The newly unveiled LG G Flex 2 isn't just a smartphone for display buffs, the handset is also packing Qualcomm's latest and greatest 64-bit Snapdragon 810 processor. However, all may not be well with Qualcomm's latest high-end SoC, as more rumors have surfaced suggesting that the chip is struggling with some performance impacting production issues.

SanDisk has warned of lower-than-expected results for its fourth quarter, spurring fears that a smartphone-driven surge in the memory chip market could be slowing.

Among the top winners of US patents in 2014, Google cracked the top 10 for the first time, hitting No. 8 with 2,566 patents, up a whopping 38.6% from last year. Archrival Apple won 2,003 patents, up 12.8% to 11th place, just 92 patents behind Panasonic, which fell for the second consecutive year.

Canon and other Japanese electronics companies want to bring production of some goods back home, reversing a years-old trend of overseas manufacturing as a rapid decline in the value of the yen makes local goods more competitive.

Global Unichip and Credo Semiconductor have announced they are collaborating to enable the development of high-performance networking solutions that will be manufactured using TSMC's 16-nm FinFET+ process technology.

Globalfoundries and industry analyst Jim McGregor say production of a faster, smaller chip known as the 14-nanometer is on schedule at its Fab 8 factory in Malta, New York.

Globalfoundries is keen to expand its presence in China's lucrative semiconductor market and hoping its recent buyout of IBM's chipmaking business will help lead the way.

Toshiba will decide during the next business year from April on where to build an additional memory chip plant and will consider overseas locations for the facility, according to company CEO Hisao Tanaka.

Avnet Technology Solutions has landed the contract to supply Lenovo's recently acquired x86 server products and related offerings across the UK and Europe.

Vishay Intertechnology has acquired all of the remaining outstanding shares of Taiwan based Capella Microsystems for approximately NT$668.2 million or US$21.0 million.

San Diego-based chipmaker Qualcomm is laying off more than 100 workers in San Jose and Santa Clara, according to a recent state filing.

The settlement of China's anti-trust probe into Qualcomm is likely to intensify global scrutiny of the firm's highly profitable patent licensing business, and may even call into question its worldwide contracts with smartphone makers such as Apple and Samsung.

Samsung Electronics plans to invest KRW13.5 trillion (US$12 billion) in semiconductor facilities next year, up from the KRW13 trillion spent in 2014.

The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the country's anti-monopoly regulator which launched a probe of Qualcomm 13 months ago, said the case would be settled lawfully.

The companies have successfully completed inter-company interoperability testing of LTE Category 9 connectivity with 3-carrier downlink aggregation and download speeds of up to 410 Mbps.

China wants Qualcomm to accept lower royalty payments for technology used by domestic smartphone manufacturers, people familiar with the matter said, in a proposal that would hurt the chipmaker's main source of profit.

Xilinx has announced that its Kintex UltraScale KU040 FPGAs are now the industry's first 20nm device to move into volume production.

STATS ChipPAC and Chinese firm Jiangsu Changjiang Electronics Technology (JCET) have extended talks on a proposed takeover for a second time.

Chinese companies spent almost US$5 billion in five major chip-related takeovers in the past 18 months, data compiled by Bloomberg show, with most deals getting state funding.

China is aiming to purge most foreign technology from banks, the military, state-owned enterprises and key government agencies by 2020, stepping up efforts to shift to Chinese suppliers, according to people familiar with the effort.

Qualcomm and its subsidiaries have committed to invest an aggregate of US$40M into four Chinese companies and the China Walden Venture Investments, L.P. fund, which is primarily focused on investing in semiconductor or semiconductor-related companies with business in China.

Imagination Technologies wants investors to think creatively about the future of the company, after the UK-based microchip designer reported declining revenues and slipped into a loss in its half-year results.

China's factory activity is in contraction, based on a private survey, reinforcing calls for more stimulus.

An India court partially lifted a sales ban on Xiaomi, saying the world's third-largest smartphone vendor could import devices as long as they use chips from Qualcomm.

A story that Apple tried for three weeks to suppress is now part of the public record.

Qualcomm is vulnerable in China, and the company knows it.

US ceramics manufacturing group CoorsTek is buying Japanese semiconductor-materials maker Covalent Materials from Carlyle and a local buyout fund, ending a rocky lossmaking investment spanning eight years.

Many sensors, including MEMS devices, require thorough calibration and test before being assembled into the end node device.

According to Qualcomm, everything is working as scheduled, and the Snapdragon 810 will still be able to ship in 2015H1.

While I do think building the entire stack on 14-nanometers will afford Intel a manufacturing lead, and perhaps performance lead, over competitors, the important thing here is that Intel has a complete stack that it can offer to its customers. This means Intel can be a one-stop shop for smartphone and tablet OEMs looking to build out a family of products, as Qualcomm is today.

Intel said it would invest up to US$1.6 billion over the next 15 years in its chip plant in Chengdu, China, as the company continues to expand its operations in the country.

Intel's continuing to push aggressively into the world of wearables. On Wednesday it signed a deal with Luxottica Group to develop smart eyewear in time for a product launch next year.

British chip designer Imagination has produced a barebones computer to compete with the Raspberry Pi.

According to sources from South Korea, Samsung may be planning to build not just its own CPU core based on the ARMv8 architecture, but also its own GPU technology. We could see the new GPU, and possibly the new CPU as well, inside next year's Galaxy Note 5 device.

This is the first Android smartwatch based on the Broadcom system-on-chip (SoC) platform which includes a 1.2GHz Quad-core ARM Cortex A7 processor (BCM23550), an improved GPS and Sensor processing SOC (BCM47531) capable of simultaneously tracking five satellite systems (GPS, GLONASS, QZSS, SBAS, and BeiDou), the now popular Wi-Fi/BT/NFC/FM quad-combo connectivity chip (BCM43341), and a highly integrated power management IC (BCM59054).

Samsung Electronics has joined hands with US-based Thermo Fisher Scientific in a bid to expand its presence in the medical industry with its smartphone business slowing down.

The next generation of Google Glass may have new guts, according to The Wall Street Journal (subscription required), which expects a deal between Google and Intel.

Samsung Electronics' semiconductor sales are expected to jump 15.6% on year in 2014, closing the gap with industry leader Intel, a global market tracker said Sunday.

The Quintic Wearable & BTLE team of approximately 65 world class engineers located in China (Beijing, Shenzhen, Shanghai) and Sunnyvale, CA, and its leadership is expected to join NXP at close of this transaction which is targeted for Q1 2015.