The Tech week that was... Mar 11~15

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.?

It’s been a quite a good week for investment in southern Europe with 2 new facilities been announced, even though Intel has postponed investment.

Singapore-based semiconductor firm Silicon Box will invest US$3.50 billion in a new plant in northern Italy under a government-backed deal it was announced this week.? The plant will provide advanced packaging and test manufacturing services for next generation applications in artificial intelligence (AI), high performance computing (HPC), large language models (LLM), electric vehicles (EV) and automotive, wearables, mobile, smart consumer, edge computing.? The plant is expected to open in 2028 creating 1,600 new jobs.? The exact location in Italy is still to be decided.

European semiconductor research centre imec ?and the Spanish Government have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the intention to establish a new 300mm CMOS technology R&D pilot line in Malaga, Spain.? The new innovation facility intends to complement imec’s existing 300mm advanced CMOS process line in Leuven, Belgium, with new 300mm processes developments and the introduction of new materials that are difficult to combine today with standard CMOS processes.

Intel has postponed it’s plans to invest in Italy after a project to build an advanced packaging and chip assembly factory first mooted in March 2022 was never finalised.? Italy’s industry minister Adolfo Urso said Intel has "given up or postponed its investments in France and Italy, compared with others that it plans in Germany,"

In other industry news..

Japan’s Toppan broke ground on it’s new high semiconductor substrate manufacturing facility in Jurong, Singapore this week.? The facility reported to be costing US$340miliion is targeted to open at the end of 2026 and will create up to 350 new jobs. This will be Toppan’s first package substrate plant outside of Japan and is backed by lead customer Broadcom

Samsung this week denied media reports that it plans to change it’s HBM manufacturing process to the mass reflow molded underfill (MR-MUF) process used by SK Hynix.? Samsung currently uses non-conductive film (NCF) technology for its HBM chips. It was reported that the NCF process is causing Samsung some production yield ?issues in producing its HBM3 chips, which Samsung also denied.

Malaysia is reported to be one of the big winners from the US China chip war as semiconductor companies rush to invest in the country to set up alternative manufacturing sites to get around US restrictions on China.? In 2023 the country received US$12.8billion in foreign direct investment as companies from China, Korea, Japan and the West invest in the country.? Malaysia has a long history of semiconductor manufacturing mainly for BE assembly but looks to move up the food chain to FE wafer production.? This article in the Financial Times gives a good overview of the history of the Malaysian semiconductor industry and the current investments.

The WSJ has published a comparison of the progress of TSMC two new Fabs in Japan and in Arizona US.? The new Fab in Japan is on schedule to start production this year whilst Arizona, although bigger, has been delayed till next year.

?In financial news..

?Taiwan OSAT’s reported February revenues this week.? Like the foundries last week, the OSAT’s are reporting declining sequential revenues in February.

• ?ASE ATM group which includes OSATs ASE and SPIL reported revenues of US$744million for February, down -7% compared to January and down -3.3% YoY.
• OSAT PowerTech Technology (PTI) reported February revenue of US$185 million, down -4% compared to January, and up almost 13% ?YoY.?
• Test specialist KYEC reported revenue of US$79million, down -10% compared to January and essentially flat YoY ?

Taiwan contract manufacturer Foxconn (Hon Hai Precision Industry) expects strong growth from AI revenues this year as it expects AI server revenues to soar more than 40% YoY this year, growing its revenue from this sector from 30 to 40%.?? Foxconn expects smartphone business revenues to remain flat this year as the market gradually recovers from last years slump with a slight decline in Q1..? The company’s computer business will also expected to remain flat this year, whilst the components business will see strong year on year growth from strong demand for EV components and electrical gadgets.

In market research news..

Trendforce reports that revenue of the top 10 global foundries increased 8% sequentially in Q4 2023 to hit US$30billion with the growth driven primarily by smartphone components.? For the full year foundry revenue ?dropped -13.6% to US$111billion. Trendforce predicts that 2024 holds a brighter outlook for the foundries with revenue growing 12% to US$125billion. ??TSMC increased it’s market share to 61% in Q4 driven by demand from smartphones and AI related HPC, whilst the top 5 foundries expanded their market share to 89%.? TSMC followed by Samsung, GF, UMC and SMIC make up the top 5 foundries.

Global smartphone production increased 12% in Q4 2023 to 337million units, marking the end of 8 consecutive quarters of decline according to the latest data from Trendforce.? Total annual production declined -2% in 2023 to 1.17billion units.? Trendforce forecasts that 2024 will be better as inventory pressures were resolved last year but the pace of recovery is still uncertain.

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Stay safe and healthy... bye

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