Samsung Electronics is facing a patent lawsuit from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology in the US, the institute confirmed Wednesday.

Fresh blood and a little reorganizations might be the key for Intel to succeed in two hot new markets - IoT and automotive - that will be crucial for its hopes to reduce its reliance on PCs as the company's main growth generator.

Samsung Electronics said it will disclose plans to boost shareholder value on Tuesday - a move that comes amid pressure from US fund Elliott Management to split the company in two and provide more in payouts.

Canyon Bridge Capital Partners, a buyout fund that agreed to acquire US-based chipmaker Lattice Semiconductor for $1.3 billion earlier this month, is funded partly by cash originating from China's central government and also has indirect links to its space program, Chinese corporate filings show.

As Linley Gwennap, the head of the eponymous research firm Linley Group, sees it, the "16nm" technology of TSMC and the others "is really 19nm," and the planned 7nm "will be about 13nm relative to Intel processes." Intel, he concludes, is a "a full node" ahead of the foundries, "Just as they have been for the past decade."

Instinet's Romit Shah today asks whether Intel's surprising step-up in its spending outlook presages greater investment in its relationship with Apple or some other project as yet undisclosed.

Wells Fargo chip analyst David Wong this afternoon writes that the "chip recovery has begun," in particular for analog chip names, after quarterly reports from "a representative set of analog chip companies."

Apple will switch to an all-glass casing for next year's entire iPhone lineup in order to support wireless charging, with Pegatron being the exclusive supplier of the wireless charger.

If you ask Anthony Yen, who leads EUV lithography development at TSMC, how critical EUV is to Moore's Law, he won't beat around the bush: "Totally critical. 100 percent critical. Very, very critical." TSMC expects to adopt EUV in 2020, when the company aims to begin producing chips on its 5-nm manufacturing line.

Qualcomm's X12 is capable of dealing with more channels of data simultaneously than its Intel rival, according to a report by Milan Milanovic, an analyst at Cellular Insights, which tests phones and networks. Apple didn't enable this feature "to level the playing field between Qualcomm and Intel," Milanovic wrote.

German chipmaker Infineon raised its medium-term profitability target on Wednesday, banking on strong growth in its automotive business as carmakers invest heavily on electric and self-driving vehicles.

China has become the first country to receive more than 1m patent applications in a single year - a record the World Intellectual Property Organisation said reflected "extraordinary" levels of innovation in the world's most populous nation.

Apple is cutting orders for assembly of iPhone for the March quarter, which raises some risk to sales outlook, Rosenblatt Securities's Jin Zhang said.

South Korean authorities have raided the offices of Samsung and the national pension fund as part of a corruption investigation linked to the president.

Some insiders of the company are suggesting to reorganize the System LSI division in order to systematically grow the system semiconductor business. They are planning to separate the design and manufacturing sectors in the division and separate or spin off to fabless and foundry business divisions.

A 6.9 magnitude earthquake struck Iwaki City, in Japan's Fukushima prefecture, early Tuesday morning.

Analog chipmaker Macom Technology Solutions Holdings said on Monday it would buy fellow chipmaker Applied Micro Circuits for about $770 million to expand its data center connectivity business.

For the second time in a little more than a year, the secretive US agency that vets global deals on national-security grounds is objecting to a Chinese takeover of a European company.

Intel is denying that the company is stepping back from wearables, though has not directly commented on the layoff news.

Applied Materials, the biggest maker of machinery used to produce chips and displays, predicted a jump in sales as customers spend on equipment needed to modernize production. The stock fell on concern that orders may have peaked.

According to the Korea International Trade Association, South Korea recorded a trade surplus of US$29.8 billion in its trade with China for the first 10 months of this year. The amount fell 24% from a year ago whereas South Korea's total exports showed a negative growth of 12% during the same period. The trade surplus is estimated to reach US$35.7 billion at the end of this year. For reference, South Korea posted its all-time high trade surplus with respect to China, US$62.8 billion, in 2013.

Nikon plans to eliminate about 1,000 jobs in Japan, or 10% of its domestic workforce, as the company shifts resources away from once core businesses to medical devices and other growth areas.

IBM researchers have finally unlocked the secret to creating microchips using carbon nanotubes. The innovation could lead us to some of the most powerful microchips ever created paving the way for injectable microchips and bendy computers.

According to the latest rumor from its home country of South Korea, Samsung is thinking about making the Galaxy S8 come with a pressure-sensitive display. If you're wondering what that means, just think Apple's 3D Touch on iPhones - that's basically it. The technology detects how hard you press on the screen, and this can be used by software to enable different functionality depending on the pressure level applied. The rumor is reportedly coming from multiple industry sources, as well as a senior executive at Samsung's component division.

Qualcomm US$39 billion deal to buy NXP Semiconductors helped push US announced deal volume this month to US$248.9 billion, according to data provider Dealogic.

Siemens' planned acquisition of automation and industrial software provider Mentor Graphics is the German giant's latest play to stay competitive in the race to digitize heavy industry.

Advances in semiconductor technology will be on display at the International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC). Samsung and TSMC will describe 7nm SRAMs, Mediatek will show a 10nm SoC and STMicroelectronics will unveil a neural network accelerator made in a fully depleted silicon-on-insulator process.

Dolby has dragged Vivo and Oppo to court for illegally selling phones with Dolby technology. The court has ordered the two companies to deposit Rs 32 per infringing device manufactured, imported and sold in escrow while royalty terms are discussed.

Siemens, Europe's biggest industrial group, is nearing a deal to buy Mentor Graphics, which makes software for designing semiconductors, for $4.5 billion to $4.6 billion in cash, according to people familiar with the matter.

Will fingerprint swiping and gestures be the next big thing? We don't know for sure. But Google took a chance with it on the Google Pixel smartphones. And now it seems like Samsung will be having this technology in their phones soon, probably on the Samsung Galaxy S8 if all things go right.

Sony (China) has signed a binding definitive agreement to transfer to Shen Zhen O-Film Tech all equity interest in its wholly-owned subsidiary, Sony Electronics Huanan, which manufactures camera modules. The sales price is approximately US$95 million, subject to customary post-closing adjustments.

Reporters from Reuters and the Nikkei Asian Review were denied access to a post-event group interview with Qualcomm executive chairman Paul Jacobs, to which only journalists from Taiwan's local press were invited.

South Korean prosecutors have raided the offices of Samsung Electronics as part of a probe into the political scandal around President Park Geun-hye.

Among its early backers are technology group Samsung, German engineer Bosch and Hermann Hauser, the founder of Cambridge-based chip designer ARM.

Zeiss SMT has been a supplier to ASML for 30 years. It makes lenses and other equipment needed to focus the energy beams ASML uses to help companies such as Intel and Samsung create the circuitry of semiconductor chips.

Massive government investment in China's semiconductor industry risks distorting the global market for integrated circuits, leading to damaging overcapacity and stifling innovation, US Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker has warned.

Marvell Technology said it plans to eliminate 900 jobs as part of a restructuring designed to narrow the chip maker's focus on more profitable businesses.