R&A Weekly News 032

1.Micron's automotive-grade LPDDR5 and UFS 3.1 products have been applied to Ideal L9.

On August 3, Micron Technology announced that its automotive-grade high-performance LPDDR5 DRAM memory and UFS 3.1 products based on 3D TLC NAND technology have been used in Li Auto's latest full-size smart flagship SUV model - Li Li L9.?

According to reports, Micron's LPDDR5 and UFS 3.1 solutions can help Ideal L9's Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) to achieve up to L4 autonomous driving.?

The Ideal L9 smart cockpit system also integrates Micron's automotive-grade LPDDR4 and UFS 2.1 technologies.?The Ideal L9 cross-domain control unit is also equipped with Micron's NOR flash memory and eMMC technology. Micron Technology pointed out that its automotive-grade LPDDR5 bandwidth has increased by 50%.?

Compared with LPDDR4, LPDDR5 can reduce energy consumption by up to 60%, which helps to provide longer cruising range on a single charge.?

It is reported that Micron Technology's industry's first automotive-grade UFS 3.1 and ASIL-D certified LPDDR5 products have been shipped in batches.

2.Toshiba's next-generation SiC MOSFET is about to be mass-produced, targeting data center and in-vehicle needs.

According to Toshiba’s recent announcement on their website, mass production of their third generation SiC MOSFETs (Silicon Carbide Field Effect Tubes) is scheduled to begin in late August of this year.

The new product is understood to use a new device structure with low on-resistance and approximately 20% lower switching losses compared to the second-generation product.

In Q1 of this year, Toshiba announced that it would leverage its strengths in semiconductor manufacturing equipment technology to produce silicon carbide epitaxial wafers for power semiconductors in-house; and invest $5.5 billion in power device expansion, including the construction of 8-inch silicon carbide and gallium nitride production lines.

Toshiba said that in the future, this “epitaxial equipment + epitaxial wafer + device” vertical integration model, they can capture the railroad, offshore wind power, data center and automotive markets.

SiC has superior performance in high-voltage and high-power application scenarios, and is suitable for high-voltage scenarios above 600V. Therefore, the demand for SiC in popular scenarios such as electric vehicles and photovoltaics is quite strong. Many foreign companies such as Wolfspeed, Infineon and STMicroelectronics have successively announced production expansion.

3.The power exchange track welcomes the development trend,and?NIO?and?CATL?are competing for layout.

A few days ago,?NIO?and?CATL?announced new progress in the layout of the battery swap track.?NIO?said that by 2025, it will build 100 power exchange stations in China with?Shell?Group?of?Companies.

According to industry insiders, with the increase in the penetration rate of new energy vehicles, the efficiency constraints of the charging mode are becoming more and more obvious, and the charging and energy supplementation methods are becoming more and more diversified.?

In recent years, the development of?China's new energy vehicle industry has entered the "fast lane". According to data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, in the first half of the year, the production and sales of new energy vehicles in my country were 2.661 million and 2.6 million respectively, an increase of 1.2 times year-on-year, and the market penetration rate reached 21.6%.?

At the same time, the number of new energy vehicles in China has increased rapidly. According to data from the Ministry of Public Security, as of the end of June 2022, the number of new energy vehicles in the country has reached 10.01 million.?

In the context of the rapid increase in the number of new energy vehicles, it is difficult to meet the huge demand for energy supplementation only by the charging method, and the charging method has bottlenecks such as long energy supplementation time and inflexibility, which has been criticized by new energy vehicle owners.?

In this context, the battery swap mode came into being, which has become an important way to shorten the energy replenishment time of new energy vehicles. On August 1, the first charging and replacement station jointly developed by NIO and?Shell?Group?of?Companies?was put into operation.?

The station is the 1,048th battery swap station and 1,777th charging station that NIO has deployed across the country. Its commissioning marks the official start of the cooperation between NIO and?Shell?Group?of?Companies?in the field of electric vehicle energy. In addition, the two parties will jointly promote the construction and operation of charging and swapping facilities.?

In terms of power battery companies, on July 31, CATL announced that it has signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement with the Chengdu Municipal Government. In terms of power exchange equipment manufacturers, Hanchuan Intelligent recently issued an announcement that the company plans to apply for a fixed increase of no more than 1 billion yuan to be accepted by the Shanghai Stock Exchange. projects and supplementary liquidity.?

With the accelerated deployment of all parties, the scale of my country's new energy vehicle swap stations has expanded rapidly. Data from the China Charging Alliance shows that in the first half of this year, the number of new energy vehicle swap stations in my country increased by 284, and as of the end of June 2022, the total number of new energy vehicle swap stations reached 1,582, a year-on-year increase of 121%.

4.Global semiconductor sales up 13.3% y-o-y in 2Q22 to US$152.5 billion, says SIA.

Global sales of semiconductors rose 13.3% year-on-year (y-o-y)?in the second quarter of 2022 to US$152.5 billion, said the US-based Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA).

In a statement on its website on Aug 1, SIA said the figure was 0.5% higher quarter-on-quarter.

However, global sales for the month of June 2022 were US$50.8 billion, a decrease of 1.9% compared to the previous month (m-o-m).

SIA president and CEO John Neuffer said global semiconductor sales were robust during the second quarter of 2022, increasing across all major regional markets and product categories compared to the second quarter of last year.

“Market growth has slowed somewhat in recent months, however, with y-o-y growth in June dipping below 15% for the first time since February 2021.

“Sales into the Americas continued to lead all regional markets in June, increasing by 29% y-o-y,” he said.

SIA said that in addition to the y-o-y sales increase in the Americas, sales were up compared to June 2021 in Japan (16.1%), Europe (12.4%), Asia-Pacific/all others (11.9%), and China (4.7%).

It said m-o-m sales were down across all regions: Japan (-0.7%), the Americas (-0.9%), Europe (-1.1%), Asia-Pacific/all others (-2.3%), and China (-2.8%).

5.Institutions expect NAND flash demand to increase by 28.9% next year and supply to increase by 32%.

According to foreign media reports, some research institutions predict that the oversupply of DRAM will be more serious next year. The market size is expected to increase by 8.5%, which is lower than 10% for the first time, but the supply is expected to increase by 14%, and the price is expected to continue to decline.

According to foreign media reports, research institutions predict that the growth rate of supply will exceed the growth rate of demand, not only DRAM, but also NAND flash memory is expected to be oversupplied. The research institute expects the market demand for NAND flash memory to increase by 28.9% next year, and the supply to increase by 32.1%.

However, unlike the more serious oversupply of DRAM, which may lead to price declines, research institutions believe that NAND flash memory has better price elasticity. After several consecutive quarters of decline, the average price in the enterprise SSD market is expected to rise to a certain extent.

For this year, some research institutions predict that the oversupply of NAND flash memory will continue until the end of the year. As prices continue to decline, it is expected that more than half of NAND flash memory suppliers may experience operating losses in the third quarter of this year.