Multinational semiconductor companies are no longer able to compete with China's fabless chips vendors in the consumer electronics IC business, according to Vincent Tai, CEO of RDA Microelectronics. "It's game over" for them, Tai asserted in a recent interview.

Apple has said it will use its cash to start paying a dividend to shareholders and to buy back some of its shares.

Patent holding company Pragmatus has filed an ITC compaint against six electronics vendors including Samsung and HTC.

Toshiba and Fujitsu booked deep losses during the October-December quarter, blaming a spike in component costs caused by Thai flooding and a tough market for consumer electronics. Both companies slashed their earnings targets for the current fiscal year through March, but said they are still on track to book an annual profit.

"It's inevitable Intel will get a few smartphone design wins - we regard Intel as a serious competitor," said ARM CEO Warren East in an interview at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. "Are they ever going to be the leaders in power efficiency? No, of course not. But they have a lot more to offer."

"Our industry moves fast and changes faster. And so the way we communicate with our customers must change in equally speedy ways..."

The Black Friday glad tidings from consumer electronics makers continued on Tuesday, with Sony announcing a big rise in US sales and Microsoft reporting a record week for its Xbox 360 console and Kinect controller. The news followed Nintendo's announcement on Monday of receord sales of its Wii and 3DS gaming machines.

Logitech jumped off the Google TV train earlier this week, but now it looks like another consumer-electronics maker, LG, may be hopping on.

Intel is disbanding its Digital Home Group, which builds SoC Atom variants for smart TVs and other similar consumer electronics devices. Boxee Box and Google TV are both based on Intel's CE4100 Atom SoC.

Industrial Technology Research Institute(ITRI) introduces HyTAC(TM), the world's first environmentally friendly polarizer protective film for LCD displays used in consumer electronics.

Apple's major touchscreen supplier TPK Holding said Thursday Steven P. Jobs, chairman and co-founder of Apple, is a legend in the global consumer electronics industry. "Mr. Jobs revolutionized the human/machine interface. We really appreciate his contributions to the industry," said Chief Financial Officer Freddie Liu.

The majority of the reduction is from the company's wireless products, which have experienced an unexpected decline in demand and pricing.

Micron Technology has introduced its highest-density serial peripheral interface (SPI) NOR memory available, launching 1 gigabit (Gb), 512 megabit (Mb) and 256Mb products in both 1.8V and 3V power supply voltages.

ViewSonic Corp., a leading global provider of computing, consumer electronics and communications solutions, today announced its two latest LCD large format graphics and professional monitors -- the VG2732m-LED and VP2765-LED.

PCs are going the way of typewriters, vinyl records and vacuum tubes, said an IBM engineer who worked on the development of the 5150 and owns three of the nine patents for it. PCs will still be "much used" in the future but are no longer the force for innovation they once were.

Authorities in Kunming began searching out the copycats after pictures of one convincing replica were circulated on the web.

Rioters in London apparently set Sony's Enfield-based DADC (Digital Audio Disc Corporation) facility ablaze last night, reducing the disc distribution center to flames and smoke. The massive multi-story, 20,000 square meter building would have likely contained stock tied to multiple mediums, ranging from music labels to video games to movies and more.

Texas Instruments sounded a warning for the holiday season as it reported lacklustre activity from manufacturers in computing and consumer electronics, including TVs and gaming machines.

South Korean consumer electronics giant LG Electronics has slashed its forecast for 2011 smartphone sales as the company struggles to compete against aggressive giants like HTC, Samsung and Apple.

Knowles has reached another major milestone in the history of its MEMS technology with the shipment of its two billionth SiSonic MEMS microphone. SiSonicTM microphones are found in all Tier 1 mobile phones and in many other consumer electronic devices including notebooks, headsets and digital still cameras.

Spansion has entered production of its 1Gb and 512Mb GL NOR flash memory for automotive, consumer electronics, gaming and telnet applications.

Disruptions and shortages continue to loom over MCU product suppliers who are already facing severe pressure in the supply chain.

Cisco Systems is expected to cut thousands of jobs in possibly its worst-ever round of layoffs to meet CEO John Chambers' goal of slashing costs by US$1 billion, according to analysts.

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.

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.

Consumer electronics giant Sony, chipmakers Elpida Memory and Renesas, and electronics firms Panasonic and Toshiba have all said that production at some plants in northern Japan had been halted again due to power cuts triggered by a major aftershock that shook the region on April 7.

[Apple's] focus this week has been to troubleshoot all the iPad 2s that customers are returning to the stores. One iPad came back with a post it note on it that said "Wife said no..."

Microsoft may be struggling against Apple and Google to win the hearts of consumers, but the company can take pride in at least one achievement: Kinect, its hands-free controller for the Xbox 360, is now the world's fastest-selling consumer electronics device.

Steve Jobs said in an email to all Apple employees that the board of directors has granted him a medical leave of absence. Jobs will continue as CEO and be involved in major strategic decisions for the company. COO Tim Cook will be responsible for all of Apple's day to day operations.

Ingenic-designed MIPS-based SoCs are, for example, built into Velocity Micro's Cruz Tablets. The connection represented by MIPS-Ingenic-Velocity Micro illustrates an emerging paradigm in the consumer electronics market: A China-developed processor is driving a host of new consumer devices, while a big ODM community based in greater China (i.e. Foxconn) designs and manufactures them, which are, then, promoted by US-based marketing companies like Velocity Micro, who cultivate channel connections with top retailers.

Globalfoundries and the Institute of Microelectronics (IME), a research institute of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research, are joining hands to develop MEMS capacitive sensor platform technology for power-efficient and highly sensitive motion sensing applications that are relevant to consumer electronics, automotive and aerospace industries.

Over the past five years, ST has reduced the size of MEMS accelerometers and gyroscopes from more than 500mm3 to less than 10mm3 while increasing resolution, accuracy, temperature stability and reducing power consumption by a factor 10.

ARM shares, up 120% since the start of 2010, fell to their lowest in nearly two months after a statement overnight from Texas Instruments that end-demand for chips could be weakening.

"Memory fundamentals have slipped more rapidly than we had anticipated due to weak PC and consumer electronics demand," Auriga USA told clients, adding later: "It now seems highly likely that MU's gross margin will dip over the next several quarters as DRAM and NAND pricing continues to weaken."

Shares of OmniVision Technologies jumped on August 27, a day after the maker of image sensor devices for digital cameras, mobile phones, computer Webcams and other consumer electronics posted a strong outlook for the current quarter, which ends in October.

Huawei hasn't announced when the phone will start shipping or what it will cost, only saying that the price "will be very attractive."

Rambus has introduced a high-performance, low-cost DDR3 memory controller for HDTVs, Blu-ray players and digital set-top boxes.

"Apple and other OEMs have procured large volumes of flash, which has forced others to double book in order to get some of the allocation. This action cascaded into other markets especially NOR and serial NOR, where they became supply constrained and prices rose..."

Handsets featuring Intel processors are likely to be shown at the Consumer Electronics Show in next January or at the Mobile World Congress conference in February.