China's Xiaomi has taken a stake of roughly 6% in compatriot chip designer VeriSilicon Holdings, as the smartphone maker revamps its years-long pursuit of success in semiconductors which it sees as central to driving innovation.

"Integration is the future," said Bill Bottoms, a veteran engineering educator and entrepreneur overseeing work on a new roadmap for chip stacks. Estimated costs to design a traditional 5nm chip could soar as high as $600 million, and "this can't continue," he said.

Russia suggested that it may be able to supply South Korean businesses with highly pure hydrogen fluoride (etching gas), one of the items subjected to recent export controls by the Japanese government, the Hankyoreh has learned.

Japan's tightening of controls on the export of semiconductor materials to South Korea could hit Samsung's production hard.

The latest data on semiconductor sales is pointing to stabilization in the industry, suggesting that months of weakness and tepid demand could be nearing an end, analysts said on Monday.

For the global semiconductor industry, the just-revealed truce in the "trade war" between US President Donald Trump and China's president Xi Jinping is welcome news but hardly the end of a poorly scripted economic melodrama that continues to pose dire consequences for the American semiconductor market.

President Donald Trump's decision to allow US companies to continue selling to Huawei followed an extensive lobbying campaign by the US semiconductor industry that argued the ban could hurt America's economic and national security.

Hanwha Techwin has decided to gradually reduce SoC system semiconductor's ratio of HiSilicon, which is a subsidiary of Huawei, in its "IP camera" product line, which is called CCTV camera.

Since the U.S. government put Huawei on a trade blacklist, effectively banning American firms from doing business with it, China's leaders have spoken boldly about achieving self-sufficiency in the critical semiconductor business.

Japan's Tokyo Electron, the world's No.3 supplier of semiconductor manufacturing equipment, will not supply to Chinese clients blacklisted by Washington, a senior company executive told Reuters.

SEMI membership will give Audi access to SEMI core competencies in developing international standards and harmonizing technology roadmaps and enable the automaker to leverage the global SEMI platform to promote industry alignment across supply-chain segments.

The co-chief executives of China's largest chipmaker are fighting over whether to build a profitable business or focus on leading-edge technology, highlighting the problems plaguing the government's push to build an indigenous semiconductor manufacturing sector.

South Korea aims to rise to an unrivaled position in both memory and non-memory semiconductor industry by 2030, President Moon Jae-in said Tuesday as he visited a Samsung facility, unveiling a set of policy measures worth over KRW1 trillion (US$860 million) to support industry players.

South Korea's semiconductor export volume dropped 12 percent from the previous quarter in the first three months of this year on sluggish global demand, central bank data showed Wednesday.

Chipmaker Texas Instruments said on Tuesday a slowdown in demand for microchips that started late last year may last a few more quarters. The warning from the company, often seen as a bellwether for a semiconductor industry, dragged its shares 3% lower to US$113.88.

The China semiconductor industry had sales of $97.3 billion last year, says China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).

One of Apple's key semiconductor engineers has left the company, even as the iPhone giant tries to take more control over what goes inside its devices.

US semiconductor companies want no part of any trade deal that calls for stepped-up purchases from China, worried that would give Beijing more control over their industry.

With 83% of Samsung's semiconductor sales being memory devices last year, the memory market downturn is expected to drag the company's total semiconductor sales down by 20% this year. Although Intel's semiconductor sales are forecast to be relatively flat in 2019, the company is poised to regain the number 1 semiconductor supplier ranking this year, a position it held from 1993 through 2016.

While much attention was paid last week to SIA's release of final semiconductor sales in 2018 ($468.8 billion) and the percent growth over the previous year (13.7%), there was one equally impressive number that flew under the radar a bit: 1.004 trillion. That is the number of semiconductors that were sold in 2018, marking the first time ever that over a trillion semiconductors were sold in a year.

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.

SK hynix may ultimately expand into the non-memory semiconductor market by tapping into an emerging market for a variety of system-on-chips for autonomous driving.

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.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has downgraded executive cars and cut business travel in a belt-tightening campaign meant to prepare for a difficult 2019.

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.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is poised to secure a crucial order from IBM for premium server chips, validating the company as a serious challenger to global chipmaker Intel in the high-value data center market.

The companies will accelerate the adoption of EUV lithography for high-volume production, including the current latest available equipment for EUV (0.33 Numerical Aperture, NA). Moreover, they will explore the potential of the next-generation high-NA EUV lithography to enable printing of even smaller nanoscale devices advancing semiconductor scaling towards the post 3nm logic node.

Semiconductor industry bellwether ASML Holding NV's better-than-expected third quarter results and bullish outlook gave sector stocks a boost on Wednesday after fears of slackening demand had dragged them down in recent months.

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.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. "will not rule out the possibility" of buying a memory chip company, Chairman Mark Liu told the Nikkei Asian Review.

China's southwestern city of Chongqing plans to establish a 50 billion yuan ($7.3 billion) fund to help develop the semiconductor industry.

Foxconn Technology Group, the world's largest electronics contract manufacturer, plans to establish semiconductor-related operations in Zhuhai under a pact it signed on Thursday with the southern Chinese coastal city's government.

More than 30 years after it served as the setting for the birth of the semiconductor foundry industry with the founding of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) in 1987, Taiwan shows no sign of relinquishing its stranglehold on the US$62 billion global business.

The semiconductor cycle is showing signs of overheating,

Infineon Technologies held early-stage talks about buying STMicroelectronics last year, according to people familiar with the matter, a move that would have created a European semiconductor powerhouse.

Dialog Semiconductor said on Tuesday it has ended discussions with Synaptics about a potential acquisition of the US touch-pad technology company, without citing a reason.

Tsinghua Unigroup has signed a deal to acquire French smart chip components maker Linxens for about EUR2.2 billion (US$2.6 billion), five people with direct knowledge of the matter said.

Intel's market leadership in the semiconductor industry may be at risk, according to Evercore ISI. The firm lowered its rating to in line from outperform for Intel shares, saying the search for the company's next CEO will add to investor uncertainty.

Moore's Law is dead, long live AI. That's the semiconductor industry's new rallying cry, sounded at a daylong symposium sponsored by Applied Materials at Semicon West.