Toshiba is quickly paying down its debt, diminishing the influence of lenders who want a quick sale of its memory unit to a group led by US buyout firm Bain Capital and fueling speculation that the company may consider a different route on the sale.

Another class action lawsuit has been filed, alleging that Samsung, Hynix, and Micron conspired to limit the supply of memory, keeping consumer prices artificially high as a result.

Intel announced the appointment of yet another big-name chip architect and provided more evidence that its multi-year quest to diversify beyond the PC is finally paying dividends. But the company also pushed volume production of 10-nm chips from late this year to next year, saying that progress in improving yields is slower than expected.

Samsung Electronics said weakness in the global smartphone market would slow earnings growth, as it reported record quarterly profit on Thursday thanks to strong demand for semiconductors used in servers.

Apple is expecting Intel to supply 70% of the modem chips inside the new iPhone models, which will debut this fall, and-if all goes well-plans to rely on the company for 100% of the modems in next year's iPhones, a source with knowledge of Apple's plans says.

China's state-backed semiconductor fund is near to closing a CNY120 billion ($18.98 billion) investment round for a second fund to support the domestic chip sector and help cut reliance on imports amid a bruising trade standoff with the United States.

Qualcomm accumulated a $125m legal bill in the three months to March and the chipmaker warned its costs would rise further in the coming months, as it prepares for a number of courtroom battles against Apple and US regulators.

The US Justice Department has joined two other agencies probing Huawei Technologies Co for possible violations of sanctions banning sales to Iran, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The US government's move last week to bar ZTE from buying American technology looks set to not only cripple the Chinese smartphone maker, but reverberate through the global telecommunications supply chain as well.

Shares of Apple dropped nearly 2% on Tuesday as investors worries intensified about soft demand for iPhones after a warning from a company that supplies components for smartphones.

Chipmaker AMS reported first-quarter sales toward the lower end of its guidance range on Monday and warned of a downturn owing to weaker orders from one of its main customers.

Dialog Semiconductor expects Apple, its top customer, to use its chips for a significant proportion of its devices in 2019 and 2020, Chief Executive Jalal Bagherli told a German newspaper.

Qualcomm Inc reapplied for approval from China's Ministry of Commerce for its acquisition of NXP Semiconductors NV, which demanded a July deadline for closing the deal as regulators required additional concessions to give it approval.

The company signed the preliminary agreement with South Chungcheong Province to invest some KRW480 billion (US$449 million) for the expansion of its plant in Cheonan, some 80 kilometers south of Seoul, for 300mm silicon wafer, the provincial government said.

Though Qualcomm first evaluated non-headcount expense reductions, it concluded that a workforce reduction is needed to support long-term growth and success, a company spokesperson said.

Facebook is building a team to design its own semiconductors, adding to a trend among technology companies to supply themselves and lower their dependence on chipmakers such as Intel and Qualcomm.

China's economy grew at an annual pace of 6.8% in the first quarter compared to the same period last year, according to official data, beating forecasts for the period. The growth figures for January to March were also above Beijing's 2018 annual growth target of "around 6.5%".

China's Alibaba Group has been testing its own autonomous vehicle technology, the South China Morning Post reports, and is looking to hire an additional 50 self-driving vehicle experts. Alibaba's rivals Baidu and Tencent have also been working on autonomous technology.

China is slowing reviews of multibillion-dollar takeover deals being pursued by Qualcomm and Bain Capital, people familiar with the matter say, as US-China trade tensions escalate.

7nm+ design libraries are not available yet, and thus design engineers at Apple, Nvidia or Qualcomm (to mention a few) are not expected to have a holistic (to borrow the terminology from ASML) view on cost/ benefits of 7nm+ with EUV.

US President Donald Trump has said he will only join the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) if the deal is "substantially better" than the one offered to President Barack Obama. The TPP is the free trade pact with primarily Asia-Pacific nations that Trump backed out of last year.

Global foundries and Toppan Photomasks have announced a multi-year extension to their Advanced Mask Technology Center (AMTC) joint venture in Dresden, Germany.

Paul Jacobs, the ousted chairman of Qualcomm, is making progress in lining up enough funding to offer to take the chipmaker private, and could make the bid within a few months, according to a person familiar with his plans.

Qualcomm's vision intelligence platform features the company's first family of system-on-chips (SoCs) purpose-built for the Internet of Things (IoT) using 10nm FinFET process technology.

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.

Samsung is producing ASIC chips for upstart mining hardware manufacturer Halong Mining, at least according to one mining rig distributor.

The combined product portfolio and future common platforms of UnitySC and HSEB will support manufacturing of devices used in mobility, automotive and internet of things applications.

These new laptops combine the processing power of Intel's Core processors with AMD's Vega graphics.

China's finance ministry said on Friday it has introduced tax breaks for chipmakers made in the country, at a time when the government is seeking to reduce dependence on foreign semiconductors amid trade tensions with the United States over technology transfers.

GDDR6 memory manufacturing schedules give reason to believe that Nvidia is targeting a July launch for its GeForce 11 series, or somewhere shortly after.

Samsung is now the largest patent holder in the United States, boasting a portfolio of 75,596 valid patents in the country as of January 1.

Intel is exploring the creation of specialty hardware for mining the popular cryptocurrency Bitcoin.

Move would be major blow to Intel, Apple's Mac chip supplier.

Fueled by heavy government investment, IC packaging and testing in China generated $29 billion in revenue in 2017.

The Chinese owners of Imagination Technologies have drafted in a microchip industry veteran from a Beijing-backed technology conglomerate, after buying the British company last year.

China is showing the United States that it will make good on its trade threats.

The CEO of Huawei's consumer business tells CNET that it's maintaining its US operations despite the government's national security concern.

Samsung plans to adopt 2.5D and fan-out packaging technologies at the new complex. Taiwan's TSMC was the first to commercialize the fan-out packaging, adopting it to Apple's A Series processors.