The Tech Week that was.. Nov 18~22nd
As we approach December and near the end of 2019, here is my weekly summary of all the global semiconductor news from last week that you may have missed but need to know. As usual it was a busy week with much happening.
For the first time in 12 months, North American based semiconductor equipment manufacturers showed a year on year improvement in monthly billing’s and were at the highest level since last December due to increasing orders from foundries and even from some memory manufacturers. North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $2.11 billion in billings worldwide in October 2019 (three-month average basis), according to SEMI up 7.7% on September and 3.9% YoY.
Intel this week published a letter to customers apologising for ongoing CPU supply issues. Despite spending record levels of capex on 14nm capacity, moving some products to 22nm equipment and outsourcing more to foundries they are still struggling to keep up with demand.
Despite these supply problems, Intel is expected to retake the number one semiconductor supplier spot from Samsung for 2019. In the latest ICinsights report the top 15 semiconductor suppliers sales are forecast to drop by 15% overall for 2019 compared to 2018. Memory companies showed the biggest declines of over 29%. Only 3 companies are expected to show a year on year growth in 2019, these are TSMC, Sony and MediaTek.
In Taiwan, the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) raised it’s forecast for the Taiwanese semiconductor production value to US$86.9billion, up 1% on last year. This increase came after the industry saw results turn into positive territory last quarter, increasing 4% after 2 straight quarters of decline.
The trade war between US and China appeared to ease a bit this week. The US chamber of commerce extended the temporary license for a further 90 days allowing companies to do business with Huawei. This is the 3rd extension since the ban was initially announced in May. In addition on Wednesday the US Commerce department was reported to have begun issuing licenses to some companies allowing them to restart sales to Huawei. It was reported that licenses for up to one third of the 300 applications were granted, but apart from Microsoft, it is unclear which other companies received licenses. Immediately a group of 15 bipartisan senators wrote to President Trump requesting him to suspend issuing licences.
China’s antitrust regulator is said to be closely monitoring Diode Inc’s proposed US$428 take over of Taiwanss Lite-On Semiconductor as the deal includes the Shanghai based affiliate On-Bright Electronics which would become US owned.
Qualcomm is forecasting that by 2021 global smartphone sales of 5G handsets will be around 450million, increasing to 750million in 2022. This forecasts follows an earlier forecast that around 200million 5G handsets will be sold in 2020. The adoption of 5G is forecast to be much faster than 4G was.
STM has expanded it’s multi-year deal for silicon carbide (SiC) wafer supply wiih Cree to over US$500m, more than doubling the original agreement signed earlier this year. This deal reflects the growing importance of SiC based technologies for automotive electric vehicles and industrial applications like solar, energy storage and UPS systems in the coming years.
Compound semiconductor wafer foundry IQE has issued an updated full year guidance, reducing revenue to the bottom of it’s previous forecast due to poor sales from RF chips customers. It now expects revenue to be in the range of US$178million down from a previous midpoint of US$193million. Sales of wafers to its largest 3D sensing VCSEL photonics company remained strong in the 2H, but the InP laser market for datacom/telecom has remained weak, though it is expected is expected to grow in 2020, especially in Asia.
Apple has started building it’s new US$1billion campus in Austin Texas. The new campus will initially employ 5000 employees when it opens in 2022, growing to 15,000 employees.
And finally, with 11/11 singles day sales having just been completed, recording a record US$38.4billion in sales in one day, with electronic gadgets and fashion items amongst the most items sold, and with Black Friday coming up, here is a thought provoking article about how internet sales and home delivery have reshaped the world we live in. The huge increase in sales over the last 10~15years and also the reduction in delivery times have put a huge burden on the logistics industry and our roads and changed the way they operate.
That's all for this week, if you liked this article please do help to like and share it on Linkedin.