InvenSense and Analog Devices have entered into a definitive purchase agreement for InvenSense to acquire all of the assets of ADI that are exclusively related to ADI's MEMS microphone business line including intellectual property, goodwill and certain tangible and intangible assets.

The letter, due to be published on Tuesday, admits the firm is facing "challenging times", but adds that it is taking measures to tackle them.

BlackBerry announced last month that it plans to lay off a shocking 40% of its global workforce by the end of 2013. The first round of cuts began this week, with 300 employees let go.

The Advanced Patterning Center will offer the global semiconductor ecosystem crucial patterning knowledge for sub-10nm technologies.

NXP Semiconductors has strengthened its presence in Asia by establishing Singapore as its global headquarters.

Dongbu HiTek is not exactly a household name in the foundry business like TSMC, Globalfoundries and Samsung. But Dongbu, a company described by some as the industry's best kept secret, has been sharpening its strategy, honing its skills, and steadily expanding capacity in South Korea under Chang-Sik Choi, who became its president and CEO a year and a half ago.

ARM has opened a new Design Center in Noida, North India. The center will focus on IP design in specialized areas such as planar and FinFET CMOS technologies and address the growing needs of ARM partners.

Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba Group Holding has decided not to list its shares in Hong Kong, but has not yet committed to listing on any other exchange, including the New York Stock Exchange, CEO Jonathan Lu told Reuters on Thursday.

Samsung Electronics has launched a handset with a curved display screen. The Galaxy Round smartphone will feature a 5.7in display

Its forecasts also indicate potentially slowing profit growth at its mobile business-a signal that its run of record results is under threat by rising competition and lower-margin phones taking up a bigger proportion of sales.

Samsung's upcoming Galaxy Gear smartwatch is seen as an extension of the smartphone, but research is under way to see how the wearable device could work with electronics such as TVs.

RDA Microelectronics said China's state-owned Shanghai Pudong Science and Technology Investment offered to buy the shares of the chipmaker it does not already own at $15.50 per American depositary share.

The US government has begun a partial shutdown after the two houses of Congress failed to agree a new budget.

Facebook has so many users - more than a billion, or roughly the population of India - that squeezing them all into one Web page seems almost impossible. And yet someone has done just that.

Foxconn Technology, a subsidiary of the world's largest electronics contract manufacturer Hon Hai Precision Industry, will likely begin construction of its factory in Indonesia in the second half of 2013, a minister has said.