Multiple reports indicate Samsung's Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge are seeing stronger-than-expected initial sales.

EDA and IP vendor Synopsys has introduced a new custom design tool that aims to help offset design challenges posed by the era of FinFETs with an intuitive concept dubbed visually assisted automation.

Both the new MediaTek Helio X20 and Helio X25 System-on-Chips are cited in these unreleased and unseen Galaxy S7 models as well as the Samsung Exynos 8890.

The takeover bid by Hon Hai of Taiwan for Sharp, a chronically loss-making Japanese electronics firm, is being watched closely as a test of Japan's openness to foreign investment. But it is also being scrutinised back in Taiwan.

The semiconductor industry needs to consider new business models based on open source hardware, re-programmable silicon and Features-as-a-Service to drive its next phase of growth.

Samsung has begun shipping its dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips made with 18-nanometer tech at its fabrication lines in Hwaseong, south of Seoul.

Zhao Weiguo wants to create China's first giant in the global semiconductor industry and has a $30 billion investment plan to do it.

On a positive note for TSMC, it looks like the company is gearing up for production in May of the "A10" processor for Apple's next flagship phone, presumably an "iPhone 7."

Apple is in "advanced talks" to acquire British chip design company Imagination Technologies, according to a source with knowledge of the discussions. When Ars sought comment, Imagination Technologies refused to deny any such planned takeover.

Andy Grove, a technology pioneer credited with helping build Silicon Valley, died on Monday, bringing tributes from across the tech industry.

Chipmaker Broadcom, the company created following the merger of Avago and Broadcom, said it would cut about 1,900 jobs globally across its businesses.

Samsung Electronics plans to sharply cut its investments in memory chips as part of plans to focus on offsetting the growing risks of the industry's downturn.

MediaTek has announced the Imagiq image signal processor for its MediaTek Helio high-end smartphone chipset solutions.

Shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company hit a new 52-week high of US$25.80 on Mar 16, eventually closing at US$25.78.

Globalfoundries has announced new advanced radio-frequency (RF) silicon solutions, further expanding the portfolio of Silicon Germanium (SiGe) power amplifier (PA) technologies designed to enable performance-optimized cellular and Wi-Fi solutions in increasingly sophisticated mobile devices and hardware.

Imagination Technologies, the British company whose graphics power Apple's iPhone, said it would make new cost cuts, including job losses, to speed up a turnaround plan.

The transaction is expected to be completed during the second quarter of 2016.

Having trailed behind both Intel and Nvidia in the PC graphics market in recent years, AMD is preparing to go all in on virtual reality.

Kyocera will spend about JPY15 billion (US$132 million) to double production capacity for flip-chip chip scale package (FC CSP)substrates. These items carry the central processing unit, communication modules and sensors, and connect to the printed circuit board which holds other components such as resistors.

The laptops-to-nuclear conglomerate said it had overstated past profits by JPY5.8 billion (US$51.30 million) on a pretax basis due to seven new accounting errors, on top of the 224.8 billion in overstated profits it has already announced.

Microchip Technology has announced the receipt of antitrust clearance in US and Germany for its acquisition of Atmel

Sino King Technology, set up by Yukio Sakamoto, will be a key part of a roughly JPY800 billion (US$7 billion) project by the Chinese city of Hefei to build a plant to churn out cutting-edge semiconductors.

"We believe Samsung, despite some recent delays, will still be the first mover to 10-nanometer technology," Mark. C. Newman, a senior analyst at Bernstein Research, wrote in a note to clients Thursday. "TSMC and Intel will soon follow, whereas Globalfoundries can hardly keep up. Samsung can still edge ahead of TSMC."

MediaTek and Orange have announced a new collaboration to market IoT tailored offerings embedding ready-to-use cellular connectivity to address the growing industrial demand for connected objects. The agreement will address professional developers and manufacturers of IoT devices including consumer electronics products.

Morgan Stanley's James Faucette today weighs in on the speculation about whether Qualcomm may lose some share of the baseband modem chip business in Apple's iPhone to Intel, concluding that there's a real chance it will happen, but it doesn't threaten Qualcomm overall.

Toshiba has granted Canon exclusive negotiating rights for its medical equipment unit after a hotly contested auction, with a report putting Canon's offer at more than $6 billion.

US chipmakers will feel the sting of the US government's decision to restrict technology exports to China's ZTE. Qualcomm and Intel are both suppliers to ZTE, as is Singapore's Broadcom.

Multimedia chip designer DSP Group on Monday confirmed a report by Chipworks that its HDClear chip is a component in the new Samsung Galaxy S7 phone, a deal expected to significantly boost the company's revenue.

These chips will apparently be used on both future Nvidia Pascal graphics cards and AMD Polaris GPUs.

JP Morgan thinks TSMC has not lost its technological edge and Qualcomm will be coming back to the Taiwan manufacturer for 7nm in 2018.

SK Hynix plans to invest up to KRW15.5 trillion (US$12.5 billion) to build a new memory chip plant next to its Cheongju facility in North Chungcheong Province.

The news follows Cisco's Tuesday announcement of the acquisition of Cliqr Technologies for about $260 million to enhance offerings in cloud computing management software and services. Leaba's website doesn't elaborate on what its technology provides, but Ynet said it allowed for more efficient and intelligent routing of Internet traffic.

Qualcomm has agreed to pay $7.5 million to settle charges it violated US anti-bribery laws by hiring relatives of Chinese officials to obtain business, the US Securities and Exchange Commission said on Tuesday.

NTT DOCOMO and MediaTek have announced a joint effort to drive 5G technology development.

I don't expect Intel to roll out server chips built on the company's 10nm technology to roll out in 2017; Intel is expected to introduce its second-generation 14nm server chip family in early to mid-2017. However, if Intel can get the process ramped at high yields during the second half of 2017 with PC-targeted products, it should bode well for a launch of 10nm server processors in the first half of 2018.

The latest leak reveals that the new processor, dubbed Snapdragon 830, will support a massive 8GB of RAM and is expected to come with an enhanced Kryo custom architecture. It will also be built based on Samsung's 10nm process.

Japan's value of exports fell by 12.9% in January from a year earlier, supporting concerns that the slowdown in China - one of the country's most important trading partners - is continuing to hurt demand.

The semiconductor industry, which has used the observation made by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore as its target development in recent decades, is now set to abandon the approach.

Apple's next-generation iPhone - expected to abandon a 3.5mm headphone jack - will probably replace the part with a second speaker, according to a Barclays research memo obtained by AppleInsider.