The chairman of China's Tsinghua Unigroup traveled to the United States this week to meet with board members of Micron Technology and try to revive a politically fraught takeover bid of the US chipmaker, people familiar with the matter said.

Micron Technology's fourth-quarter profit fell sharply as lower selling prices again drove down revenue, underscoring the effects of weakened demand for personal computers.

Synaptics, the maker of touch-screen technology used in phones, tablets and computers, rejected an offer from a state-backed Chinese investment group that valued the company at almost US$4 billion, people with knowledge of the matter said.

PMC, which is based in Santa Clara, California, is being pitched to other semiconductor companies, rather than private-equity firms.

Net income in the period ended September 3 fell to US$471 million, or 42 cents a share, from US$1.15 billion, or 96 cents, a year earlier.

Struggling chipmaker AMD has said it will cut about 500 jobs, or 5% of its global workforce, as it looks to rein in costs amid weak demand for its chips used in personal computers and intense competition.

Chinese interest in Synaptics and Western Digital shows Beijing is accelerating efforts to buy the building blocks for a domestic technology industry.

Toshiba Corp (6502.T) may lay off staff in its underperforming home appliances, TV and PC businesses and seek a partner for its nuclear operations to overhaul the company after a $1.3 billion accounting scandal, its chief executive said on Thursday.

As to whether it makes sense it all depends on how much Abu Dhabi and Mubadala would demand in payment and what assurances of collaboration with Samsung could be obtained.

Globalfoundries has affirmed that progress for the company's 14nm FinFET manufacturing is not only on track but is actually ahead of schedule and 14nm has so far managed to exceed plans for yield and defect density

China's analog chipmaker Montage Technology has offered to buy Pericom Semiconductor in a deal valued at about US$430 million, trumping an offer from Diodes earlier this month.

Despite a late start in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing's 16 nm FinFET process, TSMC appears to have captured up to a third of chip production for Apple's latest iPhones.

In a bid to catch up and potentially gain new customers, Globalfoundries licensed 14nm LPE and 14nm LPP technologies from Samsung Electronics. However, going forward Globalfoundries hopes to develop its own manufacturing processes.

Slowing smartphone and tablet demand growth and declining PC sales in the next 12 months are likely to drive further consolidation in the highly fragmented USD25bn IC outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) industry, Fitch Ratings says.

Preliminary testing of Apple's latest A-series mobile Application Processor shows that it brings a big jump in general CPU performance over last year's already speedy A8. It also advances Apple's lead in proprietary ARM core design performance over Samsung and Qualcomm.

Qualcomm directly invests in Indian mobile and internet start-up companies to keenly foster the local ecosystem.

AMD has allegedly decided to delegate the responsibility of producing its hotly anticipated Zen CPU chips to TSMC on its 16nm FinFET process. This development has allegedly unfolded amidst AMD fears of Globalfoundries' slow 14nm FinFET yield and capacity progress.

Chipmaker Marvell Technology said it would cut about 17% of its global workforce as the company trims its mobile business.

Dialog Semiconductor Plc fell the most in almost seven years in Frankfurt trading after agreeing to buy Atmel for about US$4.6 billion - more than its own market value - to expand into the automotive industry and everyday objects that are increasingly connected to the Internet.

Qualcomm is slashing more than 1,300 full-time jobs in San Diego and has cut hundreds more in other states.

CEC is discussing a bid for Atmel, a maker of chips used in industrial machinery and cars, at about US$8.50 a share and the two sides are negotiating, people with knowledge of the process said.

Freescale Semiconductor has announced the acquisition of CogniVue, an image cognition IP developer based in Ottawa, Canada.

Marvell Technology plunged the sharpest in almost 13 years, after disclosing an internal investigation of its accounting and reporting weakening demand for personal computer parts.

Industry sources predicted that both Samsung and TSMC would mass produce the Pascal GPU, but the US firm chose only the Taiwanese firm in the end.

Imagination Technologies, the British company that supplies graphics technology to Apple, forecast a surprise loss for its first half after the semiconductor market turned weaker in the June quarter.

A strategic tie-up with Hon Hai could help SPIL land some Apple business.

GlobalFoundries is offering its US workforce a voluntary buyout program to reduce staff at its Fab 8 computer chip fab in Malta and at recently acquired factories in Dutchess County and Vermont.

Japan's stock exchange ordered Toshiba to pay a record fine of Y91.2m ($750,000) in the wake of a $2bn accounting scandal, marking another reputational blow to the lossmaking nuclear-to-semiconductor conglomerate.

China's decades-long economic boom, based on manufacturing for export, is now going in reverse. With orders in some Chinese manufacturing industries declining, the country is facing factory closures and massive worker layoffs.

Intel has invested more than $60 million in Chinese drone maker Yuneec Holding, the clearest indication yet of the opportunity that Intel and fellow chip makers see in the nascent commercial drone space.

IBM's Internet of Things platform can now work with IoT processors designed by ARM, thanks to a new partnership between the two companies.

Samsung is targeting workers in the human resources, public relations and finance departments, Korea Economic Daily reported Tuesday, citing people it didn't identify.

Chipmaker Diodes said it would buy Pericom Semiconductor in a deal valued at about US$400 million to boost its analog and mixed-signal chip businesses.

The two firms plan to improve data analysis relating to IoT devices across a variety of industries.

MediaTek, which works with India's local handset makers like Micromax, Karbonn and Lava, and has some 500 people across R&D and a design centre in Bangalore, plans to add "a few hundred" people over the next 1-2 years.

Most of the company's revenue streams have suffered in the first half of 2015, with the exception of enterprise SSD revenues, which witnessed a massive 64% y-o-y increase to $360 million.

The new members added to the council include Leopold Beer, regional president Asia Pacific for Bosch Sensortec, Genda Hu, CEO of FocalTech Systems, Young Sohn, president and chief strategic officer of Samsung Electronics, Howard Yang, chairman and CEO of Montage Technology, and Charlie Zhi, president and CEO of Brite Semiconductor.

A copy of the written verdict in the second trial obtained by CommonWealth Magazine reveals that Liang's contribution to Samsung and harm to TSMC goes far beyond what had previously been suspected.