Since 2017, the Google Pixelbook has maintained a spot on our list of the very best Chromebooks you can buy, with tasteful design and processing headroom that keep it competitive three years later. Yet you can't buy it from Google anymore - it's out of stock, and the company is strongly suggesting it's been discontinued for good.

Nvidia cracked the list of top 10 semiconductor vendors by sales for the first time in 2017, joining Qualcomm as the only other strictly fabless chip supplier to attain that distinction last year, according to market research firm IHS Markit.

According to the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO), patents related to AI semiconductors, which was 32 in 2013, soared to 391 in 2017 in South Korea, a ten-fold increase over the four years.

In 2017, about two dozen acquisition agreements were reached for semiconductor companies, business units, product lines, and related assets with a combined value of $27.7 billion compared to the record-high $107.3 billion set in 2015 and the $99.8 billion total in 2016.

After Imagination Technologies bought MIPS Technologies in 2013, they invested in the architecture and attempted to build a business around it as a potential ARM competitor. These plans largely failed, and Imagination Technologies arranged the sale of MIPS - and itself - to different venture capital firms in the fall of 2017. Now, the company has been brought back to Silicon Valley, where it hopes to build a new line of competitive processors for AI workloads.

Two China-based fabless companies made the top 10 ranking last year-HiSilicon, which sells most of its devices as internal transfers to smartphone supplier Huawei, and Unigroup, which includes the IC sales of both Spreadtrum and RDA.

On Thanksgiving 2017 the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that relates to a possible foldable iPhone model.

Semiconductors are expected to account for a record high of more than 16% of South Korea's annual exports in 2017, data showed Friday.

Worldwide shipments of traditional PCs (desktop, notebook, workstation) totaled 67.2 million units in the third quarter of 2017 (3Q17), which translates into a slight year-over-year decline of 0.5%, according to the IDC Worldwide Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker.

The tender offer is now scheduled to expire at 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on October 20, 2017.

Huawei had had a difficult time when it installed different NAND flash chips into its strategic Smartphone called P10 during first half of 2017. Into a same product, it installed eMMC and UFS standard storage device. Unexpectedly level of dissatisfaction from consumers who purchased P10 equipped with eMMC increased heavily. Industries believe that Huawei made a bad move by failing to obtain NAND flash memories.

Qualcomm has announced that Derek Aberle will leave the company after a successful 17-year career during which he served as president of Qualcomm and helped drive the company's overall global strategy and vision as a member of Qualcomm's executive committee. His departure will be effective as of December 31, 2017.

Toshiba's main bank creditors have urged the embattled borrower to conclude a deal to sell its memory chip subsidiary this month (August 2017) to ensure the transaction is completed by the fiscal year-end next March, bringing in desperately needed capital

ZTE's smartphone shipments increased by 36% in the second quarter of 2017, and if its growth continues, it might soon overtake LG to become the third largest smartphone manufacturer in the US.

Micron Technology is expected to report US$1.9 billion for the three months ended in May. That puts the company on track to post more than US$5 billion in operating earnings for its fiscal 2017.

According to industry sources, LG Innotek has almost completed the development of flexible PCBs and would likely to break the ground for related facilities in the latter half of 2017. LG Innotek aims to become a main flexible PCB supplier for Apple and LG Electronics.

2017 is the year of the slim-bezel smartphone, and the latest to enter the fray is Andy Rubin's "Essential" smartphone startup. Today the company announced the "Essential Phone," a flagship Snapdragon 835 device headed to the US for $699.

Samsung is expected to invest KRW24.5 trillion (US$21.95 billion), up more than KRW10 trillion (US$8.96 billion) from the previous year.

Those anxiously awaiting the redesigned iPhone, however, may have to wait because supply constraints could mean the device isn't readily available until one or two months after the typical fall introduction.

Samsung Electronics is expecting operating profits of KRW9.9 trillion ($8.8 billion) for the first quarter of 2017, its second-highest quarterly profit, thanks to strong performance from its chip business and despite the absence of the Galaxy Note 7.

Record earnings at Samsung Electronics' chip division are set to propel the tech giant's first-quarter profit to a three-and-a-half-year high, and the quarters ahead could be even better if its newest smartphone, Galaxy S8, is a success.

Intel is warning its channel partners that demand for SSDs is expected to outstrip supply for all of 2017, forcing the company to prioritize its production for data center SSDs over lower-cost consumer SSDs.

Samsung Electronics said Tuesday its chip factory under construction in southern Seoul is expected to start production in the first half of 2017 as scheduled. The new line is expected to focus on the production of 3-D Vertical NAND (V-NAND) flash memory.

Samsung is going to make supplemental investments into its 10nm production lines in March 2017 and construct new 7nm semiconductor facilities in 2018. Its strategy is to secure ultra-fine processing technologies faster than its competitors.

StatCounter is out today with its data for February 2017 and highlights that Android is inching closer to passing Windows as the most popular operating system for internet usage worldwide.

"We don't expect many projects on our latest high-end chip," Mediatek Co-Chief Operating Officer Jeffrey Ju told reporters in a press briefing Monday at the Mobile World Congress here. "For now, we think less than 10 smartphone models will adopt this high-end X30 chip."

Despite the rumors that Samsung was hogging all the Snapdragon 835s for itself, Sony has brought a device with Qualcomm's top-of-the-line 2017 SoC to MWC.

As if the earlier reports suggesting 10 million Galaxy S8 shipments wasn't sufficient that a new one pops up claiming that Samsung is aiming to ramp up production to bring that grand total up to an unbelievable 17 million units.

When Intel added a third 14nm chip 2015, signalling the end of the company's vaunted "tick-tock" manufacturing process, the industry freaked out. A fourth, then, would be absolutely unprecedented.

Osram is focusing the business on semiconductors after the German Economy Ministry signed off on the sale of Ledvance to a Chinese consortium. After the disposal, the company's portfolio will center on automotive lighting as well as sensors and specialty LEDs.

Austrian chip maker AMS said on Tuesday it saw potential for strong revenue growth in 2017 helped by its acquisition of optical sensor maker Heptagon in Singapore, sending it shares up nearly 19%.

LG Display has scored a deal to supply television displays to rival Samsung Electronics from as soon as 2017, people with direct knowledge of the matter said.

Intel's next big Moore's Law advance will be a 7nm pilot plant it is establishing this year to explore the upcoming manufacturing process.

For the coming year, Intel said that revenues would be flat on 2016, in part due to the sale of its security business, but with earnings returning to growth, up from $2.12 a share last year to $2.53 in 2017.

"The Snapdragon 835 won't be available in large quantities until after the Galaxy S8 launches," source said.

After being the first to reach 22nm then subsequently 14nm FinFET, Intel's chip development pace has slowed considerably for the move to 10nm with many losing confidence in Intel's ability to maintain a chip manufacturing advantage over competitors such as TSMC, Samsung, and Globalfoundries.

The Galaxy Note 8 should be released in the second half of 2017, following the Galaxy S8 series that's set to be released in April.

The increased consumer interest in smartphones, according to Accenture, is based largely on the Chinese market. Nearly three out of four Chinese consumers said they would buy new smartphones in 2017, up from 61% in 2016.