STMicroelectronics, Europe's largest chipmaker, fell the most in six weeks in Milan trading after saying second-quarter sales will be held back by a decline at its joint venture with Ericsson. Dubbed ST- Ericsson, the venture is completing a shift to a new lineup targeting smartphone and tablet markets.

TriQuint Semiconductor's first-quarter earnings met analysts' expectations, helped by strong demand in the smartphone market, but the wireless communications products supplier forecast lower-than-expected second-quarter earnings.

The proposed transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2011. SiBEAM provides high-speed wireless communication products for uncompressed HD video in consumer electronics and PC applications.

Shares of LDK Solar (LDK) were tumbling after hours following the company's first-quarter guidance.The stock, which gained 3.3% today, was down 2.4% in recent after hours trading.

ARM, the UK designer of chips that help power Apple's iPhone, said first-quarter sales rose 26% on booming demand for smartphones and tablet computers.

Shares of NAND flash drive maker SanDisk are off by US$1.68, or 3.4%, at US$47.31 after the company reported revenue and earnings per share for 1Q slightly ahead of expectations and said Japan's disaster would not derail its earnings outlook for the year.

Robert Tsao, honorary chairman of United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC), said recently in a TV interview that he has given up his Taiwan citizenship. Disappointment in the domestic judicial system is the major reason why Tsao decided to become a Singaporean.

Renesas Electronics expects to restart production at a quake-hit factory in east Japan in mid June, about two weeks earlier than initially planned.

The Indian government has established a committee to identify technology and potential investors that could set up India's first two commercial semiconductor wafer fabs, the country's Ministry of Communications and Information Technology said. The ministry put the rough cost of the two fabs at US$5 billion.

The event was postponed due to the ongoing recovery efforts in the wake of the Great East Japan Earthquake and at the request of Japanese government agencies to help conserve energy resources during the summer months. SEMICON Japan 2011 is now scheduled for December 7-9 in the same venue as PVJapan.

Smartphones and tablets will be the first devices to use ARM's upcoming Cortex-A15 processor, and will be available starting late 2012 or early 2013, said James Bruce, the US mobile segment manager at ARM.

"2011 started strong, with customer demand in January and February tracking our expectations for a first quarter of above-seasonal growth," said Rich Templeton, TI CEO. "But the Japan earthquake that's taken such a heartbreaking human toll in the country also disrupted local demand starting in mid-March and impaired operations at two of our factories there."

The company said its customers are asking for a higher number of shipments in the second half of calendar year 2011, compared with the first half. Analysts view Lam's top customer, Samsung Electronics', recent decision to cut capital spending as hurting its fourth-quarter results.

According to Samsung South Korea, the smartphone maker "will be releasing a smartphone that boasts performance levels matching desktop PCs." That's because this upcoming device will come equipped with a dual-core processor running at 2GHz.

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.

A trial over Rambus' antitrust lawsuit against Micron Technology and Hynix Semiconductor claiming US$4.3 billion in alleged damages was scheduled for June 7.

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.

Infineon will go into specifics concerning the past quarter, the outlook for the current quarter and the expectations for the fiscal year 2011 when presenting the figures for the second quarter of the fiscal year 2011 on May 3, 2011.

Toyota has now resumed car production at all of its plants in Japan for the first time since last month's earthquake and tsunami. However, the car manufacturer said that production would be half of its normal level because of parts shortages.

Samsung is looking to sell the unit for US$1.5 billion, but it may consider a deal under US$1 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter. A potential buyer is Seagate Technology.

Sequans Communications has announced the pricing of its initial public offering of American Depositary Shares (ADSs), representing 7,700,000 ordinary shares, at a price to the public of US$10.00 per ADS. The ADSs began trading on April 15 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Shin-Etsu Chemical has said that it will partially resume production at an earthquake-stricken silicon wafer factory in Fukushima Prefecture within a week or two.

Intel and Micron Technology will make an announcement about NAND flash on April 14. The companies have not disclosed the details. "I believe that they will announce the finalization of their Singapore agreement-IMFS-that will bring up 25nm first and then 20nm later," said Alan Niebel, CEO of Web-Feet Research.

Zoom Technologies has signed a licensing pact with chipmaker Qualcomm, allowing the Chinese mobile phone maker to develop and sell 3G devices using Qualcomm's chip patents.

Bruce Sohn, First Solar's president of operations, may pursue work as chief executive of another solar company when he steps down at the end of this month, an analyst said. A First Solar spokesman said he couldn't comment on Sohn's departure.

ASML has said first-quarter orders fell 27% as clients took more time to place orders because of disruptions by the Japanese earthquake. The quake is hurting the business of some ASML clients.

Intel has designed a handset that may be manufactured by China's ZTE, according to people with knowledge of the plan. The phone, based on a version of Intel's Atom microprocessor, may go on sale in China.

Freescale Semiconductor has entered into a strategic alliance with Fuji Electric to collaborate on insulated-gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) technology and products for hybrid electric and electric vehicles (HEV and EV).