TrendForce believes that, for the A6 and A7 chips, Apple will just as likely turn to Globalfoundries and Intel, which currently provides the Core i processors for Apple's notebooks. The ultimate choice will likely narrow down to whose products fits or performs up to Apple's product standards.

The Japanese electronics maker said in a statement that it's not introducing tablets based on Windows RT due to delayed components "that would make a timely launch impossible." Instead, Toshiba will focus on bringing Windows 8 devices, which run on chips from Intel and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), to market.

The Nikkei Shimbun, Japan's economic newspaper, reported that Nikon is going to work with Intel to develop the next generation semiconductor manufacturing equipment capable of handling 450mm wafers.

The multi-year deal sees ARM tie itself even closer to TSMC, its chip-fabber of choice, as it looks to capitalise on the company's technology to help it maintain a lead over Intel for chip power efficiency

Intel is the world's dominant chip maker, but its business model doesn't align well with the move in computing toward mobile, and that will make it difficult for the company to make significant inroads into smartphones, tablets and other devices, according to an official with ARM.

Aided by recent moves by Intel and some other big chipmakers, momentum seems to be growing for a big technology shift in making semiconductors. But some key players remain wary, based partly on their scars from the last transition.

ASML is negotiating with Samsung Electronics and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) over taking up to a 10% stake in the company under its equity-plus-research program.

Intel is the first participant in the customer co-investment program, and has committed to acquire up to a 15% equity ownership interest at a subscription price of EUR39.91 per share, and to also provide EUR829 million to ASML in R&D funding, which will be dedicated to the development of 450mm and EUV technology.

Micron Technology has acquired Intel's 18% interest in IM Flash Singapore and the assets of IM Flash Technologies located at Micron's Virginia wafer fab. At the same time the scope of the JV between Intel and Micron has been expanded to include certain emerging memory technologies and Intel has prepaid US$300 million against future purchases of NAND flash memory.

LSI has announced several demonstrations of its SandForce SF-2000 flash storage processors using Toshiba 19nm and Intel 20nm NAND flash memory - the most advanced flash memory technology currently available for SSD applications.

The Intel wafer fab complex in Leixlip, Ireland, is set to receive investment to allow it to manufacture 14nm silicon and beyond, the company revealed in a presentation to analysts on May 10. The investment is expected to be more than US$1 billion.

With the investment from Intel Capital, Trigence Semiconductor will expand integration of Dnote to computing devices including Intel architecture-based PCs, Ultrabook and smartphones, and also expects to expand its LSI and licensing businesses.