Flyking Weekly Express 2025-02-17
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NVIDIA and MediaTek Join Forces
To expand its presence in the AI chip market, NVIDIA is strengthening its partnership with MediaTek. They plan to launch an AI PC chip in the second half of 2025 and are also developing an AI smartphone chip to enter the mobile market. The AI PC chip will be built on TSMC’s 3nm process with an ARM architecture, leveraging MediaTek’s expertise in custom chip designs and NVIDIA’s powerful graphics computing capabilities. The chip is expected to go into trial production in October 2024, with mass production slated for late 2025.
Renesas Demand Remains Flat
Renesas has not seen a significant increase in demand recently, with orders mainly concentrated in the UPD70, UPD78, HD64F, R5F, and ISL series. The company's delivery times remain stable, with minimal supply shortages. Renesas also reported a sharp 42.9% decline in operating profit for its fiscal 2024, mainly due to weak demand affecting its industrial, infrastructure, and IoT businesses.
Samsung to Boost Foundry Production
Samsung’s foundry division is ramping up production to lift equipment suspensions, aiming for full-capacity operations at its Pyeongtaek facility by June 2025. This comes amid increasing demand for Exynos application processors from Samsung’s System LSI division. Analysts predict a gradual recovery in Samsung's foundry utilization rates. Additionally, Samsung is upgrading its Xi’an, China, facility to a 286-layer (V9) NAND flash manufacturing process to counter market downturns and rising competition from Chinese semiconductor firms.
Micron May Begin Mass Production of 12-Layer HBM
After successfully developing a 12-layer stacked HBM in September 2023 and showcasing samples to customers like NVIDIA, Micron has been actively promoting the technology’s market potential. Industry insiders suggest that Micron’s 12-layer HBM, which offers 20% lower power consumption and 50% higher capacity than competitors’ 8-layer versions, could dominate the HBM market by the second half of this year.
ON Semiconductor Sees Demand Drop for Some Products
ON Semiconductor’s demand is mainly focused on discontinued materials such as MSOFET and load switches. However, demand for logic ICs, general diodes, transistors, and MOSFETs has declined, leading to shorter delivery times. Despite a 15% year-over-year drop in Q4 revenue, ON Semiconductor’s AI data center business saw a growth of over 40%, reflecting its strategic shift towards emerging technologies.
NXP Acquires Kinara for $307 Million
NXP has announced the $307 million acquisition of Kinara Inc., a California-based startup specializing in edge AI chip neural processing units (NPUs). This follows NXP’s recent acquisitions of TTTech Auto AG ($625 million) and Aviva Links Inc. ($242.5 million), which aimed to strengthen its automotive chip business. However, the Kinara deal is more focused on expanding NXP’s industrial and IoT portfolio, particularly in edge computing.
ST Pursues Full Localization of Its Supply Chain
ST is committed to fully localizing its supply chain in China. It has announced a partnership with Hua Hong for wafer foundry services and plans to start local production of 40nm MCUs in Chengdu by Q4 2025. This move aims to expand ST’s local customer base and ensure greater supply chain autonomy.
Intel May Be Split Up
Once a global semiconductor giant, Intel has struggled to keep up with competitors in recent years. Reports suggest that Intel may be split, with TSMC and Broadcom potentially taking over different parts of the company. Broadcom is reportedly eyeing Intel’s chip design and marketing operations and has informally explored acquisition possibilities with advisors. Meanwhile, TSMC is considering taking over some or all of Intel’s chip manufacturing plants, potentially via an investor consortium or alternative investment structure.
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