Unlike KGI, Macotakara says that the 7s series would not include features like wireless charging or a glass casing. It would be a straightforward internal component update, moving from the A10 chip to the A11 chip, alongside the introduction of the red color option for the exterior.

Royal Philips agreed to sell a majority stake in its lighting components unit to Apollo Global Management in a cut-price deal valued at $2 billion after a US national security panel blocked a more lucrative transaction with a Chinese buyer almost a year ago.

British imaging sensor maker E2V Technologies said on Monday it had agreed to an all-cash takeover offer worth about GBP620 million (US$780 million) from Teledyne Technologies.

Samsung in November said it would acquire Harman International Industries for $8 billion in a bid to grow quickly in the automotive market.

A Chinese takeover bid for Aixtron of Germany collapsed Thursday, a week after US President Barack Obama blocked the deal on national-security grounds, according to a statement from the buyer.

After more than half a decade in the making, ARM server chips should have struck gold by now, but they haven't. ARM servers were projected to be approaching a double-digit server market share, but they still are virtually non-existent.

At its Windows Hardware Engineering (WinHEC) conference in Shenzhen, China, Microsoft said Thursday morning that it's partnered with Qualcomm to enable new, low-cost PCs. These are intended to replace Windows tablets built around Intel's Atom, a chip the company's essentially discontinued.

Apple argued in a Beijing court on Wednesday that its iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus mobile designs do not copy a Chinese product and should be allowed to be sold on the Chinese mainland.

Foxconn Technology, which manufactures Apple's iPhone and other products, said it is in talks to expand in the US. The statement comes amid President-elect Donald Trump's push for a return of manufacturing to the US.

When a Beijing regulator recently ruled against Apple in a patent dispute, it handed a victory to a Chinese company that barely exists.

China's National Silicon Industry Group, a state-backed semiconductor investment fund, is interested in acquiring a majority stake in German silicon-wafer maker Siltronic, the latest potential Chinese takeover that could face political opposition, according to people familiar with the matter.

The Reserve Bank of India acknowledged Wednesday that the country's ongoing cash shortage is hurting the economy.

In the latest signal from Washington that it's protecting its semiconductor industry from Beijing, US President Barack Obama on Friday issued an executive order barring a Chinese deal to buy a German semiconductor company's California-based subsidiary, citing national security reasons.

The competing R&D alliance of Globalfoundries, Samsung Electronics and IBM announced a 7nm process technology, but it is taking a different approach. TSMC is using the current 193nm immersion lithography tools while the alliance's process relies on a new form of lithography, known as EUV or extreme ultra-violet, to pattern some critical layers.

Ever since Siemens announced its plan to acquire Mentor Graphics three weeks ago, many in the semiconductor industry have been poking and parsing its implications. They've found, thus far, more questions than answers.

Eight users have complained to Shanghai's consumer watchdog that their iPhone 6 series handsets spontaneously combusted or exploded. Apple said it had conducted tests on the devices and had found "no cause for concern with these products".

SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son told President-elect Donald Trump he would create 50,000 new jobs in the US through a US$50 billion investment in startups and new companies.

Northland Capital Markets's Tom Sepenzis today urges investors to "buy on the dip" Qualcomm's shares, which he rates Outperform, with a $75 price target.

Jia Yueting, founder and chief executive of LeEco, said in a letter to employees this month that the company had burnt through cash too quickly as it expanded into businesses ranging from smartphones to driverless cars.

US President-elect Donald Trump has spoken directly with the president of Taiwan - breaking with US policy set in 1979, when formal relations were cut.

US President Barack Obama appeared to block a Chinese company from buying Germany's Aixtron SE, marking only the third time in more than a quarter century that the White House has rejected an overseas buyer as a national security risk.

Interflex, BHE, and Samsung Electro-Mechanics are going to supply their FPCBs that will be used for Apple's next iPhone.

Samsung Electronics is facing a patent lawsuit from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology in the US, the institute confirmed Wednesday.

Fresh blood and a little reorganizations might be the key for Intel to succeed in two hot new markets - IoT and automotive - that will be crucial for its hopes to reduce its reliance on PCs as the company's main growth generator.

Samsung Electronics said it will disclose plans to boost shareholder value on Tuesday - a move that comes amid pressure from US fund Elliott Management to split the company in two and provide more in payouts.

Canyon Bridge Capital Partners, a buyout fund that agreed to acquire US-based chipmaker Lattice Semiconductor for $1.3 billion earlier this month, is funded partly by cash originating from China's central government and also has indirect links to its space program, Chinese corporate filings show.

As Linley Gwennap, the head of the eponymous research firm Linley Group, sees it, the "16nm" technology of TSMC and the others "is really 19nm," and the planned 7nm "will be about 13nm relative to Intel processes." Intel, he concludes, is a "a full node" ahead of the foundries, "Just as they have been for the past decade."

Instinet's Romit Shah today asks whether Intel's surprising step-up in its spending outlook presages greater investment in its relationship with Apple or some other project as yet undisclosed.

Wells Fargo chip analyst David Wong this afternoon writes that the "chip recovery has begun," in particular for analog chip names, after quarterly reports from "a representative set of analog chip companies."

Apple will switch to an all-glass casing for next year's entire iPhone lineup in order to support wireless charging, with Pegatron being the exclusive supplier of the wireless charger.

If you ask Anthony Yen, who leads EUV lithography development at TSMC, how critical EUV is to Moore's Law, he won't beat around the bush: "Totally critical. 100 percent critical. Very, very critical." TSMC expects to adopt EUV in 2020, when the company aims to begin producing chips on its 5-nm manufacturing line.

Tokyo is experiencing its first November snowfall in 54 years.