Applied Materials and Samsung Electronics have reached a settlement agreement that resolves potential civil claims and removes the risk of civil litigation between the parties relating to the alleged acquisition, misappropriation and misuse of Samsung's confidential semiconductor information in Korea.

Taiwan's dollar and stocks advanced as the island's ruling party won key local elections, prompting speculation President Ma Ying-jeou will extend pro- China policies that boosted investment.

More Americans went shopping over the Thanksgiving weekend than in recent memory, and online shopping accounted for the highest percentage of the weekend's sales yet.

The smartphone industry has designated which smartphone OS best fits each usergroup to help vendors sell phones and consumers buy the one that's right for them.

Jobs is recruiting lawyers who have fought for and against some of the world's largest companies, including Microsoft, Intel and Broadcom. Broadcom won a patent dispute with Qualcomm last year that ended with Qualcomm paying $891 million in cash over four years.

"Compared with its peer, Nanya Technology, which saw lukewarm demand and was undersubscribed in a mid--November offering, issued at par, too, we don't see significant upside potential to Elpida's planned TDRs," Primasia Investment Consultancy Co said in a client note.

Over the past five years, ST has reduced the size of MEMS accelerometers and gyroscopes from more than 500mm3 to less than 10mm3 while increasing resolution, accuracy, temperature stability and reducing power consumption by a factor 10.

NTT DoCoMo, Japan's top mobile carrier, is aggressively promoting rival smartphone offerings such as Samsung Electronics' Galaxy handset.

Verigy has reported a profit for the August-October period, as higher sales of semiconductor test systems helped it come back from a loss a year earlier. The company's guidance fell short of Wall Street's expectations, however.

"Japanese should have the courage to open the county much wider and compete globally, because Japan has no choice but to depend on foreign trade for survival..."

Samsung Electronics has said its new SSD with built-in hardware encryption provides the highest level of protection against unauthorized access to sensitive information on a lost or stolen laptop.

Integrated Silicon Solution (ISSI) has announced that it is working with Micron Technology to become an alternate supplier of Micron's third-generation reduced-latency DRAM (RLDRAM 3 memory).

Micron and SanDisk are chief competitors of South Korean chip giants Samsung Electronics and Hynix Semiconductor in the memory-processor market.

China will make energy saving a compulsory target, establishing carbon trading markets and green taxes.