US-listed chipmaker RDA Microelectronics said it received an US$18 per share buyout offer from China's state-owned Tsinghua Unigroup, which is funded by the Tsinghua University, marking it a second such bid in more than a month.

Activist investor Starboard Value LP asked TriQuint Semiconductor to consider selling or restructuring its mobile power amplifier business, which it said was a drag on the radio frequency chipmaker's share price.

STMicroelectronics said chip demand is taking a hit as smartphone manufacturers trim orders, adding to testimony of weakening appetite for high-end handsets.

SanDisk more than tripled its quarterly profit, beating analysts' estimates, after a fire at a rival chipmaker increased prices at a time when Apple and other users of its flash memory chips were launching new products.

Chipmakers including Broadcom and Renesas Electronics are ramping up in-car entertainment with faster processors and networks for wireless HD movies and navigation, aiming to keep drivers informed and passengers entertained.

RDA Microelectronics said China's state-owned Shanghai Pudong Science and Technology Investment offered to buy the shares of the chipmaker it does not already own at $15.50 per American depositary share.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged a former Qualcomm executive and his financial adviser with insider trading, alleging he used a secret offshore brokerage account to make trades based on inside information about the chipmaker.

4G chipmaker Sequans Communications has announced that Verizon Wireless has certified its VZ20Q LTE module.

The deal, which follows such prior chip investments as the 2008 purchase of PA Semi, comes as Apple is widely believed to be moving beyond smartphones and tablets to other kinds of devices that could need wireless chips, including smart watches.

TSMC recently held a job fair in upstate New York, helping to drive up expectations that the chipmaker is planning to open a chip fabrication plant in the area to build mobile processors for Apple.

There's now a rumor that the fruity iPhone maker will make its own chips, thus entering the fab industry thanks to a purchase of an unnamed chip fabricator. There's speculation that Taiwan-based chipmaker UMC was Apple's purchase of choice.

Chipmaker Qualcomm is now Sharp's third-largest shareholder following the completion of a US$120 million investment in the ailing electronics firm.

A lack of new licensing agreements triggered a 7% fall in adjusted pre-tax profits last financial year, and analysts have suggested that the company, whose designs are used to make graphics-processing chips used in mobile devices, could be volnerable to increased competition from US rivals Qualcomm and Nvidia.

Nvidia on Tuesday said it would begin licensing its GPU cores and "visual computing" patent portfolio to device manufacturers - a new business model for the company. The technology could appear in a full range of products from phones to supercomputers, with products likely emerging in 2015.

Contract chipmaker Globalfoundries will spend US$4.5 billion to boost production capacity in 2013, anticipating a burst in orders for chips used in low-cost smartphones.

ST-Ericsson, which focuses on mobile and wireless chips, announced the sale on Tuesday without naming the buyer. An Intel spokesman later said the US chipmaker bought the assets.

German chipmaker Infineon brightened its gloomy outlook for this year, citing orders from carmakers hoping sales of higher-spec models in China will offset flagging demand in Europe.

Altera posted revenue slightly below expectations in the first quarter and the programmable chipmaker said it was beginning to see a recovery from a dip in demand from its communications and industrial customers.

Analog Devices' CEO Jerald Fishman has died at age 67 following an apparent heart attack Thursday night, according to the company.

The president of struggling Renesas Electronics said Thursday that the chipmaker is in talks with overseas companies on selling its loss-making mobile device chip operations as part of efforts to streamline its business.

STMicroelectronics has signed a loan agreement with the European Investment Bank to strengthen its finances.

Micron Technology has posted a quarterly loss, hurt by acquisition-related expenses, but the chipmaker's revenue and margins improved.

The latest toxic gas leaks may not have caused serious physical harm, but the fact that the culprit companies failed to promptly report to state authorities is raising suspicions of corporate negligence.

STMicroelectronics and Ericsson have agreed to split up their unprofitable ST-Ericsson chip venture after failing to find a buyer for the business, cutting about 1,600 jobs as they divide the assets.

Intel's next CEO is likely to shepherd the top chipmaker into a growing contract-manufacturing business, a strategic shift that could lead to a deal with Apple Inc and give it a fighting chance to make inroads in the mobile arena.

South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix has appointed its research and development (R&D) chief Park Sung-wook as the new chief executive.

As part of its broader restructuring measures, Fujitsu said it will cut 5,000 jobs, including 3,000 workers in Japan and 2,000 overseas, partly through early retirement offers. Fujitsu currently has about 170,000 workers world-wide.

Fujitsu and Panasonic are in the final stage of talks to go ahead with a merger of their large-scale integrated chip (LSI) operations into a new company, NHK reported Friday.

The new plant will take approximately two years to build, and it will create 3,500 construction jobs, as well as 800 full-time jobs inside the plant once its complete.

InvenSense , which makes gyroscopes and other motion sensors, plans to sell chips within a couple of years that let smartphones guide their owners up and down escalators, through subway stations and up to specific cubicles within skyscrapers - all places that GPS signals do not currently work well.

A federal jury in Pennsylvania on Wednesday ordered Marvell Technology to pay US$1.17 billion in damages after finding it infringed on two patents held by Carnegie Mellon University.

Contract chipmaker Globalfoundries chief executive Ajit Manocha said European governments should do more to encourage chip manufacturers to set-up shop in the region, rather than going to Asia where they receive large subsidies.

There's nothing surprising about Japan going out of its way to bail out Renesas Electronics. The obvious objective is to maintain a steady flow of Renesas chips into domestic products, especially Toyota and Nissan automobiles.

Memory chipmaker Micron Technology is preparing to lay off about one third of its workforce at its wafer fab in Israel, according to local news reports.

Taiwan's TSMC will produce the LG-designed chips with using a finer 28-nanometer processing technology.

Despite long term plans for expansion in Singapore, foundry chipmaker Globalfoundries said that it is cutting 300 jobs there due to a "softening of the current macro-economic climate."

An investment fund controlled by Japan's government has agreed to rescue Renesas Electronics by buying a majority stake in the lossmaking chipmaker for about JPY180 billion (US$2.2 billion), people familiar with the deal said.

Evidence is starting to mount that foundry chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) could be about to follow Globalfoundries in building a wafer fab in up-state New York.