With the return of PC manufacturing to the US, the company is adding 115 new manufacturing jobs in North Carolina and is on track to fully ramp up production by the end of June.

Contract chipmaker Globalfoundries will spend US$4.5 billion to boost production capacity in 2013, anticipating a burst in orders for chips used in low-cost smartphones.

Qualcomm has expanded its Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processors portfolio to include support for Microsoft Windows RT 8.1.

Samsung Electronics has chosen an Intel processor to power a new version of one of its top-tier Android tablets, a source with knowledge of the plans told Reuters.

The device has a 4.3-inch (10.9cm) screen, which is slightly bigger than its predecessor, the S3 Mini.

Samsung sold 12.5 million smartphones in China between January and March, accounting for a 18.5% market share, up 2.2pp from the previous quarter, the report quoted data compiled by Strategy Analytics as saying.

Samsung Electronics announced that global channel sales of its Galaxy S4 has surpassed 10 million units sold in less than one month after its commercial debut.

As the PC market continues to tip further into free fall - with IDC forecasting a 7.8% sales decline this year - one Wall Street analyst suggested Tuesday that PC buyers will continue to wait for Windows Blue and the second half of 2013 to upgrade their PCs.

ST-Ericsson, which focuses on mobile and wireless chips, announced the sale on Tuesday without naming the buyer. An Intel spokesman later said the US chipmaker bought the assets.

A Senate committee said that Apple had used "a complex web of offshore entities" to avoid paying billions of dollars in US income taxes.

According to the latest research from Strategy Analytics, global Android smartphone profits reached US$5 billion in total during the first quarter of 2013. Samsung dominated and captured an impressive 95% share of all Android smartphone profits.

It may seem strange but Chinese chip vendor Allwinner Technologies (Zhuhai, China) probably sold more application processors for tablet computers in 2012 than Intel and Qualcomm put together.

Nokia's position in the smartphone market dropped to No. 10 in the first quarter of 2013, from No. 8 in the fourth quarter of 2012.

The Nokia Asha 501 is part of Nokia's budget range of phones, aimed at emerging markets like India and Latin America.