Lee Kun-hee, Who Built Samsung Into a Global Giant, Dies At 78

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: Lee Kun-hee, who built Samsung into a global giant of smartphones, televisions and computer chips but was twice convicted — and, in a pattern that has become typical in South Korea, twice pardoned — for white-collar crimes committed along the way, died on Sunday in Seoul, the South Korean capital….

Teardown of Huawei Flagship Phone Finds US Parts Despite Blacklisting

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Huawei is still using components made by U.S. companies in its newest flagship smartphone, a Financial Times teardown has found, despite the U.S. all but blacklisting the Chinese telecoms equipment manufacturer. The teardown was done by XYZone, a Shenzhen-based company that disassembles smartphones and identifies the suppliers of their components. The biggest…

Chip Industry Had Worst Sales Year Since Dot-Com Bubble Burst

The semiconductor industry last year suffered its worst annual slump in almost two decades, hurt by a trade war between the largest chip producer, the U.S., and the largest consumer, China. Bloomberg reports: Revenue fell 12% to $412 billion in 2019, the Semiconductor Industry Association said Monday in a statement. That’s the biggest drop since 2001, when industry sales slumped 32%…