A lack of new licensing agreements triggered a 7% fall in adjusted pre-tax profits last financial year, and analysts have suggested that the company, whose designs are used to make graphics-processing chips used in mobile devices, could be volnerable to increased competition from US rivals Qualcomm and Nvidia.

This year, the market size for high brightness (HB) LEDs is expected to reach $12bn and grow to $20.2bn by 2015. One application area driving this growth is the use of LEDs in backlight of TFT-LCDs.

"Our checks indicated that Samsung planned to increase the 28nm node starts to a target level of 40,000-50,000 wpm in September, from 6,000 to 7,000 in May. But our recent checks are indicating that the semi material suppliers have been recently caught off guard with a sudden change of production plans at this site."

Nvidia on Tuesday said it would begin licensing its GPU cores and "visual computing" patent portfolio to device manufacturers - a new business model for the company. The technology could appear in a full range of products from phones to supercomputers, with products likely emerging in 2015.

Google filed a court petition Tuesday demanding it be allowed to share information about government surveillance programs with the public.

Japanese exports rose in May by the most since 2010 as the yen weakened, providing a boost to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's plan to revive the economy.

Huawei would consider buying Nokia to help it become the world's leading smartphone maker, according to the head of the Chinese telecom group's consumer business.

Both Toshiba and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) have developed mask read-only memories (MROMs) that can offer greater data density by storing multiple bits per cell.

AMD plans to sample its first ARM-based processors for servers early next year, alongside paired CPUs and integrated graphics cores in an attempt to oust Intel's Xeon from its dominance in the server market.

Globalfoundries and Fuzhou Rockchip Electronics announced that Rockchip's next-generation mobile processors are ramping to production on Globalfoundries' 28nm HKMG process technology.

Siemens AG will close its solar power unit after struggling to find a buyer following losses of at least EUR784 million (US$1 billion) euros since 2011 amid CEO Peter Loescher's failed push into that business to expand renewable energy offerings.

Toshiba has expanded its package line-up of interface-converter bridge LSIs for high resolution LCD display that are used in tablets, Ultrabooks and other applications.

The smartphone and consumer electronics maker is close to launching an incubator space for startups that are developing software and services for phones, tablet computers and televisions.

Amazon has reached a deal with Samsung to acquire "electrowetting" display maker Liquavista, the online retail giant recently said.

Transparent solar cells use materials that only absorb infrared and ultraviolet light and let visible light pass through.

More than five times the initial quota of larger solar projects to be developed under Turkey's feed-in-tariff (FIT) program has been submitted to the relevant regulatory authority.

Only days after officially opening its new Turkish plant, China Sunergy (CSUN) has announced that it has commenced shipments. The production facility will have a capacity of 300MW in modules and 100MW of solar cells, when fully ramped.

Samsung's Galaxy S4 handset is well on its way to becoming the company's bestselling smartphone. Samsung Electronics co-CEO Shin Jong-kyun told The Korea Times the Galaxy S4 is set to surpass the 10 million sales mark next week.

Infineon Technologies has settled its patent infringement claim against Atmel, and both Infineon and Atmel have agreed to seek dismissal of all pending patent infringement claims.

NEC will cut about 400 of the less than 900 workers at its mobile phone handset unit to reduce fixed costs at the loss-making business, the Nikkei reported Thursday.

Analysts have projected that IBM is likely to cut 6,000-8,000 jobs worldwide and from a variety of positions.

The US Patent and Trademark Office on Thursday published an Apple patent application that could lead to devices that use flexible displays which users can depress as a mode of input, adding another dimension to UI interaction.

SK Hynix has signed a five-year licensing deal worth US$240 million to settle an ongoing patent infringement lawsuit brought against it by intellectual property licensing firm Rambus.

The Korea Times reports that Google is using Samsung's OLED displays for the consumer version of Google Glass, a decision that one of the publication's supply chain sources describes as "a really big thing because it means that Google shares confidential information with Samsung on its future projects."

KALQ is one typing system that's trying to make things easier for touchscreen users.

To give the badly slumping PC market a much-need jolt, Intel is thinking about using one of the most effective tools in its arsenal: lowering chip prices.