Last week, Intel entered into an agreement with AMD and also agreed to pay $1.25 billion to the former for dropping its antitrust lawsuits. According to the latest report from IDC, PC processor unit shipments in 3Q09 rose 23% q-o-q, and Intel increased its share by 2.2% to 81.1% while AMD had a share of 18.7%, a loss of 2%. Let’s take a closer look at the recent performances of AMD and its rival, Nvidia.

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There were several options for HP to combat Cisco in the networking arena, including Brocade and Polycom. It looks as though they have chosen to go after Cisco front and center by acquiring 3Com. The latter has done a marvelous turnaround in the past three years. The stock has moved steadily up, and now HP is paying a 40% premium to make 3Com central to its networking strategy ($7.9 a share).

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The two leading chipmakers, Broadcom (NASDAQ:BRCM) and Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) have recently reported their results. While Qualcomm is enjoying a more stable legal environment after ending its disputes with Nokia and Broadcom and extending its patent deal with Samsung, Broadcom is getting involved in a legal tug-of-war with Emulex. Let’s take a closer look.

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Guest author Nalini Kumar Muppala recently finished his in-depth analysis of STMicroelectronics' JV, ST-Ericsson. Today's Tech Stocks post reviews STM’s (NYSE:STM) recent results in the context of Nalini’s assessment and also takes a look at the results of another major semiconductor player, Texas Instruments (NYSE:TXN). Sequential growth for some divisions at both companies may indicate that a semiconductor recovery is underway.

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According to a preliminary estimate from iSuppli, global PC shipments grew 9.8% sequentially in the third quarter. This week, Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC), the world’s largest chip maker with annual revenue of $37.6 billion, reported strong third quarter results driven by the rebound in the PC market. Let’s take a closer look.

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The recession had a severe impact on the semiconductor industry in 2008, but the programmable logic device (PLD) market was one of the few segments which saw growth. This $3.8 billion market received a boost early this year following the expansion of 3G mobile networks in China. The overall programmable logic market is estimated to grow to $4.2 billion in 2013. Let’s take a closer look at the dominant players, Xilinx Inc (NASDAQ:XLNX) and Altera Corporation (NASDAQ:ALTR), which together account for about 86% of the market.

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On September 29, Micron Technology, Inc. (NYSE: MU), the leading memory chipmaker, reported its fourth quarter and fiscal year 2009 results. Although the company booked its fourteenth straight quarterly loss, there was one bright spot in that losses were less than last year and beat estimates. Micron’s shares have more than quadrupled since the beginning of the year. Are these signs that with the memory market is also recovering? Let’s take a closer look.

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In the previous post, we looked at Infineon’s strengths in wireless. However, Infineon’s portfolio is still incomplete in the area of connectivity solutions, which are playing a major role in the convergence trend.

Infineon remains a minor player in Bluetooth. Infineon lacks much of the IP related to connectivity solutions. Infineon’s Bluetooth and GPS solutions use third-party software stacks. As a result, Infineon does not offer any combo chips for connectivity. There are none promised in the future, either. Most other major vendors offer combo solutions that provide space and power consumption savings.

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Research In Motion Limited (RIM) (NASDAQ:RIMM; TSX:RIM), the maker of the popular BlackBerry with annual revenue of $11.07 billion, reported its second quarter results last week. Its third quarter outlook was disappointing as Apple and Palm have upped the ante by lowering prices on their phones.

RIM launched two new BlackBerry smartphones during the quarter, the BlackBerry Tour at $200 with Verizon and Sprint for CDMA networks and the BlackBerry Curve 8520 with T-Mobile for GSM networks. The low-end BlackBerry Curve 8520, available for $49, features a touch- sensitive track pad and dedicated media keys. The BlackBerry Tour supports high-speed 3G EVDO REV A networks and features a 3.2 MP camera, GPS, an advanced media player. However, it was allegedly having problems with its trackball that initially caused high return rates and is not as much a hit as the company’s earlier launches, Storm and Bold.

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It looks to be a season of acquisitions, and one of the latest companies to make a notable addition to its portfolio is chipmaker Atheros. Atheros (NASDAQ:ATHR), with annual revenue of $472 million, is best known for its Wi-Fi chips. It recently announced plans to buy Intellon Corporation (NASDAQ:ITLN), a provider of HomePlug® compatible products, for $244 million. Let’s take a closer look.

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