This acquisition expands Skyworks' portfolio with highly complementary analog semiconductor products including battery chargers, DC/DC converters, voltage regulators and LED drivers.

Plans to build 8th-generation and 10th-generation LCD production lines have ground to a halt, according to Sharp president Mikio Katayama.

Samsung Mobile Display Inc. said Tuesday it started production two months early at a new factory that will sharply expand its output of ultrathin screens known by the acronym OLED for cellphones and other small electronics devices.

Samsung's total capacity is expected to be eight million 4-inch OLED panels per month by the end of 2011. But the display maker is also said to have delayed investments for larger screen sizes of 6 inches to 9 inches until 2012.

Senior Apple executives are in discussion with Samsung to secure supplies of Retina Display-like screens for the iPad 3, even while the two firms turn to the courts to settle some of their differences over mobile device design.

Could future iPhones sport 720p displays? If you connect the dots in a news release from Toshiba, possibly.

The 3D technology seems to be catching the fancy of one and all and the current financial year will be the year of reckoning, believes LG.

Toshiba has said it returned to the black for the year to March 2011, but warned the outlook remains uncertain due to the impact of the massive quake and tsunami in Japan.

Semiconductor company Rubicon Technology, Inc. (RBCN: News ) reported Thursday a profit for the first quarter that climbed from last year, boosted by strong margin expansion and revenue growth amid strong demand.

In January 2009, LG Display signed a MOU with Cree for it to supply LED chips, key components in value-added liquid crystal display (LCD) products. But an LG spokesman Monday described the MOU as "meaningless" now.

S-LCD, a flat screen joint venture between Sony Corp and Samsung Electronics , said it would reduce capital by US$555 million, as Sony struggles with perennial losses from its TV business and Samsung seeks to shift to a new type of display.

Lawmakers in China are revising the income tax law to narrow the wealth gap and to encourage more domestic consumption. The amendment will raise the threshold for personal income tax from CNY2,000 to CNY3,000 a month (from US$304 to US$456).

Samsung Electronics, the world's biggest flat panel maker by revenue, said that it will invest KRW541.1 billion (US$501 million) in a joint venture in China that will develop the company's 7.5G LCD panel plant.

Apple has agreed to add Foxconn Technology Group affiliate Chimei Innolux as its third supplier of sensors for the iPad 2's touch screen, two people familiar with the matter said. Chimei Innolux will begin supplying the components next month.

LED maker Cree reported a profit on Tuesday that missed Wall Street estimates and forecast lower-than-expected earnings in the current quarter due to high inventories and falling prices, sending its shares lower in after-hours trade.

South Korea's LG Electronics has diversified chip suppliers for home appliance products to Hynix Semiconductor and Panasonic away from Toshiba after Japan's devastating earthquake last month.

Liquid-crystal-display maker LG Display said Monday it swung to a first-quarter net loss due to weak television demand and panel prices, but in a sign of improving market conditions, a company executive predicted a return to profit on an operating basis in the current second quarter.

A Chinese employee of South Korea's Samsung Electronics has been arrested for allegedly trying to leak confidential business information, a Seoul prosecutor said Wednesday. The confidential information included Samsung's key technologies on reducing noise of home appliances, details of products under development and sales plans for the next 10 years.

Japanese authorities have raised the severity rating of their nuclear crisis to the highest level, seven. The decision reflects the total release of radiation at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi power plant, which is ongoing, rather than a sudden deterioration.

Chinese silicon wafer producer Jiangsu Huantai, a joint venture partner of MEMC Electronic Materials, aims to go public in 2012, according to company chairman Wang Lubao. Huantai expects to begin manufacturing LED materials later in 2011.

LDK Solar has announced a business investment of approximately US$40 million to establish a new manufacturing plant in Nanchang City, Jiangxi Province (China). This new manufacturing facility will have capacity to supply two million 2-inch equivalent pieces of sapphire wafers per year and be positioned to capture the growing opportunities in the LED industry.

Operating profits for the first quarter of 2011 are estimated at KRW2.7-3.1 trillion (US$2.5-2.8 billion), compared to KRW3.01 trillion in the prior quarter and KRW4.41 trillion a year ago.