at the end of June, Nikkei has learned, as part of a pivot abroad to compensate for a shrinking domestic market.

Semiconductor sector analysts believe that China's best chipmakers are as much as a decade behind their international rivals. That is despite long running financial support from Beijing, rising market dominance of Chinese electronics hardware groups and the vastly improved capabilities of China's chip design companies.

Apple considered tapping Samsung Electronics and MediaTek along with existing vendor Intel to supply modem chips for 2019 iPhones, according to an Apple executive's testimony at the trial between Qualcomm and the US Federal Trade Commission on Friday.

Samsung Electronics reportedly is readying to move part of its TV production out of China amid deteriorating sales conditions and rising labor cost.

Samsung Electronics is considering slowing the pace of expanding its production facilities next year amid negative forecasts about growth of the global semiconductor market, according to the industry on Tuesday.

Samsung Electronics will cease operations at one of its mobile phone manufacturing plants in China, the company said, as its sales in the world's biggest smartphone market slumps amid rising competition from lower-cost local rivals.

Korea isn't standing still and allowing China to just catch up and take the lead. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix have come up with a series of new products that they hope will widen the technological gap with their Chinese counterparts.

Samsung Electronics slashed 2018 capex by more than a quarter on Wednesday and warned of lower profit until early next year, calling an end to a two-year boom in memory chips that fueled record third-quarter profit.

One worker was killed and two others remain unconscious after being exposed to carbon dioxide in a Samsung Electronics semiconductor factory southeast of Seoul, authorities said Tuesday.

Renesas Electronics is considering an acquisition of Integrated Device Technology to expand beyond the automotive sector.

After many false starts, the Maharashtra government and Foxconn are likely to sign a deal under which the world's biggest contract manufacturer of consumer electronics will finally set up a manufacturing hub in the state.

Samsung Electronics has formally opened a new factory in India, which the South Korean tech group says is the world's biggest mobile phone manufacturing plant, part of its plans to expand production in the world's fastest growing major mobile phone market.

Samsung Electronics is expected to post its smallest profit growth in more than a year in the second quarter, as lackluster sales of its premium Galaxy smartphones overshadow its highly profitable chip business.

Apple will soon land a second supplier for the organic light-emitting diode screens used in high-end iPhones, according to people familiar with the matter, a key step in the US company's push to reduce iPhone costs and its dependence on Samsung Electronics.

A federal jury in Texas ordered Samsung Electronics to pay $400 million to a South Korean university for infringing one of fundamental patents related to double gate FinFET transistors. The same jury found that Globalfoundries and Qualcomm had infringed the same patent, but the two companies were not ordered to pay damages.

Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Micron Technology have all confirmed that Chinese government officials visited their offices, without providing details of the probe. Chinese regulators haven't disclosed precisely what they are looking for or what evidence they have uncovered.

China has launched a probe into Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Micron Technology, the three semiconductor makers who control the market for DRAM memory chips.

Samsung Electronics is in talks with several smartphone makers including China's ZTE to supply mobile processor chips, a senior executive said, a move that will bring it in more direct competition with larger rival Qualcomm.

Samsung Electronics said weakness in the global smartphone market would slow earnings growth, as it reported record quarterly profit on Thursday thanks to strong demand for semiconductors used in servers.

Samsung Electronics will hold a groundbreaking ceremony on Wednesday for its second memory fabrication line in Xian, China, according to industry sources. A total of KRW8 trillion (US$7.47 billion) will be invested in the construction.

Renesas Electronics will outsource all of its automotive microcontroller production to TSMC as it seeks to cut costly outlays on chipmaking machinery and concentrate on the development of software and semiconductors.

Autoparts supplier Denso will raise its stake in Renesas Electronics to 5% from 0.5% to work even more closely with the chipmaker in developing self-driving systems.

Japanese electronics maker Kyocera will raise capital spending to more than JPY100 billion ($935 million) in the year starting April 1, much of which will go toward increasing domestic output of chip-related components used in smartphones and cars.

Samsung Electronics will break ground for a new foundry in Hwaseong, south of Seoul, on Friday with an aim to start mass-producing below-7 nanometer chips in the second half next year and make headway in the race for customized computer chips to power smart and robotics devices.

Injong Rhee, a former chief technology officer at Samsung Electronics, has joined Google as an entrepreneur-in-residence to lead Google's Internet of Things (IoT) business, Rhee said in a blog posting on LinkedIn.

Samsung Electronics has decided to cooperate with the Chinese government to develop next-generation technologies including artificial intelligence (AI). With China having been putting pressure on Samsung Electronics due to a rise in the price of memory chips supplied to Chinese smartphone makers, some market watchers say that the partnership can settle a series of conflicts between the two.

Samsung Electronics is launching a new chip for cars, tentatively called Exynos Auto, with aims to supply the chip first to Audi that has used chips mostly from Qualcomm, industry sources said on Feb. 5.

Samsung Electronics is expected to sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), a macroeconomic management agency under China's State Council, this week.

Samsung Electronics will differentiate itself from rivals in the saturated mobile market with the launch of a foldable OLED phone this year, the South Korean tech giant has said.

Japanese chip vendor Renesas Electronics denied that it is in talks to acquire rival Maxim Integrated after reports about a possible deal sent Maxim's stock price skyrocketing.

Samsung Electronics is positively considering rolling out a next-generation DRAM using an early 10 nano process as early as the beginning of 2019 by constructing a dedicated production line with EUV exposure equipment in the Hwasung Semiconductor Factory Complex in Gyeonggi-do. Experts say that this strategy aimed to secure profitability while widening micro-process technology gaps with competitors in the booming DRAM market.

It is heard that Samsung Electronics is looking into receiving sensors, which are major parts of fingerprint recognition function, from a Taiwanese manufacturer while it is planning to place fingerprint recognition sensor on the back of Galaxy S9.

Asian stocks retreated from Friday's record after Morgan Stanley downgraded Samsung Electronics and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, saying their shares had risen too much.

It is heard that the American manufacturer already agreed up to production of test chips and is making preparations accordingly. Chinese manufacturer is a company that develops SoC for mobile devices and is discussing internally about entrusting Samsung rather than Taiwanese companies with production of 7-nano chips.

At this year's ARM TechCon, Samsung Electronics re-clarified its ambitions for 7nm technology in 2018, followed up quickly by a move to 6nm, 5nm, and even 4nm by as early as 2020.

According to industry sources, Samsung Electronics brought in managing director Kye Jong-wook from Globalfoundries last month. He is currently working as the head of the design enablement team of its R&D office, which is a key foundry business unit. Earlier, managing director Song Byeong-moo moved from Intel to Samsung, too.

Embattled Japanese electronics-maker Toshiba said on Tuesday it has agreed to sell its television subsidiary to Hisense Group, a major Chinese electronics manufacturer.

According to industry sources on October 19, Samsung Electronics is considering a plan to purchase 10 extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography tools from ASML.

Samsung Electronics will start construction of Line 18 at its Hwasung plant in November, with total investment estimated at KRW6 trillion (US$5.4 billion). The construction was originally scheduled for 2018.