Samsung Electronics is expected to overtake Intel as the world's largest chipmaker in the current quarter, for the first time ever, on the back of strong demand for chips for mobile devices and data servers.

The US is poised to weigh in on whether the sale of chipmaker Lattice Semiconductor could pose a risk to national security. The possible rub: While the buyer is a private-equity firm with a Silicon Valley address, the money behind the deal comes from Beijing.

Western Digital said in a June 25 letter to Toshiba's board that SK Hynix's participation in the consortium increased the likelihood of technology leakage to the rival chipmaker, adding that the winning bid did not appear to be bigger than its own offer.

GlobalFoundries, the world's second largest contract chipmaker, aims to double its revenue from Japan over the next few years by launching cheaper chips for newer uses that will help it claw market share from a dominant Taiwanese rival, a senior executive said.

SoftBank has quietly amassed a $4 billion stake in Nvidia making it the fourth-largest shareholder in the graphics chipmaker, according to people familiar with the situation.

Group Chairman Zhao Weiguo told the Nikkei Asian Review that by 2020 his group will definitely close in on Qualcomm and MediaTek, the world's top two mobile chip providers. The group aims to be among the top five memory chip makers globally in a decade, according to Zhao.

BlackBerry's $815 million arbitration award in a dispute with Qualcomm is a positive for the company and it's likely to use the money to seek acquisitions to bolster its business, analysts said Wednesday.

US-based private-equity firm Silver Lake Partners and US-based chipmaker Broadcom apparently tendered a roughly JPY2 trillion (US$17.9 billion) bid. That is on the high end of estimates of the memory business' value.

Micron Technology gained more than 7% in late trading Thursday after the chipmaker reported better earnings than expected amid reported price hikes for its memory chips.

The technology sector in China is still not sophisticated enough to compete with the US in the global chip market, the chairman of China's top contract chipmaker said on Tuesday.

German-based chipmaker X-Fab Silicon Foundries SE expects to raise about EUR500 million ($530 million) via an initial public offering in order to fund its global production expansion.

Despite a turbulent past, Windows PCs with ARM are making a grand return later this year, but only with Qualcomm chips. Another big ARM chipmaker, MediaTek, is sitting out the opportunity to put its ARM-based chips in Windows PCs because the company sees it as a limited opportunity.

Infineon does not expect to be able to salvage its $850 million purchase of Cree's Wolfspeed Power, which is under US scrutiny over unspecified government security concerns, the German chipmaker said on Thursday.

Shares of AMD, which had already risen more than fivefold since last February, jumped another 16% to over $12 on Wednesday after the company reported revenue for the fourth quarter and expected revenue for the first quarter above what analysts had expected.

Qualcomm reported a lower-than-expected 3.9% rise in quarterly revenue on Wednesday, and defended its licensing model in the face of multiple legal challenges over its alleged "anticompetitive" tactics.

Toshiba is expected to sell no more than 19.9% of the unit to be created in a spinoff of its memory chip operations.

Momentum behind the push to transition the semiconductor industry to 450mm wafers - which seemed substantial just a few short years ago - now appears all but dead, at least for now.

Corephotonics, an Israeli maker of dual camera technologies for smartphones, said on Wednesday it raised $15 million in a funding round that included Samsung Ventures, iPhone manufacturer Foxconn and chipmaker MediaTek.

SoftBank has lined up chip maker Qualcomm as an investor in the Japanese firm's new technology fund, helping the massive portfolio reach its $100 billion goal, according to people familiar with the matter.

Canyon Bridge Capital Partners, a buyout fund that agreed to acquire US-based chipmaker Lattice Semiconductor for $1.3 billion earlier this month, is funded partly by cash originating from China's central government and also has indirect links to its space program, Chinese corporate filings show.

German chipmaker Infineon raised its medium-term profitability target on Wednesday, banking on strong growth in its automotive business as carmakers invest heavily on electric and self-driving vehicles.

Analog chipmaker Macom Technology Solutions Holdings said on Monday it would buy fellow chipmaker Applied Micro Circuits for about $770 million to expand its data center connectivity business.

Marvell Technology said it plans to eliminate 900 jobs as part of a restructuring designed to narrow the chip maker's focus on more profitable businesses.

Smartphone chipmaker Qualcomm, which agreed to buy NXP Semiconductors for about US$38 billion last week, reported a better-than-expected 13.3% rise in quarterly revenue, helped by strong demand, particularly in China.

Chipmaker Broadcom is nearing a deal to acquire network gear maker Brocade Communications Systems Inc in a deal that could be announced later this week, people familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.

Qualcomm is willing to offer 75 percent cash and 25 percent stock, while NXP reportedly prefers an all-cash offer.

Conventional silicon-based electronics are rapidly approaching a fundamental barrier. Below about five nanometers, quantum effects make their behavior unpredictable. That's led to research into alternative materials such as carbon nanotubes. Now, a large collaboration has taken a different material-molybdenum disulfide, or MoS2-and used its distinctive properties to craft a transistor that has a gate size of just one nanometer.

Qualcomm is the only company in talks to acquire NXP Semiconductors and is making progress toward an agreement with the Dutch chipmaker on a fair price, people with knowledge of the matter said.

Hitachi is preparing to unload operations in power tools and semiconductor fabrication equipment, further narrowing its focus and resources with the aim of bolstering earning power in an uncertain global economy.

Qualcomm has held early talks with several potential targets, including NXP Semiconductors and Xilinx.

Renesas Electronics has agreed to buy US chipmaker Intersil for a total of $3.2 billion, as the Japanese chipmaker accelerates efforts to sell more automotive components.

Japan's Renesas Electronics is in the final stages of negotiations to acquire US chipmaker Intersil for as much as JPY300 billion ($2.99 billion), the Nikkei business daily reported on Monday.

Shares of GCS Holding came under pressure Tuesday morning after a planned acquisition of GCS by China-based LED chipmaker Sanan Optoelectronics fell through, dealers said.

Qualcomm's second-quarter results show the chipmaker is overcoming hurdles in China, while rival Intel faces fresh headwinds in servers -- the key to its profit.

Infineon Technologies, Europe's biggest chipmaker by revenue, agreed to buy Cree's Wolfspeed Power unit for $850 million to expand in fast-growing markets such as electric cars, renewable energy and the Internet of Things.

Financial research firm Cowen and Company believes Intel will supply Apple with 50% or more of the LTE modems needed for "iPhone 7," a win that could generate some $1.5 billion in incremental revenue over the next year for the chipmaker.

China's Tsinghua Holdings has disclosed an unspecified investment in Marvell Technology Group, a Silicon Valley chipmaker that recently replaced its leadership team in the wake of an accounting investigation and other problems.

Beleaguered chipmaker Marvell Technology has announced it is appointed tech turnaround expert Richard S. Hill to be the chairman of its board of directors.

The company, which completed its nearly $12 billion acquisition of Freescale last year, told investors it expects to outperform its peers until 2019 by growing at a compound annual rate of between 5% and 7%.

Advanced Micro Devices, the struggling computer chipmaker, has long been identified with its sprawling white campus in Sunnyvale, its 1990s-era curved lobby greeting drivers at 1090 E. Duane Ave. But it looks like AMD's days at the 319,000-square-foot campus are numbered. The Irvine Company is in contract to acquire the 32.5-acre site, where the Newport Beach-based developer could build hundreds of apartments, according to multiple real estate sources.