R&A Weekly News 34

Qualcomm enters the server processor market again, with an estimated size of $28 billion.

According to reports on August 19, Qualcomm is trying to re-enter the $28 billion server processor market to reduce its dependence on the smartphone market.

The company is looking for customers for a product from chip startup Nuvia, which it acquired last year, sources said. Amazon AWS, one of the biggest buyers in the server chip market, has agreed to investigate Qualcomm's products.

Qualcomm Chief Executive Cristiano Amon is trying to transform Qualcomm into a broader chip provider, not just chips for smartphones.

If Qualcomm wants to re-enter the server chip business, Qualcomm needs to re-establish trust with potential customers. The server industry has also changed dramatically over the past few years. Amazon has developed its own server processors, but continues to source chips from other suppliers. Startups such as Ampere Computing have also made progress, winning contracts from big clients such as Microsoft.

SK Hynix has provided 238-layer NAND flash memory samples to customers, and will launch 1Tb 238-layer NAND flash memory next year.

Recently, SK Hynix announced that they have developed a 238-layer NAND flash memory and plan to start mass production in the first half of next year.

According to the news released by SK Hynix, what they have developed is a 238-layer 512Gb TLC 4D NAND flash memory, which achieves the world's smallest area while reaching the industry's highest number of stack layers.

Judging from the news released by SK Hynix, although their 238-layer NAND flash memory is not planned to be mass-produced until the first half of next year, they are already preparing for commercial use, and they have already provided samples to customers.

The 238-layer 512Gb TLC 4D NAND flash memory developed by SK hynix is planned to be first used in cSSD (client SSD, mainly used in PC storage devices), and then gradually extended to smartphones and high-capacity server SSDs.

After developing the 238-layer 512Gb TLC 4D NAND flash memory, SK Hynix also plans to develop a higher density 238-layer NAND flash memory. They stated on their official website that they plan to launch a new 238-layer NAND flash memory product with a density of 1Tb next year.

IC distributors say Wi-Fi 6 SoC demand continues to be strong.

Sources at IC distributors said that demand for Wi-Fi 6 SoCs has been strong, and suppliers such as Realtek are still unable to fulfill their orders. Realtek can fulfill 60% of its total orders for Wi-Fi 6 SoCs, the sources said, adding that the adoption rate of Wi-Fi 6 chips in PC and router applications will exceed 70% in the second half of this year.

Global sales of new energy vehicles will reach 2.19 million in Q2 2022, and pure electric vehicles will exceed 70%.

According to the report of the research institute, the number of new energy vehicles sold globally in the second quarter, mainly pure electric vehicles, reached 1.608 million, a year-on-year increase of 64.9%, accounting for 73.36% of the new energy vehicles sold in the quarter.?

Another major component of new energy vehicles is plug-in hybrid vehicles, which sold 580,000 units in the second quarter, a year-on-year increase of 29%. No matter the sales volume or the year-on-year growth rate, there is a big gap with pure electric vehicles.

In terms of pure electric vehicles, Tesla was the top seller in the second quarter with a 15.9% share, followed by BYD with 11.2%. They are also the only two manufacturers with a share of more than 10%. XPeng Motors, another emerging automaker in China, has a share of 2.1%, ranking ninth.

In terms of plug-in hybrid vehicles, BYD's share is 29.8%, which is much higher than other manufacturers and 21 percentage points higher than the second-ranked BMW.

TrendForce: Global DRAM revenue in Q2 was US$25.59 billion, with Samsung and SK Hynix accounting for 70.9% of the total.

In the second quarter of 2022, the DRAM industry revenue reached $25.59 billion, a quarterly increase of 6.5%.

The growth momentum of revenue in the second quarter came from the increase in shipments of some DRAM suppliers. Although the demand for PC and mobile DRAM began to decline due to the impact of inflation, the momentum of serverDRAM remained strong in the first half of the year, driving the shipments of the three major manufacturers. Quarterly growth has reached 5-10%.

In terms of revenue, the three original manufacturers of Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron all experienced growth in revenue. The two Korean manufacturers, Samsung and SK, have a combined market share of 70.9%; Micron benefited from the demand for servers and vehicles, and revenue in the second quarter It reached US$6.27 billion, a quarterly increase of 9.7%, the highest increase among the three major factories. Driven by the growth in revenue, the profitability of the three manufacturers increased slightly, with Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron reaching 50%, 43% and 41.5% respectively.

In terms of production capacity planning, Nanya Technology focuses on the consumer DRAM field. Due to the impact of the lockdown and control policies on demand in mainland China, shipments have decreased significantly, and overall revenue has decreased by 14.0% quarter-on-quarter. It is expected that the output will only increase slightly in the third quarter.

Powerchip?Semiconductor?Manufacturing?Corporation's?revenue mainly comes from DRAM products, excluding the DRAM foundry business. Affected by the company's capacity allocation, DRAM revenue increased by about 21.8%, and revenue in the third quarter is expected to decrease by 1.0%.

Winbond's revenue decreased slightly by 3.3%, mainly due to the reduction of shipments due to the adjustment of inventory by Netcom customers and the suspension of supply from TV manufacturers. At present, Winbond's Kaohsiung plant in Taiwan, China, will fully put into production 25Snm, and the next-generation 20nm process is expected to be mass-produced in mid-2023, which is expected to effectively drive its revenue growth.