Samsung was Apple's main supplier for the iPhones from the very beginning, making the A-series processors and supplying both NAND flash and DRAM memory chips.

Toshiba raised its forecast for first-half operating profit by 36% to JPY95 billion (US$906 million), crediting growth in memory chips and hard disk drives, as well as cost-cutting measures.

Micron Technology has said it is seeing signs of tight supplies of memory chips, a good omen for the company's bottom line but a potential worry for makers of smartphones, computers and other high-tech products.

Phase change memory has a lot to recommend it as a long-term replacement for DRAM - it's fast, it can retain data for long periods of time, and Intel's Optane/3DXPoint is thought to be partially based on phase change memory technology.

Seagate Technology said its earnings fell 49% in the latest quarter as the bottom line was hit by expenses related to the disk-drive maker's cost-cutting efforts and other items.

Toshiba is planning to start the manufacturing of the world's first 64-layer 3D NAND flash memory chips in the third quarter of 2016 with Samsung Electronics being expected to release the same type of products in the following quarter.

Abundant financial resources available from China's National IC Industry Investment Fund, often called the Big Fund, augmented local government-led funds, have lent China's "memory" dream an air of credibility. But setting aside China's aspirations, there is intense scrutiny here about the sources of IPs and engineering talent that China badly needs.

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

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.

Toshiba is considering spinning off its mainstay memory-chip business to raise funds for capital investment in an initial public offering.

The estimate of its first loss in more than two years sent the company's shares down 5.7% to $13.78 in extended trading on Tuesday.

Toshiba on Friday said it is considering selling a minority stake in its semiconductor business to raise funds in the wake of a drawn-out accounting scandal.

Samsung Electronic's earnings are heading in the right direction for the first time in nearly two years thanks to its semiconductor and display businesses.

This is a huge development for the company's data center business, as its long-term goal is to become a complete provider of data center solutions.

Intel's move comes as the chip industry undergoes a wave of consolidation and China steps up efforts to build local technology manufacturing capacity.

"We have cooperation with Micron on the business level," Unigroup Chairman Zhao Weiguo said in an interview Sunday, declining to elaborate on the nature of the cooperation. "We'd like to conduct business by cooperating with current memory giants, by setting up JV plants in China."

Micron Technology is spending over 100 billion yen ($830 million) to enable its Japanese facility in Hiroshima to mass-produce the next generation of memory chips in an attempt to take on global leader Samsung Electronics.

The chairman of China's Tsinghua Unigroup traveled to the United States this week to meet with board members of Micron Technology and try to revive a politically fraught takeover bid of the US chipmaker, people familiar with the matter said.

Rambus, known for patent battles against chipmakers, is becoming one itself.

China's Tsinghua Holdings is still discussing a potential deal to buy US chipmaker Micron Technology and hopes it could eventually go through, the state-backed investment company's chairman told Reuters on Thursday.

"We expect to see continued overall business strength in the second half of 2015 due to increased demand from memory and foundry customers compared with our previous expectations," ASML president and CEO Peter Wennink said.

Sales of PCs that used Micron's memory chips dropped faster than the company expected in 2015 triggering a 50% stock plunge. That drop helped set the stage for Micron, which is known for buying other companies' chip operations, to become a target.

Micron Technology said Monday that its board had authorized as much as $1 billion in share buybacks, its first such repurchases in three years.

Toshiba and SK Hynix will begin joint production of next-generation memory chips as early as fiscal 2016, bringing them to market ahead of US firm Micron Technology, The Nikkei learned Wednesday.

An executive of SK hynix said Thursday the firm will cooperate with Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) to supply highly-advanced chips for data-intensive devices.

David Einhorn's hedge fund Greenlight Capital reported a stake of about 23.02 million shares in US memory chipmaker Micron Technology, according to a filing on Monday.

More than 20 Japanese and US semiconductor-related companies are teaming up to develop a mass production method for next-generation memory chips.

SanDisk more than tripled its quarterly profit, beating analysts' estimates, after a fire at a rival chipmaker increased prices at a time when Apple and other users of its flash memory chips were launching new products.

SK Hynix Inc said on Wednesday it had suspended operations at its China plant, which produces around 12% of global computer memory chips, because of a fire.

Toshiba also may be among the initial customers since the three companies partner with SK Hynix on the development of resistive random access memory, or ReRam.

SK Hynix Semiconductor will be supplying Samsung Electronics with memory chips as early as June, industry sources said on Monday. The firm will supply enough to make up 20% of Samsung's mobile business.

Samsung Electronics is considering purchasing mobile memory chips from rival SK Hynix Inc for future products including its new flagship Galaxy S smartphone to be launched this month, JK Shin, head of Samsung's mobile business, said on Thursday.

South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix has appointed its research and development (R&D) chief Park Sung-wook as the new chief executive.

The company plans to produce three-dimensional (3D) flash memory chips using fine-tuned vertical-stacked-array-transistor (VSAT) technology.

Dutch semiconductor-manufacturing equipment maker ASML said Wednesday it sees weak demand in memory chips, and adjusted its second half net sales guidance to the lower end of its earlier EUR2.2 billion-EUR2.4 billion range.

Apple instead picked Japan's Toshiba, Elpida Memory and Korea's SK Hynix to supply DRAM and NAND chips.

Researchers have revealed details of a promising way to make a fundamentally different kind of computer memory chip.

Sandisk's first quarter results were messy and the outlook wasn't much better. The problem: Sandisk is making all the wrong moves and focusing on the wrong customers in the flash memory market.

Micron Technology intends to restructure its balance sheet in a manner that effectively increases its debt.