The communications and automotive IC markets are forecast to outpace the growth of the total IC market through 2016, according to IC Insights.

Sandy made landfall in New Jersey, causing a record surge of seawater in New York City, flooding car and subway tunnels and leaving much of lower Manhattan without power.

ALi has acquired Abilis, a fabless semiconductor company providing RF modulators, secure media processors and broadcast-to-IP solutions, according to the Taiwan-based set-top box IC firm.

Embedded and consumer markets and a broadening porfolio of flash memory devices will continue to drive increased business for memory maker Spansion in the coming months, but global economic uncertainty marked by political change is dampening industry growth, Spansion CEO John Kispert said Thursday (Oct. 25).

KLA-Tencor posted fiscal first-quarter revenue below expectations and said current-quarter revenue would fall more as chipmakers, worried about the economy, hold off on new orders of manufacturing equipment.

"Solid demand for wireless communications in both packaging and test was the key driver of our business in the third quarter," said Ken Joyce, Amkor's president and CEO. "Lower-than-anticipated supply of 28nm wafers in the early part of the quarter and the overall weakness in the semiconductor market and general economy constrained our growth."

The IT & Mobile Communications division, comprising Mobile Communications, Telecommunication Systems, IT Solutions and Digital Imaging, ended the third quarter with operating profits of KRW5.63 trillion on KRW29.92 trillion in revenue. Operating profits for the division saw 132 percent year-on-year growth.

Elpida's main bankruptcy proceeding is being handled by a district court in Tokyo, but Christopher Sontchi, the Delaware Bankruptcy Court judge overseeing Elpida's parallel US case, said the company was taking a risk by not keeping creditors better informed.

The strong Japanese yen has hurt the country's export competitiveness, while demand has evaporated as growth slowed in most regions. Meanwhile, the country's energy imports have risen following closures of most of its nuclear plants.

Chipmaker ARM Tuesday reported higher profit and revenue for the third quarter, adding that it expects group dollar revenues for the fourth quarter in-line with market expectations.

Chinese factories are losing pricing power in the worst wholesale-cost deflation since 2009, signaling corporate earnings may deteriorate further and putting a damper on global inflation pressures.

Samsung recently raised eyebrows by beefing up its team of Texas-based chip designers, including those whose backgrounds pointed to an interest in chips for server systems. Now one of the most prominent of those recruits has left the South Korean company for Apple.

STMicroelectronics and Ericsson , joint owners of ST-Ericsson, said they had hired an adviser to help deal with the chipmaker.

Williams Financial analyst Cody Acree told MarketWatch that the gains apparently were due to "more talk of Apple moving away from Samsung as a foundry" which has also led to speculation that either Intel or TSMC may be tapped to manufacture chips for Apple.

Dutch semiconductor-manufacturing equipment maker ASML said Wednesday it sees weak demand in memory chips, and adjusted its second half net sales guidance to the lower end of its earlier EUR2.2 billion-EUR2.4 billion range.

The report continues, quoting an anonymous Samsung official speaking about the A6 chip. "Apple did all the design and we are just producing the chips on a foundry basis." That's a change from the past, when Apple worked with Samsung on chip development and/or design.

Amazon.Com is in advanced talks to buy the supplier of processors for its Kindle tablet computer, Israeli financial newspaper Calcalist reported on Monday, a step toward vertical integration that could portend a push into smartphones.

At the 2012 International Symposium on Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography, industry and research experts named the timely development of a source suited for high-volume manufacturing as the most critical issue. Other challenges remain the development of yielding masks and the further development of high-quality EUV resists.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company's (TSMC) share in the 28nm contract chipmaking sector may drop from 80% to 50% next year on fierce competition from Samsung, according to research firm Topology.

Tens of thousands of factory workers took part in a general strike across Indonesia on Wednesday, calling for higher wages, more social security and an end to employers' use of temporary contracts to circumvent the country's strict labour laws.

Rambus has signed a patent licensing agreement with Fujitsu Semiconductor for an undisclosed sum. Per the terms of the agreement, Fujitsu can use Rambus' patented technology for its integrated circuit products for six years. Rambus, on the other hand, will receive royalty payments based on the shipment of these devices during the contract period.

A HP executive recently said that the company has decided to postpone manufacturing commercial memristor-based ReRAM products until late 2013. The company originally planned to go into production during 2Q/3Q 2013.

Qualcomm has announced the addition of two new Snapdragon S4 mobile processors: the MSM8225Q and MSM8625Q. Both are members of the Snapdragon S4 Play processor tier, optimized specifically for a broad range of smartphone users seeking faster applications and better user experiences.

Texas Instruments said it will shift its wireless investment focus from products like smartphones to a broader market including industrial clients like carmakers where it is hoping for a more profitable and stable business.

For the first quarter of fiscal year 2013 Infineon expects a revenue decline of up to 10% relative to the fourth quarter of the 2012 fiscal year. The management board will define and implement measures to improve profitability beyond the first quarter of the 2013 fiscal year.

"Samsung's 2013 semiconductor capex will be conducted in a very conservative way. Opinions are gathering into a significant cut in facility investment next year," a senior official at Samsung was quoted as saying.

UMC has signed a strategic partnership agreement with Allegro for Allegro to utilize UMC for foundry technology and production for power management chips.

Semiconductor Manufacturing International (SMIC) has announced the availability of its 1.2-volt low-power embedded EEPROM platform, which is fully compatible with its 0.13-micron low-leakage (LL) process.

Intel is talking to Cisco about becoming its foundry, says investment bank Piper Jaffray.

The billings figure is 4% lower than the first quarter of 2012 and 13% lower than the same quarter a year ago, while the bookings figure shows decreases of 10% on year and 4% on quarter, according to SEMI.

Rayfield worked for the past seven years as the vice president and general manager of Nvidia's Mobile Business Unit where his team created advanced computer on a chip technology and won key mobile industry reference designs.

A Japanese court has delayed its ruling on two competing plans to restructure failed chipmaker Elpida Memory, a source with direct knowledge of the matter said.

STMicroelectronics is planning production stoppages at its wafer fabs in Crolles, France, and Catania, Italy, amid reports that CEO Carlo Bozotti will soon announce a reorganization of the company that may include a change of business model.

The new members added include Jackson Hu, chairman and CEO for NeoEnergy Microelectronics, Qiang Liu, chairman and CEO for Ingenic Semiconductor, and Vincent Tai, co-founder, chairman and CEO for RDA Microelectronics.

The Global Semiconductor Alliance (GSA) has announced the appointment of Leo Li, chairman, CEO and president of Spreadtrum Communications, to its board of directors. In his new position, Li will represent Asia-Pacific as the first board director based in China.

TrendForce believes that, for the A6 and A7 chips, Apple will just as likely turn to Globalfoundries and Intel, which currently provides the Core i processors for Apple's notebooks. The ultimate choice will likely narrow down to whose products fits or performs up to Apple's product standards.

The QFN package design kit enhances package modeling and simulation accuracy with Agilent's ADS electronic design automation (EDA) software for radio frequency (RF), microwave and high-speed digital applications for RF semiconductors.

Prior to joining Globalfoundries, Chen held key senior management positions in Marvell where he was responsible for sales, support and customer service for the company's business in China.

Kionix has announced the release of the KXCNL, a configurable accelerometer with dual state machines to allow designers to dynamically program the device for numerous applications.