Infineon Technologies, Germany's largest chipmaker, is the front-runner to acquire Fairchild Semiconductor International because it's willing to pay more for the company, people with knowledge of the matter said.

Qualcomm said Wednesday that its revenue and profits fell in both the fourth quarter and the year as it struggled to get Chinese customers to pay for licenses.

Qualcomm has signed a new worldwide 3G/4G license agreement with ZTE. The license includes terms that are consistent with the rectification measures that Qualcomm submitted to China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) in February, 2015.

Samsung Electronic's earnings are heading in the right direction for the first time in nearly two years thanks to its semiconductor and display businesses.

PMC-Sierra said Microsemi's $2.35 billion takeover offer wasn't superior to a bid from Skyworks Solutions because the Skyworks deal "provides more value certainty to shareholders" than the Microsemi proposal, which was "nominally higher."

Samsung Electronics is tapping its $50 billion cash pile to buy back shares and invest in its components business after struggles in the smartphone division battered investors. Shares surged.

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter STMicroelectronics is considering a bid for Fairchild Semiconductor International as Europe's largest chipmaker seeks to boost growth and shore up its digital products business, according to people familiar with the matter.

This is a huge development for the company's data center business, as its long-term goal is to become a complete provider of data center solutions.

Philips has announced that its $3.3bn sale of Lumileds could be blocked by US authorities.

Toshiba is in talks to sell its image sensor business to Sony for about Y20bn ($165m) in the latest effort by the lossmaking nuclear-to-semiconductor conglomerate to raise cash after a $1.9bn accounting scandal.

In what may be another sign that Apple is getting serious about cars, the company has hired Jonathan Cohen, the director of deep learning for chip-maker Nvidia. Nvidia is best-known for its graphics products used for computer games, but it has recently been pushing into the world of autonomous vehicles.

It's now being rumored that Keller has joined Samsung, where he'll begin work in the mobile processor division.

Texas Instruments' chief financial officer said Wednesday (Oct. 21) that the company doesn't have immediate plans to join the consolidation frenzy currently taking place in the semiconductor industry.

SK Hynix has returned to the consumer solid state drives market again, three years after the company disappeared in the market in 2012.

3M unveiled a restructuring plan that includes an expected workforce reduction of roughly 1,500 positions globally as the diversified manufacturer reported that its third-quarter earnings were nearly flat and currency impacts weighed on revenue.

Intel's move comes as the chip industry undergoes a wave of consolidation and China steps up efforts to build local technology manufacturing capacity.

The two companies could reach a deal as soon as this week.

Intel now has a thousand people or more working to outfit a 2016 iPhone with its lauded 7360 LTE modem chip, sources say. If all goes well, Intel may end up providing both the modem and the fabrication for a new Apple system on a chip.

The investment firm has lowered its estimates for the component suppliers to Apple, in the wake of disappointing feedback regarding iPhone 6s sales from carrier surveys.

Analog Devices and Maxim Integrated Products are in talks about a possible combination that would give them more scale in a consolidating industry, people with knowledge of the matter said.

World No. 1 chipmaker Intel gained unconditional EU antitrust approval on Wednesday for its US$16.7 billion bid for Altera, its largest ever acquisition.

The University of Wisconsin successfully claimed that Apple used its microchip technology without permission in some iPhones and iPads.

SanDisk and HP have announced a long-term partnership to collaborate on a new technology within the Storage Class Memory (SCM) category. The partnership will center around HP's Memristor technology and expertise and SanDisk's non-volatile ReRAM memory technology and manufacturing and design expertise to create new enterprise-wide solutions for Memory-driven Computing.

Cypress Semiconductor has withdrawn its offer for Atmel, the second failed attempt by the company to acquire a chipmaker this year.

VeriSilicon and Vivante have announced a definitive merger agreement under which the companies will be combined in an all-stock transaction. The combined company, to be called VeriSilicon, will offer robust IP-centric, platform-based custom silicon solutions and end-to-end semiconductor turnkey services.

Micron Technology and Western Digital are in talks with SanDisk about a possible acquisition, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the process is private.

Qualcomm has revealed its plans to enter the server CPU market with a custom processor based on a design from UK chip company ARM.

The big risk to Apple is that dual sourcing A9s in this fashion makes that task all the harder, which is one of the reasons why SoCs are rarely dual sourced.

Tsinghua Unigroup, the state-backed Chinese firm that recently agreed to buy a stake in Western Digital, is close to acquiring local chip company Tongfang Guoxin Electronics, a person familiar with the matter said.

"We have cooperation with Micron on the business level," Unigroup Chairman Zhao Weiguo said in an interview Sunday, declining to elaborate on the nature of the cooperation. "We'd like to conduct business by cooperating with current memory giants, by setting up JV plants in China."

Micron Technology is spending over 100 billion yen ($830 million) to enable its Japanese facility in Hiroshima to mass-produce the next generation of memory chips in an attempt to take on global leader Samsung Electronics.

Following the launch of the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus last month, it was discovered that Apple is dual sourcing the A9 chip for the new devices from both TSMC and Samsung, with the chips from the two companies measuring at slightly different sizes due to different processes used in manufacturing the chips.

Samsung Electronics estimated July-September operating profit would leap 80% from a year earlier to 7.3 trillion won ($6.3 billion), higher than a 6.7 trillion won profit Thomson Reuters SmartEstimate derived from 30 analysts.

Western Digital and Unisplendour have entered into an agreement under which a subsidiary of Unis will make a US$3.775 billion equity investment in Western Digital.

International Business Machines has formed a new business unit to capitalize on the recent groundswell in artificial intelligence.

Samsung Electronics and SK hynix have clinched no overseas takeover deals for the semiconductor business this year, in contract to their global peers who've been strongly engaged in the merger and acquisition (M&A) activities.

Skyworks Solutions has announced a definitive agreement under which Skyworks will acquire PMC for US$10.50 per share in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately US$2 billion. This acquisition solidifies Skyworks' position as a highly diversified analog, RF and mixed signal semiconductor leader.

The new company will aim to commence operations on April 1, 2016.

One day after an earnings call with investors, Micron Technology has acquired Tidal Systems for an undisclosed sum.