Around the web
6 Apr 20175 Apr 201731 Mar 201730 Mar 201729 Mar 201728 Mar 201727 Mar 201724 Mar 2017
A Chinese court has ordered Samsung Electronics' mainland subsidiaries to pay CNY80 million ($11.60 million) to Huawei Technologies for patent infringement, the China firm's first victory against Samsung on its legal challenges over intellectual property.
Reuters
"The biggest benefit I think is convenience," said Patrick Mesterton, co-founder and CEO of Epicenter. As a demonstration, he unlocks a door by merely waving near it. "It basically replaces a lot of things you have, other communication devices, whether it be credit cards or keys."
CNBC
Samsung Electronics and SK hynix will adopt the world's first spray-type electromagnetic interference, or EMI shielding technology, for their respective chip production lines from June, according to industry sources.
The Investor
Motley Fool
The Tech Spot
Will there be a trade war? Probably not, because protectionist measures would hurt the US economy and the Chinese are counting on it to be impractical.
BBC News
Record earnings at Samsung Electronics' chip division are set to propel the tech giant's first-quarter profit to a three-and-a-half-year high, and the quarters ahead could be even better if its newest smartphone, Galaxy S8, is a success.
Reuters
Imagination Technologies was forced to issue an announcement on Apple's intention to stop using its GPU tech in the next 15-24 months. With over 50% of Imagination Technologies' revenue coming from Apple alone, its share price understandably collapsed 70%.
Seeking Alpha
Today brings a report from Credit Suisse's John Pitzer, who maintains a Neutral rating on Intel shares, and a $35 price target. He concedes Intel has shown it maintains its manufacturing lead. He's just not sure it will be enough to give the company the edge it needs.
Barron's
The French utility company Engie said it was exercising "contractual rights" to sell its shares because NuGen was "facing some significant challenges."
BBC News
US-based private-equity firm Silver Lake Partners and US-based chipmaker Broadcom apparently tendered a roughly JPY2 trillion (US$17.9 billion) bid. That is on the high end of estimates of the memory business' value.
Nikkei Electronics Asia
Fingerprint Cards, the Swedish maker of biometric ID sensors, said revenue is set to fall more than 50% in the first quarter as device manufacturers cut back on orders amid a stubborn inventory backlog.
Bloomberg
This powerful platform allows the Galaxy S8 to support Gigabit LTE, for fiber-optic Internet speeds on the go, and more consistent mobile data performance in more places.
Company release
Company release
Toshiba shareholders agreed to split off its prized NAND flash memory unit on Thursday, paving the way for a sale to raise at least $9 billion to cover US nuclear unit charges that threaten the conglomerate's future.
Reuters
Toshiba's plan to divest its memory chip business has Japanese corporate leaders worried that critical information technology could leak to foreign companies - particularly those in China.
Nikkei Electronics Asia
Intel says that when its long-delayed 10-nanometer Cannon Lake chips finally arrive, they'll be a "full generation ahead" of rivals Samsung and TMSC, thanks to "hyper scaling" that squeezes in twice as many transistors.
engadget
Tencent, Asia's second highest valued tech firm, has bought a five percent share in Tesla. According to a filing, the Chinese firm scooped up 8,167,544 shares for around $1.7 billion to become one of Tesla's largest shareholders.
TechCrunch
The supply of Samsung Electronics' upcoming flagship smartphone, presumably the Galaxy S8, may fail to meet demand due to the sluggish production of Qualcomm chipsets, industry sources said Tuesday.
Korea Herald
Tesla says the stake is passive, meaning Tencent will not get a say in how the US firm is run.
BBC News
The US firm has struggled with hefty losses that have thrown its Japanese parent into a crisis, putting the conglomerate's future at risk.
BBC News
Chinese ride-sharing giant Didi Chuxing is weighing whether to take a $6 billion investment backed by SoftBank Group that could dilute existing backers such as Apple, people familiar with the matter say.
Bloomberg
When translated from Mandarin, Apple's China retail website for the Red devices simply read as "now in red" while the Taiwanese site used the words "product" Red which the US and other countries have as well.
BBC News
Intel is warning its channel partners that demand for SSDs is expected to outstrip supply for all of 2017, forcing the company to prioritize its production for data center SSDs over lower-cost consumer SSDs.
CRN
A ban that threatened to stop the sale of iPhone 6 and 6 Plus phones in China has been overturned after a court ruled in favour of Apple in a patent dispute.
BBC News
Qualcomm prevented Samsung Electronics, its biggest client for Snapdragon chip-sets, from selling its own Exynos counterpart to third-parties, South Korea's Fair Trade Commission claimed.
ZDNet
Traditional semiconductor scaling is expected to reach an end by about 2024, according to a white paper from engineers working on a new version of the semiconductor roadmap. The good news is a wide variety of new kinds of devices, chip stacks and systems innovations promise to continue benefits in computing performance, power and cost.
EE Times
High-end smartphones took up less than 30% of Samsung Electronics' combined sales of handsets, data showed Monday, although the figure is expected to rebound after the launch of the tech giant's upcoming new flagship model this week.
Korea Herald
Company release
The government is considering urging struggling Toshiba not to sell its semiconductor business to a Chinese or Taiwanese company, sources said March 22.
Asahi.com
Micron Technology gained more than 7% in late trading Thursday after the chipmaker reported better earnings than expected amid reported price hikes for its memory chips.
Marketwatch.com (Dow Jones)
Even if China doesn't build all of these fabs, there are still some worrisome signs. For example, a large percentage of the projected capacity from China's foundry vendors is slated for 28nm processes and above. So over time, some see a potential capacity glut, if not a price war, looming for these technologies.
Semiconductor Engineering
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