The Tech week that was... Mar 18~22

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.?

The U.S. Department of Commerce this week announced that Intel would receive $8.5 billion in direct funding from the CHIPS Act for new semiconductor projects in Arizona, New Mexico, Ohio and Oregon.? In addition Intel will eligible for $11 billion in federal loans and will benefit from U.S. Treasury Department Investment Tax Credits (ITC) of up to 25% on more than $100 billion in qualified investments.? In Arizona and Ohio Intel is building new Fabs, with 2 Fabs ( Intel 18A & 20A Fabs) planned for Chandler, Arizona and 2 Fabs planned for Columbus Ohio.? In New Mexico Intel recently opened it’s Fab 9 advanced packaging Fab.? In Hillsboro, Oregon, Intel has it’s R&D site which is working on using cutting edge technology using ASML’s most advanced high NA extreme UV (EUV) lithography tool.

This week Semicon China was held with Chinese equipment manufacturers taking centerstage? as most major US equipment manufacturers not exhibiting at the show due to US-China tech war .? Only semiconductor defect inspection and metrology system supplier, KLA was present at the shows whilst equipment manufacturers Lam Research and Applied Materials together with Micron all sponsored the show without a physical presence.? Chinese etching and deposition tool giants Naura and Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment (AMEC) had a lot of visitors to their exhibition booths.

TSMC has announced it will build 2 new advanced packaging plants in Chiayi County, southern Taiwan.? The first plant for Chip on Wafer on Substrate (CoWoS) technology will break ground in May this year and is expected to be completed by the end of 2026.? Mass production is scheduled to start in 2028 creating 3000 new jobs.

Earlier last week TSMC was reported to be considering building a new advanced packaging facility in Japan.? TSMC is reported to be in the early stages of considering building as chip on wafer on substrate (CoWoS) packaging plant in Japan.

Key ASML supplier Neways plans to build a new facility in in Klang, Malaysia.? Neways makes electrical control units, power controls and wiring systems for ASML's lithography products.? The new facility is due to start production in Q4 this year.

?According to the Nikkei, due to Intel and TSMC slowing down their plans for building fabs in the US, semiconductor material suppliers like Topco Scientific, LCY Chemical, and Chang Chun Group are also either postponing or scaling back plans to build facilities in Phoenix, Arizona to support the fabs due to soaring costs of construction materials and labor, as well as a shortage of construction workers.? Belgium’s high purity hydrogen peroxide supplier Solvay is reported to have postponed construction plans, whilst Taiwan’s Chang Chun Group has significantly scaled back plans.? Taiwan’s chemical and material distributor Topco Scientific is reported to be adjusting is investment schedule for warehouse logistics, whilst Taiwanese high purity chemical supplier ?LCY Chemical has decided to slow down construction. Taiwans KPCT Advanced Chemicals has postponed the construction of its high-purity sulfuric acid plant in the state.

German wafer manufacturer Siltronic plans to gradually cease production of polished and epitaxial small diameter wafers up to 150mm at its Burghausen site in Germany. The process, which excludes unpolished wafers, is set to be completed in the course of 2025.? Today less than 5% of market uses wafers up 150mm.

In market analysis news..

TSMC and Intel are actively fostering advanced packaging supply chains, building ecosystems and setting standards to increase their future market influence as escalating cost of semiconductor processes and the limits of Moore’s Law make the “integration capability” of advanced packaging a crucial weapon for industry players in future, according to the latest report from Trendforce. Trendforce reports that Intel is actively working to set standards for chiplets through the UCIe alliance to establish a standard for interconnecting chiplets within SoCs.? TSMC is also trying to develop an ecosystem through its 3D Fabric packaging technology and the formation of the 3DFabric Alliance.? TSMC has introduced the 3Dblox standard to integrate the design ecosystem with validated EDA tools and processes to support 3DFabric technology.

Global 300mm fab equipment spending for front-end facilities is forecast to reach a record US$137 billion in 2027 after topping US$100 billion for the first time by 2025 on the strength of the memory market recovery and strong demand for high-performance computing and automotive applications according to the latest update from SEMI.

?The global wearable devices market declined -0.9% YoY in 4Q’23 due to declines in demand from the U.S., Western Europe and Japan.? While the market declined slightly in 4Q23, global shipments of wearable devices managed to grow 1.7% for the full year 2023.?IDC forecast that global shipments of wearable devices will increase 10.5% in 2024 to reach around 560million units.

IDC is forecasting that global shipments of augmented reality and virtual reality (AR/VR) headsets will increase 44% to almost 10million units in 2024,? after declining 24% in 2023.? IDC forecasts Virtual Reality headset shipments will reach 24.7 million units by the end of 2028 (CAGR 29%) whilst Augmented Reality headsets will grow from a smaller base of less than a million units in 2024 to 10.9 million in 2028 (CAGR 87%)

According to SIA, U.S semiconductor industry employment, after 2 decades of decline, employment in has been surging again in the last 3 years with more than 23,000 jobs added.? U.S. employment in the industry has dropped from almost 230,000 chip related jobs in 2006 to a low of around 180,000 by 2009, and the industry has continued to bounce around that level until 2021.? However things are changing with more than 23,000 jobs added in the last three years and this trend is expected to continue with more than 130,000 added by 2030 thanks largely due to the CHIPS act.?

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Stay safe and healthy... bye

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