Arm, a supplier of chip designs to Samsung and Apple, added another 28.5p to 889.5p in the wake of a positive investor meeting earlier in the week, while smaller rival Imagination Technologies rose 11.4p to 220.7p after it unveiled a series of collaborations with major technology companies, including Oracle and Broadcom.
Its the leading supplier of chip manufacturing equipment.
Applied Materials, a leading supplier of chip-making equipment, also said new orders had increased significantly.
Applied Materials, the world's largest supplier of chip-making equipment, reported a narrow first-quarter loss yesterday as sales declined 58percentt from the year-earlier period.
Other holdings include Applied Micro Circuits, a San Diego maker of integrated circuits for telecommunications applications, and Applied Materials of Santa Clara, a supplier of chip-making equipment.
Applied Materials, the world's largest supplier of chip-making equipment, posted a fourth-quarter loss and warned that it might do so again this quarter, as chip companies delayed orders for new tools.
Mr. Wang's strong industry background — as a former executive at Applied Materials, the world's top supplier of chip-making equipment, and then as head of another major Chinese chip maker, Huahong NEC — could set the stage for consolidation, analysts said.
But Plasma & Materials Technologies (PMT), a small supplier of chip-making equipment based in Chatsworth, California, reckons that it is equal to the task.PMT's technology can, the company claims, produce ultra-thin layers of an insulator that has a dielectric constant of less than two.
Other high-technology companies have also announced cutbacks: National Semiconductor plans to lay off 1,400 people; Intel, the world's biggest chip maker, expects to eliminate 3,000 jobs through attrition, and Applied Materials, the biggest supplier of chip-making equipment, is offering voluntary severance packages to cut costs.
It is the sole supplier of chips for Mi crosoft's Xbox games console.
Qualcomm, a supplier of chips for cellphones, was a bright spot.
