Infineon's decision to exit the wireless business to focus on chips for cars and energy-efficient machines has paid off, as strong second-quarter results let the German chipmaker raise its full-year outlook.

TriQuint Semiconductor's first-quarter earnings met analysts' expectations, helped by strong demand in the smartphone market, but the wireless communications products supplier forecast lower-than-expected second-quarter earnings.

The proposed transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2011. SiBEAM provides high-speed wireless communication products for uncompressed HD video in consumer electronics and PC applications.

Verizon Wireless will start selling the HTC's Droid Incredible 2 on April 28 while Sprint will put the Nexus S 4G from Google on sale May 8. Both smartphones will sell for US$199.99 with two year service agreements.

ZTE says it will quadruple the number of smartphones it ships globally to 12 million this year, including its first model for a top-tier wireless provider in the US Huawei, which already provides a smartphone to the smaller prepaid providers, said it is in talks with the four national carriers.

Apple's next-generation iPad contains chips made by Toshiba, Broadcom and Texas Instruments, according to an initial tear-down report by gadget-repair site iFixit. Toshiba supplied the device's storage chips, iFixit said, while Broadcom made the chips used for wireless Internet access. TI chips were used to control the iPad's touchscreen.

Toshiba has developed a new flip-flop circuit using 40nm CMOS process that the company claims will reduce power consumption in mobile equipment. Measured data verifies that the power dissipation of the new flip-flop is up to 77% less than that of a conventional flip-flop and that it achieves a 24% reduction in total power consumption when applied to a wireless LAN chip.

Shares of wireless chipmaker Anadigics are down US$0.57, almost 8%, at US$5.96, after the company reported 4Q results ahead of expectations, but forecast a surprise net loss this quarter and much lower-than-expected revenue, citing "softness in China" and an inventory pile-up.

CSR and Zoran have entered into a merger agreement under which Zoran will merge with CSR for an equity value equivalent to approximately US$679 million. The merged company will provide differentiated, integrated technology that addresses the rapidly-growing market for connected, location-aware multimedia devices including handsets, digital cameras and home entertainment equipment.

RIM should be able to draw new customers as wireless operators shift their promotions and marketing support away from Nokia while it develops phones that use Microsoft's software, Jim Suva, a Citigroup analyst, wrote.

In the roughly two weeks since Motorola's biggest customer Verizon Wireless unveiled plans to start selling an iPhone in February, Motorola has already noticed a decline in smartphone sales, Chief Executive Sanjay Jha said on Wednesday.

STMicroelectronics, Europe's largest chipmaker, fell the most in five months in Milan trading after the company's ST-Ericsson wireless venture reported increased losses in the fourth quarter.

Huawei Technologies Co., China's largest telecommunications equipment maker, won a court order barring Motorola Solutions Inc. from disclosing confidential information about Huawei's technology to Nokia Siemens Networks, which plans to buy Motorola's wireless networks business.

The sales decline during the quarter was driven primarily by weaker than anticipated wireless communications sales to customers in Europe and North America.

Verizon Wireless unveiled its plans for the iPhone 4, saying the Apple smartphone will be available beginning Feb. 10, with certain Verizon Wireless customers being able to pre-order Feb. 3. A 16 gigabyte Verizon iPhone will sell for $199.99, while a 32 gigabyte will go for $299.99, each with a two-year customer agreement.

The deal is the largest takeover yet by Qualcomm. It also comes on the heels of Intel's US$1.4 billion purchase in August of Infineon's wireless chip business, which competes with Atheros. Many industry analysts believe Qualcomm's takeover of Atheros is the first of several potential deals in the semiconductor industry this year.

The decreased sales guidance is primarily related to weaker than anticipated sales to a few large communications customers, specifically in the wireless segment, according to the company.

One of Verizon Wireless' official Twitter accounts "announced" that Android-based LTE products are on the way.

Broadcom now expects fourth-quarter revenues to reach about US$1.9 billion, the top end of its previous forecast range. "Our increased revenue guidance reflects stronger-than-expected demand for products in our Mobile and Wireless markets versus our initial expectations entering the quarter," said company president and CEO Scott McGregor.

If you're waiting for the first LTE smartphone on Verizon Wireless to arrive, Verizon's CEO says it'll happen in February 2011

In an online video, the Canadian wireless giant further raised its war of words with Apple by showing how its PlayBook dwarfs the iPad for just about every application.

ZTE, one of China's largest network equipment and phone suppliers, is set to buy US$3 billion worth of semiconductor components from five US technology vendors. It has signed the purchase agreements with Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, Freescale Semiconductor, Altera and Broadcom.

TriQuint Semiconductor has announced record quarterly revenues for the quarter ended October 2, 2010. Net profits for the quarter soared to US$110.9 million from NT$22.5 million in the second quarter and NT$10.5 million in third-quarter 2009.

"New Product sales were led by particularly strong growth from the Virtex-6 and Spartan-6 FPGA families," said Moshe Gavrielov, Xilinx President and CEO. "Combined sales from these families more than doubled sequentially in the September quarter..."

Programmable chipmaker Altera has forecast its sales would grow in the fourth quarter as China expands its wireless telephone infrastructure but some analysts warned that revenues could slow next year.

"With the Embedded Initiative, Altera is enabling designers in markets such as automotive, industrial, military and wireless to easily leverage a rich ecosystem of processor, OS and IP support all through a single design flow, and to reduce overall system cost..."

"Beceem's talented teams of engineers in India and the US have been focused on enabling a 4G ecosystem of operators and equipment manufacturers to drive the deployment of 4G networks," said Scott Bibaud, Broadcom's Executive VP & GM of the Mobile Platforms Group. "We look forward to adding their innovative technologies to our product portfolio and providing these technologies to our customers."

the big questions facing the nation's top wireless carrier ahead of its possible introduction of Apple Inc.'s phone next year: Can the company's network withstand millions of iPhone users?

MOtorola today announced the Droid Pro, which is clearly going after the BlackBerry segment and will be on sale in the first week of November on Verizon Wireless. Motorola Mobility's CEO Sanjay Jha, said: "34% of BlackBerry users are ready to switch to Android if it supports what the IT department wants."

Mobile phone maker Motorola and mobile phone carrier Verizon Wireless are releasing a special edition R2-D2 Droid smartphone that is sure to get snapped up by Star Wars lovers across the US.

ARM has reiterated that it wouldn't make sense for a rival to purchase the company after shares rose on takeover speculation.

"Never stop thinking" - the Infineon claim that employees once revised to "Never stop shrinking." That was five years ago, when Infineon spun off memory-chip unit Qimonda.

The next big play in broadband is delivering carrier services to multiple consumer devices in the home over a variety of wired and wireless networks. So chipmakers need to be able to provide a portfolio of Wi-Fi, powerline and coax solutions for STBs, gateways and other devices.