Samsung Telecommunications America (Samsung Mobile) has selected ST-Ericsson's Thor advanced HSPA+ modem to bring lightning-fast connectivity to its new Infuse 4G smartphone for the US market.

The economy shrank by a much worse-than-expected annualised 3.7% in the first three months of 2011, marking the second consecutive quarter of contraction, which economists define as a technical recession.

The HTC Puccini, a rumored 10-inch tablet, will feature Android 3.01 and powered by a 1.5GHz dual-core Qualcomm processor. As some of you may recall, the rumors of a larger tablet first surfaced earlier in the year when it was whispered that HTC was working on three devices.

Abu Dhabi's Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC) plans to increase its stake in the Globalfoundries microchip business to over 90% by the end of 2011, according to a senior executive. ATIC's stake rises as it pours investment into Globalfoundries, in which it last year acquired a 65.8% stake for US$2.1 billion.

The acquisition of SiGe, a fabless semiconductor provider, complements Skyworks' leadership in wide area front-end solutions by adding SiGe's innovative short range, silicon-based products.

Apple has proposed a standardized SIM card smaller than those it currently uses in the iPhone and iPad in order to be able to produce thinner devices, an Orange executive was quoted as saying in a Reuters report.

Could future iPhones sport 720p displays? If you connect the dots in a news release from Toshiba, possibly.

Spansion has entered production of its 1Gb and 512Mb GL NOR flash memory for automotive, consumer electronics, gaming and telnet applications.

Disruptions and shortages continue to loom over MCU product suppliers who are already facing severe pressure in the supply chain.

The 3D technology seems to be catching the fancy of one and all and the current financial year will be the year of reckoning, believes LG.

The cost of efficient yet pricey LED light bulbs could fall by 50 percent in the next five years, according to the top Philips Lighting executive in the U.S.

SanDisk has announced a definitive agreement to acquire Pliant Technology, a developer of enterprise solid state drives (SSD). Under the terms of the agreement, SanDisk will pay approximately US$327 million in cash and provide certain equity-based incentives.

Texas Instruments has announced it would sell a multi-tranche debt offering to partially fund its merger with National Semiconductor.

"In the near term, both companies should benefit by cross-selling their products to largely non-overlapping customer bases," writes Linley Gwennap with The Linley Group. "For the longer term, the acquisition gives Nvidia an opportunity to expand the market for "Tegra" by developing single-chip products that combine the application and baseband processors."

The consumer confidence index fell to 33.1 in April 2011, down from 38.6 in March, according to the Cabinet Office. A reading below 50 suggests consumer pessimism.

Canadian Solar Inc.'s first-quarter profit soared as shipments jumped and gross margins expanded, although the bottom line missed analysts expectations as silicon costs increased and the company recorded a derivatives loss.

Toshiba is near an agreement to buy Landis+Gyr, a Swiss electronic-metering company, for more than US$2 billion, said two people with knowledge of the matter.

This acquisition will expand the breadth of Rambus' breakthrough technologies available for licensing with complementary technologies from CRI that include patented innovations and solutions for content protection, network security, anti-counterfeiting and financial services.