The Tech Week that was... April 4~8

Welcome to the latest edition of my weekly newsletter bringing you all the key semiconductor and technology news from around the world in one easy read.??

SIA has reported that global semiconductor industry sales were $52.5 billion in February 2022, an increase of 32.4% over the February 2021 and up 3.4% compared to ?January.?John Neuffer, SIA president and CEO said “Global semiconductor sales remained strong in February, increasing by more than 20% for the eleventh consecutive month on a year-to-year basis,” and that “Sales into the Americas continued to outpace other regional markets, increasing by 43.2% year-to-year in February.”

Based on the latest results released from Taiwan’s foundries it seems like global semiconductor sales will continue to increase in Q1 as all the Taiwanese foundries reported record quarterly revenues.

The worlds largest foundry TSMC reported that March revenue was US$5.95billion, up a massive 33% yoy, and up 17% over the short February due to Chinese New Year.?For Q1 as a whole, ?it is another record quarter for TSMC with revenue of US$16.97billion, up 35.5% compared to Q1’21, as TSMC benefitted both from strong demand and also last years price increase.

Taiwans 2nd largest foundry also had a very strong Q1 as the company reported March revenue of US$765.9million up 33% yoy.?March revenue was a record high for the 6th consecutive month.?For Q1 UMC’s revenue was 2.19million was up 7.3% compared to Q4 and up 34.7% yoy.

Specialist 8” foundry Vanguard International Semi (VIS) also announced record monthly revenue reporting March revenue of US$175million, up 41% yoy and up 19% compared to February.?For Q1, revenue was US$466.7million, up a massive 47% compared to Q1’21.

DRAM Foundry Powerchip, announced record monthly revenue reporting March revenue of US$249million, up 49.9% year on year.?For Q1 revenue wasa record high of US$716million, up 56% compared to Q1’21.

Samsung Electronics is expected to report it’s best ever Q1 earnings in 4years due to strong memory chip and smartphone demand when it officially releases its results on April 28th.?Samsung announced its earnings guidance of US$11.5billion for Q1’22, up around 18% compared to a year ago.

Memory manufacturer Kioxia has announced it held the ground-breaking ceremony for it’s new Fab (Fab 2) at it’s Kitakami Plant in Iwate Pref, Japan which will produce 3D flash memory.?Construction of the Fab facility is expected to be completed in 2023

3M has indefinitely closed it’s coolant manufacturing plant in Belgium due to tightened environmental regulations.?The 3M Zwijndrecht coolant plant is reported to account for 80% of global semiconductor coolant output of perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) which is used for semiconductor etching.?3M has announced it will investment 150 million Euro to take remedial action and take further actions to comply with environmental concerns.?It is believed that semiconductor companies have inventory to last for 1~3months but as the closure is indefinite if it drags on there could be significant impact to the semiconductor manufacturing sector.

The White House warned of dire risks to the American economy from semiconductor supply chain issues in a classified briefing with some U.S. lawmakers, as the White House ?pushes Congress to approve $52 billion in funding to subsidise production.?It estimates that the shortage of semiconductors reduced the US GDP by 1% in 2021.?

A huge political row has broken out in the UK, after it seems that the government has approved last years sale of the Newport Wafer Fab to Nexperia which is owned by Chinese investor Wingtech.?The approval comes despite a long running national security review into the US$82million sale.

In market research news..

Analyst are predicting that the recent surge in COVID cases in China and associated lockdowns could threaten smartphone sales in China.?They are predicting Chinese smartphone sales could decrease 3~4% in Q2 as consumer sentiment is damped by the pandemic, with Android players such as Xiaomi could fare worse than Apple, which continues to fill the gap in the premium market left by Huawei.

IC Insights reports that US companies captured 54% of the total worldwide IC market in 2021, with IDM’s accounting for 47% share and fabless companies for 68% based on location of the company headquarters.?South Korea was 2nd with 22% market share, with Taiwan 3rd with 9% share.?China companies only accounted for only 4% market share behind both Europe and Japan with 6% each.

McKinsey is predicting that the global semiconductor industry will grow between 6~8% a year up to 2030 to become a US$1trillion industry by 2030.?70% of this growth is predicted to come from just 3 segments, automotive, computation and wireless.?McKinsey predicts that the automotive segment will grow from 8% in 2021 to ~14% by 2030 as the electronic content of cars increases due to autonomous driving and e-mobility.

In the latest report from Strategy Analytics, they report that the global smartphone application processor (AP) market grew 23% to US$30.8 billion in 2021. ?Qualcomm maintained it leadership position with 38% market share followed by Mediatek and Apple with 26% market share each.?TSMC manufactured three in four smartphone APs shipped in 2021 with 43% of smartphone AP’s manufactured in?7nm and below technologies.

The LED lighting market will grow at 8.4% to US$11billion in 2026 according to the latest report from Trendforce. The report states that the segment will grow to the promotion of human-centric lighting (HCL), smart lighting and other factors, such as energy conservation.

The automotive lighting market is expected to grow at 4.9% CAGR between 2021 and 2027 to reach US$42.2billion in 2027 according to the latest report by Yole.?Pierrick Boulay, senior technology and market analyst at Yole, said that “with the integration of LED technology, lighting has evolved from a basic, functional feature to a distinctive feature with high-value potential in automotive. LED technology has given manufacturers the opportunity for strong differentiation via lighting design and additional functionalities. This is particularly true for both exterior and interior lighting, where the integration of solid-state lighting technologies offers more design flexibility, increased efficacy, and intelligent functionalities.”

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Stay safe and healthy... bye.

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