Around the web
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The EU's industry commissioner Thierry Breton is to meet with Intel chief executive Pat Gelsinger and a top TSMC executive this week as the bloc seeks added sway in the semiconductor supply chain.
Silicon.com
SEC could take a hard look at bitcoin transactions when Tesla files its quarterly statements, after a $101 million profit from sale of digital asset.
MarketWatch
Apple is increasing its US investments by 20% over the next five years, allocating US$430 billion to develop next-generation silicon and spur 5G wireless innovation across nine US states, after outstripping its growth expectations during the pandemic.
Bloomberg
Mitsubishi Motors will slash output by 16,000 units worldwide in May, the Japanese automaker said Friday, after a factory fire at key supplier Renesas Electronics squeezed the already tight global supply of automotive semiconductors.
Nikkei Electronics Asia
The boss of networking giant Cisco has said the shortage of computer chips is set to last for most of this year.
BBC News
Toshiba's second-biggest shareholder called on the Japanese conglomerate to undergo a strategic review and explicitly solicit suitors, saying potential acquirers were deterred by the company's comments on wanting to remain listed.
Reuters
Samsung Electronics might be shopping for an acquisition.
Barron's
The popularity of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin has resulted in shortages of graphics cards as miners buy them in bulk. Now a new cryptocurrency is set to create another component shortage, only this time it's hard drives and SSDs that will be hard to find.
PC Magazine
Skyworks is paying US$2.75 billion to diversify its business away from Apple. Wall Street thinks the chip maker is getting a bargain.
Wall Street Journal
Intel has confirmed a Covid-19 outbreak on the construction site for its new fab in Ireland. The chipmaker said about 70 cases had been confirmed so far.
Irish Times
Tsinghua University officially inaugurated its new school for integrated circuits on Thursday, striving to cultivate talents for the country's IC industry and make indigenous Chinese chips.
China Daily
ASML sharpened its full-year guidance as demand for its chip-making equipment soared during the global semiconductor shortage.
Bloomberg
Samsung Electronics' Austin plant is expected to be fully normalized in June at the earliest.
BusinessKorea
According to cellphone location data analyzed by Nikkei, 14,000 people from among the Japanese company's business partners and other organizations participated in the recovery of Renesas Electronics, which resumed semiconductor production on April 17 at its Naka plant in Ibaraki Prefecture. The plant had been partially shut down because of a fire.
Nikkei Electronics Asia
Toshiba said a potential acquisition offer from CVC Capital Partners has stalled after the firm submitted a new proposal that lacks sufficient information for evaluation.
Bloomberg
China's southern space port of Wenchang will build a CNY 20 billion (US$3 billion) supercomputing centre by year-end to analyse data obtained from space, according to state media on Tuesday.
Reuters
The regulators' moves show that under President Xi Jinping, nothing can be more powerful in the lives of ordinary Chinese than the Party.
BBC News
Chip industry executives have a huge collective challenge: deciding how to prioritize the $50 billion in support promised by President Joseph R. Biden in an executive order.
EE Times
China's GAC plans to roll out its first vehicle model with autonomous driving functions developed with Huawei Technologies after 2024, GAC's general manager told reporters at the 2021 Shanghai Auto Show on Monday.
Reuters
Ant Group is exploring options for founder Jack Ma to divest his stake in the financial technology giant and give up control, as meetings with Chinese regulators signalled to the company that the move could help draw a line under Beijing's scrutiny of its business, according to a source familiar with regulators' thinking and two people with close ties to the company.
Reuters
German automaker BMW is aiming for a quarter of its sales in China to be pure battery electric vehicles by 2025, its China chief Jochen Goller said on Monday.
Reuters
China Evergrande New Energy Vehicle Group's expansive pop-up showroom sits at the heart of Shanghai's National Exhibition and Convention Center. With nine models on display, it's hard to miss. The electric car upstart has one of the biggest booths at China's 2021 Auto Show, which starts Monday, opposite storied German automaker BMW AG. Yet its bold presence belies an uncomfortable truth - Evergrande hasn't sold a single car under its own brand.
Bloomberg
Toshiba's chief executive resigned on Wednesday amid controversy over a $20bn buyout bid from private equity firm, CVC Capital Partners.
BBC News
The move is the latest in a chain of regulatory moves targeting the business empire of Jack Ma, who was a co-founder of both Ant Group and Alibaba.
BBC News
Siri, Apple Inc's virtual assistant, might have spilled the beans by telling users on Tuesday that the iPhone maker is going to host a special event on April 20.
Reuters
US President Joe Biden met with executives from major companies on Monday to discuss the global chip shortage that has hit automakers and spurred Intel to announce it plans to make chips for car plants at its factories in the next six to nine months.
Reuters
Chinese tech giant Alibaba said on Monday that it accepted a record penalty imposed by the country's anti-monopoly regulator.
BBC News
Chinese telecoms equipment maker Huawei Technologies is making business resilience its top priority with a push to develop its software capabilities as it seeks to overcome US restrictions that have devastated its smartphone business.
Reuters
Abu Dhabi's Mubadala Investment has started preparations for a US initial public offering of chipmaker Globalfoundries, people with knowledge of the matter said.
Bloomberg
Broadband providers are seeing delays of more than a year when ordering internet routers, becoming yet another victim of chip shortages choking global supply chains and adding challenges for millions still working from home.
Bloomberg
Tighter US sanctions against China's Huawei Technologies announced in May 2020 shifted the global semiconductor supply chain in a way nobody had expected, with a flood of orders enriching Taiwanese foundries and changing the island's landscape.
Nikkei Electronics Asia
Beijing is now home to more billionaires than any other city in the world, according to the latest Forbes' annual rich list.
BBC News
General Motors is extending production cuts at some of its North America factories due to a chip shortage that has roiled the global automotive industry, the US carmaker said on Thursday.
Reuters
The Biden administration on Thursday placed seven Chinese firms and government labs under US export controls for their involvement in China's effort to build supercomputers that help develop nuclear and other advanced military weapons. All seven are linked to China's ambition to build the world's first exascale computer, Commerce Department officials said.
Washington Post
The fate of automakers will be determined by how executives balance the decline of the internal-combustion engine with the rise of battery power, along with other drivetrains. If electric vehicles achieve 30% market share by 2030, that will leave the auto industry with 40 million vehicles of excess capacity for gas-powered cars - the equivalent of 200 unneeded factories.
Bloomberg
Production of some MacBooks and iPads has been postponed due to the global component shortage, Nikkei Asia has learned, in a sign that even Apple, with its massive procurement power, is not immune from the unprecedented supply crunch.
Nikkei Electronics Asia
Tianshu Zhixin said in January that BI was made using an unidentified 7nm process node and 2.5D chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) packaging. On Wednesday, it confirmed our suspicion that BI was made using TSMC's 7nm FinFET process.
Tom's Hardware Guide
Samsung Electronics likely saw a 45% jump in profit for January-March on robust sales of smartphones, TVs and home appliances, though chip division earnings are seen tumbling after a storm suspended production at its US plant.
Reuters
Micron Technology on Wednesday forecast fiscal third-quarter revenue above Wall Street estimates due to a rise in demand for memory chips thanks to 5G smartphones and artificial intelligence software that is pushing memory chip prices upward.
Reuters
"I have never seen anything like this in the past 20 years since our company's founding," said Jordan Wu, co-founder and chief executive officer of Himax Technologies, a leading supplier of display drivers. "Every application is short of chips."
Bloomberg
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