The Chinese city of Xian has reported an increase in daily Covid-19 infections and local companies have curtailed activity as the country's latest hotspot entered its third day of lockdown.

Intel and Italy are intensifying talks over investments expected to be worth around 8 billion euros ($9 billion) to build an advanced semiconductor packaging plant, two sources close to the matter told Reuters.

Chip firm Advanced Micro Devices (AMD)will acquire about $2.1 billion of silicon wafers from GlobalFoundries from 2022 through 2025 in an amended agreement, according to a regulatory filing on Thursday.

Luxshare Precision Industry is building a massive manufacturing complex in eastern China as it aims to break the decadelong hold that Taiwanese rivals Foxconn and Pegatron have on iPhone assembly.

NDK has to suspend production at its two plants for quartz crystal and crystal blank components in Malaysia due to damages caused by floods locally.

South Korea's SK Hynix said on Wednesday it has received merger clearances from the Chinese antitrust authority for its acquisition of Intel's NAND memory chip business, clearing the way for the world's second-largest memory chip maker to completion of securing regulatory approvals from all eight countries.

Biden administration officials met last week to consider tightening rules that restrict the sale of equipment to Semiconductor Manufacturing International (SMIC). The meeting ended without an immediate resolution, and that left hawks in Washington dissatisfied.

MediaTek led the smartphone SoC market with a 40% share in the third quarter of 2021, driven by a competitive 5G SoC and high demand for the 4G SoC, according to Counterpoint Research.

Magnachip Semiconductor announced that the board of directors has authorized the company to repurchase up to US$75 million of the company's common stock.

Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T)has halted production at two factories in Japan due to a supply shortage, a spokesperson told Reuters on Thursday.

SK Hynix System IC, a subsidiary of SK Hynix, will close down its M8 plant in Cheongju, Korea in February 2022 and relocate all its equipment to its plant in Wuxi, China by May.

Electric vehicle startup Canoo on Wednesday said it was accelerating its production plans in the United States while ending its deal for VDL Nedcar in Netherlands to serve as its contract manufacturer in Europe.

The Biden administration is considering imposing tougher sanctions on China's largest chipmaker, according to people familiar with the situation, building on an effort to limit the country's access to advanced technology.

Oppo, one of three leading Chinese smartphone brands filling the void left by Huawei's retreat, claimed a smartphone mobile photography first with a self-designed chip that delivers sharper and more faithful images.

Chinese private equity firm Wise Road Capital and US chipmaker Magnachip Semiconductor have terminated their $1.4 billion merger agreement struck in March, the companies said in a joint statement on Monday.

American chip manufacturer Intel will invest 30 billion ringgit ($7.10 billion) in a new, state-of-the-art facility, Malaysian authorities said on Monday.

US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo discussed chip supply chains during a call with her opposite number in Taiwan and the two will cooperate on technology trade and investment through a newly established mechanism, her office said.

The US should invest more in American chipmakers rather than their Asian rivals such as TSMC and Samsung, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger said Wednesday, adding that domestic companies would give the country more control of intellectual property.

The Federal Trade Commission on Thursday sued to block Nvidia's $40 billion acquisition of a fellow chip company, Arm, halting what would be the biggest semiconductor industry deal in history, as federal regulators push to rein in corporate consolidation.

Japan is allocating about JPY600 billion (US$5.2 billion) of its fiscal 2021 supplementary budget to support advanced semiconductor manufacturers, Nikkei has learned.

The world is in a "race against time" with the Omicron coronavirus variant, said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Sunday, warning during a visit to Latvia that scientists and manufacturers will need weeks to fully understand the new variant.

The US has placed a dozen Chinese groups involved in quantum computing and other advanced technologies on an export blacklist, saying they pose a risk of gaining access to critical American technologies for the People's Liberation Army.

Xiaomi Corp. recorded its slowest pace of quarterly sales growth since early 2020 after supply chain mayhem choked off the flow of vital components and rivals like Apple Inc. eroded its market share.

The investment made by the South Korean group should help REC Silicon restart polysilicon production at its US factory in Moses Lake in 2023.

A consortium led by Alibaba Group has emerged as the frontrunner to take over Tsinghua Unigroup, a deal that could fetch more than CNY50 billion (US$7.8 billion) to help keep China's indebted chip champion afloat.

Plans by Korea's SK Hynix to overhaul a huge facility in China so it can make memory chips more efficiently are in jeopardy, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters, because US officials do not want advanced equipment used in the process to enter into China.

Bringing simulation of real and virtual worlds to everything from self-driving vehicles to avatars to robotics to modeling the planet's climate, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang has introduced technologies to transform multitrillion-dollar industries.

The video conference meeting between the two leaders, which lasted more than three-and-a-half hours represented their most substantial discussion since Biden took office in January, and comes at a time of particularly high tension.

Amkor Technology has announced plans to build a state-of-the-art smart factory in Bac Ninh, Vietnam. The first phase of the new factory will focus on providing advanced SiP assembly and test solutions to the world's leading semiconductor and electronic manufacturing companies.

The Biden administration spurned a plan by Intel to increase production in China over security concerns, dealing a setback to an idea pitched as a fix for US chip shortages, according to people familiar with the deliberations.

The Japanese government said it will make an aggressive push to help domestic semiconductor companies expand globally, with a goal of increasing their annual revenue to more than JPY13 trillion (US$114 billion) by 2030.

Beijing is hunkering down after experiencing more Covid infections in the current cluster than at any time in the past 17 months, with officials asking for events and activities to be moved online.

That seems to be the message investors are sending as they push market indexes to new highs daily right after several technology companies warned supply-chain bottlenecks, labor shortages and delivery problems would crimp their holiday results. But investors might be missing something. Disappointing results from three key chip companies could mean cracks are forming around the bull narrative. And they may turn out to be the warning signs this upturn is nearing its end.

Every major semiconductor company has pledged to comply with a US request for information pertaining to the global chip shortage, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said on the day of a deadline set by the government.

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) on Monday said it has won Meta Platforms as a data center chip customer, sending AMD shares up more than 11% as it cemented some of its gains against Intel.

TSMC is struggling with its latest cutting-edge manufacturing technique, which shrinks the size of transistors on chips to 3 nanometers, a change that will allow Apple to include more powerful, less energy-hungry processors in its devices without dramatically increasing their size, according to two people briefed by TSMC on the project.

Yahoo has shut down access to its services in China, becoming the latest American tech company to exit the country.

Apple has cut back sharply on iPad production to allocate more components to the iPhone 13, multiple sources told Nikkei Asia, a sign the global chip supply crunch is hitting the company even harder than it previously indicated.

GlobalFoundries debuted on the Nasdaq this week, valued at over $25 billion, as it became increasingly evident that a global chip shortage could persist through 2023 or later.

SK Hynix, the world's second-largest memory chip maker, said on Friday it will acquire South Korea-based Key Foundry, a chip contract manufacturer, for 576 billion won ($492.41 million).