"The trouble is that you can't get tools (from ASML). The lead times have extended..."

China's economy accelerated more than expected in the first quarter, while consumer and wholesale inflation - though mixed - indicated a broadly rising trend, stoking further concerns of economic overheating in the economy.

South Korea plans to invest 60 billion won (US$54 million) until 2015 to build up its analog chip industry to help local companies expand their presence in the global semiconductor market, according to the government.

Samsung Electronics said workers at its semiconductor factories face no heightened cancer risk as the world's top maker of memory chips tried to quell health fears following employee illnesses and deaths.

Micron Technology will bring faster interfaces to its enterprise SSD (solid-state disk) line in June when it begins shipping its P300 drives to makers of storage equipment.

Dell and Telefonica will joint fores in developing "smart mobile products" and services,which would expand its smartphone business in Latin America and Europe.

After the telecom services players, it's the handset manufacturers' turn to eye the growing Rs 50,000 crore handset market in India.

"We booked one billion euro worth of orders in the first quarter of 2010 and expect a similar level of bookings in the second quarter," said ASML CEO Eric Meurice.

Pinto is the first CTO to actually relocate to China, which in itself is a watershed event, but also shows how important China is to Applied Materials and the changing landscape of technology investing.

Applied Materials has opened its new Singapore Operations Center, Applied's first facility in Asia for manufacturing its advanced semiconductor equipment.

Magnitude 7.1 quake hits Yushu county in northwest province of Qinghai, flattening buildings and sparking big rescue.