A US appeals court found memory chip designer Rambus Inc was wrong to shred hundreds of boxes of documents relevant in two patent infringement lawsuits it filed, sending its shares down sharply.

Cisco Systems is expected to cut thousands of jobs in possibly its worst-ever round of layoffs to meet CEO John Chambers' goal of slashing costs by US$1 billion, according to analysts.

The 30 new jobs come in addition to the previously announced 300 engineers and technicians positions that Samsung Austin Semiconductor is hiring in the first six months of 2011.

Thousands of people have spent the night outdoors in the southern Spanish town of Lorca after an earthquake which killed at least eight people.

Manosha Karunatilaka, a former account manager at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC), pleaded guilty to charges that he participated in an insider trading scheme tied to Primary Global Research, an expert network firm.

Consumer solid-state drives will have a break-out year in 2012 due to falling prices, which will make SSDs a primary storage option for mainstream users, Gartner said.

Mosaid Technologies has commenced patent infringement litigation against Elpida Memory of Japan. Two other companies, Buffalo and Axiontech, are also named as defendants in the suit.

Taiwan's currency advanced 0.8% to NT$28.511 against its US counterpart as of 9:24 a.m. local time, according to Taipei Forex. It touched NT$28.495 earlier, the strongest level since October 1997.

TSMC has said it won't start using three-dimensional transistors to produce semiconductors before the capacity of 2D chips reaches its limit, adding the infrastructure for the next generation of transistors is still "immature."

Microsoft has confirmed that it has agreed to buy Internet phone service Skype. The deal will see Microsoft pay US$8.5 billion for Skype, making it Microsoft's largest acquisition.

Globalfoundries is believed to be working on similar technology but is about two years behind Intel to bring it into the shops. However the outfit does not seem to be in any hurry.

Suntech Power Holdings Co. Ltd. and First Solar Inc., the world's top solar panel suppliers, warned Monday that potential cuts in European government subsidies for solar power could lead to both lower demand and prices for their products, a combination that could hit their bottom lines.

ARM expects to "compete at a consistently high level" in the mobile device market despite the news that rival Intel has a new process for making chips that could prove to be attractive to makers of tablets, smartphones and other similar devices.

The operator of Japan's crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has asked the government for help compensating victims of the crisis.

Microsoft is close to a deal to buy Internet phone company Skype Technologies for between US$7 billion and US$8 billion, according to people familiar with the matter, adding that the deal could be announced as early as Tuesday.

Smartphone vendors shipped a total of 99.6 million units in the first quarter of 2011, nearly double from 55.4 million units a year ago.

Cree is announced to make a breakthrough on the record of 231 lumens per watt for a white power LED.

HTC, Samsung, LG, Motorola and Sony Ericsson drove Android shipments in the first quarter, with each vendor shipping well over three million devices, said Canalys Principal Analyst Pete Cunningham.

Broadcom announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire SC Square, security software developer based in Israel.