Motorola Mobility, the phone maker Google has agreed to buy for US$12.5 billion, swung to an operating loss in the fourth quarter of 2011 due to increased competition in the smartphone market.

Facebook will begin the process of becoming a publicly-listed company this week, valuing the social networking site at between US$75 billion and US$100 billion, reports suggest.

Qualcomm has acquired display startup Pixtronix, which develops technology applicable to smartphone and tablet screens.

"We delivered a solid fourth quarter amid challenging market conditions," said company president and CEO John Kispert. "2011 was a year of transition and intense product development. Spansion is now well-positioned for growth in the future in areas such as automotive, industrial, communications and gaming..."

MagnaChip Semiconductor announced that its Korean subsidiary has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Dawin Electronics, a privately held semiconductor company that designs and manufactures Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor (IGBT), Fast Recovery Diode (FRD) and MOSFET modules.

Foundry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. has hit back at analysts who have said it has yield problems with its 28nm CMOS manufacturing processes.

Nokia has posted an operating loss of US$1.25 billion in the fourth quarter as unexpectedly high Windows Phone sales and a US$250 million payment from Microsoft weren't enough to compensate for worse than anticipated declines in the company's legacy smartphone lines.

Globalfoundries CEO Ajit Manocha has praised his firm for what he called a "remarkable quarter" in Q411, and promised that the foundry was on track to "keep the momentum going," after a year plagued with difficulties and setbacks.

Following the amendment to the Quarto Conto Energia, GIFI, the Italian PV Industry Association, has said manufacturers are rising up to urge the government to repeal its decision on cutting FiTs for solar plants on agricultural land. Panic has spread through the PV manufacturing industry, where already financed projects will now not provide as much of a return as under the original legislation.

Windows 8 is stable on the ARM chip platform and will be seeded to developers soon, sources told CNET. Devices may be priced significantly less than their Intel counterparts, too.

Leading electronic equipment manufacturers remained the center of the semiconductor world in 2011, accounting for US$105.6 billion of semiconductors on a design total available market basis - 35% of semiconductor vendors' worldwide chip revenue, according to Gartner.

Nanya Chairman Chia Chau Wu told Reuters on Monday that he did not know of any deal between the other two companies and the company had no current intention to take part in any deal. He declined to comment on whether Nanya would welcome any such tie-up.

Elpida Memory has entered the final stage of negotiations on a merger with Micron Technology and Taiwan's Nanya Technology, sources said.

Dutch semiconductor equipment maker ASML said Wednesday it expects a healthy start to 2012, as its customers invest in chip production to drive faster and more powerful smartphones and tablets.

Solar-power stations take up a lot of room.

Samsung spokesman James Chung said that his company has not "considered acquiring" RIM and is "not interested" in buying the BlackBerry maker. He added that neither company approached the other to try to create an acquisition deal.

Traders said they had heard that ZTE had lost a patent lawsuit with Ericsson and had to pay a penalty of EUR500 million (US$640.83 million), although a ZTE executive told Reuters that the outcome of the lawsuit was not out yet.

ARM hopes for a serious impact on the server market starting in 2014 when its 64-bit processor design reaches the market, CEO Warren East said.