A powerful aftershock has struck northeast Japan, a month after a violent quake led to a devastating tsunami.

Skyworks Solutions will get a lot less revenue from selling parts for the Apple iPhone 5 than it did for the current generation of the phone, according to Charter Equity analyst Edward Snyder. For technical reasons, the company is losing business to both TriQuint and Avago, Snyder said.

The move leaves some to wonder if the silicon foundry giant is gradually moving into the IC-packaging world, thereby competing against Amkor, ASE and other subcontractors. Rick Cassidy, president of TSMC North America, said TSMC remains focused on the foundry market. But "lines are blurring" between some parts of the wafer manufacturing and packaging processes, Cassidy said.

South Korea's LG Chem on April 6 completed what it described as the world's largest battery plant for electric cars and vowed to become a major producer by 2015. The company said the factory in Ochang, south of Seoul, has enough capacity to produce lithium-ion batteries for 100,000 of the green autos a year.

Operating profits for the first quarter of 2011 are estimated at KRW2.7-3.1 trillion (US$2.5-2.8 billion), compared to KRW3.01 trillion in the prior quarter and KRW4.41 trillion a year ago.

"US day-one sales numbers for Nintendo 3DS were the highest of any Nintendo hand-held system in our history," Nintendo said in a statement. The company promised more detailed stats on April 14, when NPD Group will release a report about the month's video game sales.

Taiwan's UMC will take the "lead role" in making the OMAP 5 device on a foundry basis for TI, said Kevin Ritchie, senior VP and manager of TI's technology and manufacturing group. For the OMAP 5, TI may work with other foundries, but Samsung does not appear to be one of the candidates. With the OMAP 4, TI has been "dissatisfied" with its foundry arrangement with Samsung, Ritchie said.

The worldwide semiconductor equipment market grew 143% in 2010 to nearly US$41 billion as the market recovered from the industry slowdown of the previous two years, according to Gartner.

IM Flash Technologies (IMFT), Intel and Micron's joint venture, released 25 nanometer (nm) circuitry a little over a year ago. In the next few weeks, IMFT plans to annouce 20nm NAND flash chip production.

TowerJazz has signed a non-binding term sheet contemplating its purchase of Micron Technology's fabrication facility in Nishiwaki City, Hyogo, Japan. The proposed purchase would nearly double TowerJazz's current internal manufacturing capacity, increasing production by 60,000 wafers per month.

Rumors, misinformation and speculation are spreading like wildfire across the industry today following recent reports about Android anti-fragmentation efforts and what this means for processor architecture openness. Will Google's anti-fragmentation initiatives for Android code impact providers of microprocessor architectures such as MIPS, Intel and ARM? Does anti-fragmentation mean that Google is standardizing Android for any specific architecture?

Hynix Semiconductor has developed 2Gb DDR4 DRAM and DDR4 DRAM-based 2GB ECC-SODIMM applying its 30nm-class process technology. Hynix plans to start volume production of this high performance DDR4 product in the second half of 2012.

Its top shareholders have sought to sell their stake worth about US$2.6 billion, but failed to find interested investors for a company that requires heavy capital investment to weather the highly volatile memory chip cycle.

Production was suspended at the plant in Iwate Prefecture after suffering damage in the March 11 earthquake. The plant makes microcontrollers and large scale integration chips.

OCI, the world's second-largest polysilicon maker, said it may sell global depositary receipts to raise funds for expansion.

Japanese manufacturing activity sank to a two-year low in March 2011, underlining the impact of the earthquake and tsunami on economic activity in the country.

Renesas Electronics America will sell its semiconductor wafer fabrication facility in Roseville, California, to Telefunken Semiconductors. The sale price is approximately US$53 million, and the closing for the sale is planned for May 2, 2011. Telefunken also will enter into a supply agreement with Renesas for manufacturing services at the Roseville factory.

What this may mean -- as BMO Capital's Keith Bachman and Jefferies & Co.'s Peter Misek explained to clients Wednesday -- is that for the first time since 2007, summer will come and go without a new iPhone.

Just days after a judge ruled provisionally against a claim before the US International Trade Commission that Apple's handsets, including the iPhone, had violated five of its patents, Nokia shot back with a further case over another five.

Hynix CEO OC Kwon said that Hynix had around 45 days of wafer inventory and was reassured by quake-hit Japanese raw materials firms that there wouldn't be any major disruptions in wafer supplies.