A Chinese employee of South Korea's Samsung Electronics has been arrested for allegedly trying to leak confidential business information, a Seoul prosecutor said Wednesday. The confidential information included Samsung's key technologies on reducing noise of home appliances, details of products under development and sales plans for the next 10 years.

Zoom Technologies has signed a licensing pact with chipmaker Qualcomm, allowing the Chinese mobile phone maker to develop and sell 3G devices using Qualcomm's chip patents.

Ford is to cut its workforce in Victoria by 240 after a slump in demand for larger cars, and competitor Toyota will reduce hours for manufacturing staff in the wake of the Japanese earthquake disaster.

Bruce Sohn, First Solar's president of operations, may pursue work as chief executive of another solar company when he steps down at the end of this month, an analyst said. A First Solar spokesman said he couldn't comment on Sohn's departure.

ASML has said first-quarter orders fell 27% as clients took more time to place orders because of disruptions by the Japanese earthquake. The quake is hurting the business of some ASML clients.

Intel has designed a handset that may be manufactured by China's ZTE, according to people with knowledge of the plan. The phone, based on a version of Intel's Atom microprocessor, may go on sale in China.

Cisco is shutting down the consumer-oriented Flip camera business that it bought for US$590 million in 2009. The move will mean the loss of 550 jobs worldwide, cost Cisco US$300 million - and disappoint thousands of users who had enjoyed the devices' simplicity.

Freescale Semiconductor has entered into a strategic alliance with Fuji Electric to collaborate on insulated-gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) technology and products for hybrid electric and electric vehicles (HEV and EV).

Last fall, industry analysts predicted there would be an oversupply of manufacturing capacity due to a market correction following the strong revenue posted in 2010, but following the earthquake, tsunami, and now nuclear crisis in Japan, the landscape looks different.

The deficit for the first three months of 2011 stood at US$1.02 billion, according to the latest data by the General Administration of Customs. China has said that it is working towards increasing domestic demand and becoming less reliant on exports to sustain its growth.

Japanese authorities have raised the severity rating of their nuclear crisis to the highest level, seven. The decision reflects the total release of radiation at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi power plant, which is ongoing, rather than a sudden deterioration.

A Business Insider report cited discussions between Avian Securities and one of Apple's parts manufacturers that suggest we might not see a next generation iPhone until the end of 2011 or even early 2012. And recently, a Japanese-language site, Macotakara.jp, uncovered a report that revealed Apple hasn't yet ordered components for the iPhone 5.

Nokia workers are bracing for what may be the steepest job cuts in almost two decades as the company prepares to start a partnership with Microsoft. A reduction in R&D activities is set to be announced by the end of April, with as many as 6,000 jobs under threat.

Chinese silicon wafer producer Jiangsu Huantai, a joint venture partner of MEMC Electronic Materials, aims to go public in 2012, according to company chairman Wang Lubao. Huantai expects to begin manufacturing LED materials later in 2011.

An aftershock that shook Japan's northeast region temporarily shut down power supply and makeshift cooling systems at the Fukushima Daiichi plant Monday, highlighting the vulnerability of the crippled facility a month after a massive earthquake triggered the nation's worst nuclear-power crisis.

Hui Xian, a real estate investment trust, is selling yuan-denominated shares to investors in an initial public offering (IPO) at the end of April. The offer comes at a time when demand for investment products in the Chinese currency has been growing.

Japan has announced that it is to extend the evacuation zone around a crippled nuclear plant, as the country held a silence to mark one month since the devastating earthquake and tsunami. The zone will encompass areas where there is a radiation risk beyond the existing 20-km (12-mile) radius.

Dutch chip maker NXP is not in takeover talks, its chief executive said, although he would consider an offer like the one Texas Instruments made for National Semiconductor.

Toyota announced they would suspend production for five days and slow production over the "next few weeks," because of shortfall in parts availability. Honda meanwhile said it would extend a production slowdown for a week.

LDK Solar has announced a business investment of approximately US$40 million to establish a new manufacturing plant in Nanchang City, Jiangxi Province (China). This new manufacturing facility will have capacity to supply two million 2-inch equivalent pieces of sapphire wafers per year and be positioned to capture the growing opportunities in the LED industry.

NXP Semiconductors is almost an US$8 billion market capitalization company, about twice the size of National Semiconductor. On the company's last earnings call, it predicted that 70 million NFC-enabled phones would ship in 2011 and 150 million next year. NXP is the chip that will power a majority of those phones.

European companies in China ranked Shanghai as the most attractive city to locate their Asia-Pacific headquarters as the Chinese city provides companies with direct access to the region's biggest market, according to a survey.

Freescale Semiconductor won't reopen a seriously damaged chip factory in Sendai, northern Japan, the company said on April 6. The plant had been due to close at the end of 2011.

Consumer electronics giant Sony, chipmakers Elpida Memory and Renesas, and electronics firms Panasonic and Toshiba have all said that production at some plants in northern Japan had been halted again due to power cuts triggered by a major aftershock that shook the region on April 7.