A Chinese manufacturing index declined in April from March, indicating that growth may moderate in the world's second-biggest economy after the government raised interest rates and allowed faster gains in the yuan.

Japanese automobile sales more than halved in April - the biggest monthly drop on record - and are not expected to recover until late 2011, raising concerns the country's leading vehicle manufacturers will post losses for the first half of the year.

Japan's parliament has passed a JPY4 trillion (US$49 billion) emergency budget for reconstruction following the 11 March earthquake and tsunami.

Apple won the first round in a patent fight with Elan Microelectronics over touchpad technology, the ITC said on April 29.

"Nintendo 3DS has not been selling as expected since the second week [of availability], and this is not just in the Japanese market but also in the US and Europe, where no direct impact from the great earthquake has occurred," said Nintendo president Satoru Iwata.

Sony plans to resume production of Blu-ray and other optical discs at a tsunami-hit factory in northern Japan in late May, according to the company.

Panasonic plans to cut 40,000 jobs globally over the next two years, the Kyodo news agency and the Nikkei business daily reported. The job losses represent about 10% of the company's workforce, and most of the cuts will come from the company's overseas divisions.

MagnaChip Semiconductor has signed a wafer foundry agreement with Atmel, a major provider of microcontrollers and touch solutions.

STMicroelectronics, Europe's largest chipmaker, fell the most in six weeks in Milan trading after saying second-quarter sales will be held back by a decline at its joint venture with Ericsson. Dubbed ST- Ericsson, the venture is completing a shift to a new lineup targeting smartphone and tablet markets.

Chairman Ben Bernanke said he expected growth for 2011 to be between 3.1% and 3.3%, compared with the previous forecast of 3.4-3.9%. He also hinted the Fed would not pump more money into the economy after June.

TriQuint Semiconductor's first-quarter earnings met analysts' expectations, helped by strong demand in the smartphone market, but the wireless communications products supplier forecast lower-than-expected second-quarter earnings.

The proposed transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2011. SiBEAM provides high-speed wireless communication products for uncompressed HD video in consumer electronics and PC applications.

Verizon Wireless will start selling the HTC's Droid Incredible 2 on April 28 while Sprint will put the Nexus S 4G from Google on sale May 8. Both smartphones will sell for US$199.99 with two year service agreements.

Shares of LDK Solar (LDK) were tumbling after hours following the company's first-quarter guidance.The stock, which gained 3.3% today, was down 2.4% in recent after hours trading.

Mobile phone maker Nokia has announced it will shed 4,000 jobs as part of a plan to refocus the company on smartphones. Nokia said the majority of the job losses would be in Denmark, Finland and the UK.

ARM, the UK designer of chips that help power Apple's iPhone, said first-quarter sales rose 26% on booming demand for smartphones and tablet computers.