The Tech Week that was... Feb 6~ 10th

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.?

This week we had the first glimpse of how 2023 is going with the Taiwan foundry and OSAT January monthly revenue results being released.?January was a short month for the Taiwan foundries and OSAT’s with the 10 day Chinese New Year holiday which may have impacted the results.?Most foundries and OSAT’s reported revenues down at levels last seen in 2021 and all suppliers except TSMC and Vanguard reported sequential revenue drops compared to December.?Only TSMC is still reporting year on year positive revenues in January as it increases its market share as number one foundry

Taiwanese number 1 OSAT ASE said this week that it expects its chip assembly and testing manufacturing (ATM) group 1st quarter revenue to be below seasonal expectations with revenue down -21% at US$2.4billion. ?It expects that Q1 will be the low point followed by double digit growth in Q2 as it sees some sector as approaching the end of the inventory correction cycle.?For the whole year they expect ATM group revenue to be flat or down single digit percentage wise.

Chinese foundry SMIC reported a -15% decrease in revenue in Q4’22 to US$1621million.?For the full year revenue was US$7.2billion up 34% yoy and marking 2 years of sequential growth.?As of Dec 2022, monthly capacity at SMIC was 714k 8” equivalent wafers, and Q4 capacity utilization was 80%.?By the end of 2022, SMIC Shenzhen entered into production, SMIC Jingcheng entered into pilot production, SMIC Lingang completed construction of main fab shell, and SMIC Xiqing started construction.?For 2023, SMIC see the industry tp remain at the bottom of the cycle for the first half of 2023.?They expect Q1 revenue to decrease approx. -11% and or the full year forecast revenue to decline low-teens percentage year-over-year assuming a stable external environment.

US foundry GlobalFoundries this week announced it had acquired Renesas’s Conductive Bridging Random Access Memory (CBRAM) technology, a low power memory solution designed to enable a range of applications in home and industrial IoT and smart mobile devices. ?Currently GF is qualifying the CBRAM technology on the its 22FDX? platform, with plans to extend it to other platforms.?

This week Taiwanese wafer manufacturer GlobalWafers announced it plans acquire the Shanghai subsidiary of Crystalwise for US$15mililon.?GlobalWafers announced it has signed a letter of intent with Crystalwise through it’s Chinese subsidiary to acquire 100% of Shanghai Sawyer Shenkai Technology Material (SSKT).?Founded in 2000, SSKT manufactures LT (LiTaO3) and LN (LiNbO3) wafers. LT and LN wafers are the crucial substrates for SAW Filter, for wireless communication and satellite applications.?

It looks like the US will further step up it’s technology war on China in 2023.?The US is expected to impose a new wave of restrictions on China this year to prevent the sale of US technology to China and further restrict China’s semiconductor, AI and quantum computing industries.?The US government has stopped licensing U.S. companies to export to Huawei as Washington aims for a total ban on sales of U.S. technology to the Chinese telecom equipment giant, the Financial Times reported this week.?In addition Chinese chipmakers like SMIC and YMTC, and even Hua Hong Semi are also expected to have further restrictions imposed on them. It is also reported by Politico that the White House is considering a plan to ban U.S. business from entire segments of China’s tech industry.

In market research news…

Global semiconductor industry sales were a record annual high in 2022, increasing 3.2% ?to a total of US$573.5 billion according to data from the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) organization.?Sales slowed during the second half of the year, with Q4 down -8% compared to Q3.?Sales in Q4 also declined throughout the quarter with Dec sales -4% down compared to November.??WSTS reported that several semiconductor segments stood out in 2022, with the analog segment used for automotive and consumer products showing the highest growth of 7.5%, with sales of automotive IC’s growing 29% yoy.

SEMI reported that worldwide silicon shipments in 2022 were at an all time high with?shipments increasing 3.9% to 14,713 million sq inches, whilst wafer revenue grew 9.5% to US$13.8billion. Consumption of both 8-inch and 12-inch wafers increased, driven in part by the automotive, industrial, and IoT segments along with the 5G buildout.

TSMC remained the largest market cap Asia supply chain company in 2022 according to Digitimes Research.?At the end of 2022, TSMC’s market cap was US$378billion though this was down $200billion due to waning COVID-induced dividends, the war in Ukraine, Chinese lockdowns, rising interest rates and inflation.to factors which affected all the top 10 ranked companies.?Samsung Electronics was number 2 with a market cap of US$263billion with Toyota 3rd at US$226billion.

Trendforce expects global car sales to rebound 3.3% in 2023 to around 84million vehicles.?In 2022 China accounted for 33% of global car sales reflecting a 3.7% yoy growth.?In US and Europe car sales were at a decade low in 2022, with the US declining -8.1% and Western Europe declining -4.6%. ?

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Stay safe and healthy... bye