The Tech Week that was... Oct 12~16

Welcome to my weekly newsletter with all the key semiconductor and technology news from around the world where you can catch up on all the key news in one easy read.

This week Apple announced the release of its latest iPhone models. The new iPhone 12 range has 5G capability for the first time and is powered by Apple's A14 processor built using TSMC’s 5nm technology.

This weeks TSMC raised it’s revenue forecast for 2020 again saying that robust demand for 5G smartphones and high-performance-computing (HPC) would help boost revenue this year by 30% in US dollar terms. This is despite having no revenue from Huawei this quarter after sales were stopped in Sept in accordance with the US Huawei ban. Just 3 months ago TSMC was forecasting that 2020 revenue would grow 20% in 2020.

Market research company IC Insights published it’s latest report on the pure-play foundry sales in China. They are forecasting that China’s share of the worlds pure-play foundry market will be 22% in 2020, this is up from 5% share 10years ago in 2010. The US remains the largest market for foundry sales accounting for 52%. In terms of foundry sales in China TSMC remains in first place, followed by SMIC, Huahong and UMC. China is forecast to account for approx US$9bn of TSMC sales accounting for 21% of TSMC sales.   

In other market research news, SEMI is predicting that global silicon wafer shipments will increase 2.4% in 2020 compared to 2019. They forecast that shipments will continue rising in 2021 and reach a record high in 2022.

Gartner says that worldwide PC shipments increased 3.6% yoy in Q3 with 71.4million units shipped. This is driven by the strongest consumer demand seen in 5 years due to home entertainment and working from home and distance learning needs during the ongoing pandemic, along with the strongest growth the U.S. PC market has seen in 10 years.  The top three vendors in the traditional PC market remained unchanged from the previous quarter with Lenovo in 1st place with 25.7% market share whilst consumer focused Asus saw the highest growth yoy with a 29.5% increase. 

VLSI Research is forecasting that reticle sales will increase 6% in 2020 as ASP’s increase in an improving semiconductor market. The number of reticle units shipped is projected to grow by low single digits, driven by higher activity for the 65nm and below nodes. The number of design completions is expected to be flat in 2020 following a 3% decline the previous year. EUV reticles will surge more than 4x this year, but they will account less than 1% of total reticle units

ASML reported it’s Q3 results with sales of US$4.63billion driven by strong Logic sales. ASML recognised revenue from 14 EUV systems this quarter representing 66% of revenue and is the first time EUV has been higher than DPV system revenue. They predict Q4 sales to be US$4.34billion and expect low double digit growth in 2021. 

Taiwanese specialist foundry Vanguard International Semiconductor (VIS) reported September revenue of US$99million as wafer shipments increased. This is up 2% compared to August and up almost 22% yoy. 

Taiwanese DRAM chipmaker Nanya Technology has reported September revenue of US$193million, up 14% compared to August and up 11% yoy. Q3 revenue as a whole was down 7% compared to Q2. Nanya Technology has decided to defer it’s planned capex of US$174.6 million this year to 2021, according to the DRAM chipmaker.

In Mergers and acquisitions, there were no new updates this week on the rumoured AMD acquisition of Xilinx reported last week. EEtimes ran an article looking and the pros and cons of such a deal if it comes true.

This week STMicroelectronics announced the acquisition of French Fabless company SOMOS Semiconductor. SOMOS is a fabless semiconductor company offering leading edge RF Power Amplifier, RF Front End, and RF Switch products and designs for 4G & 5G IoT and Smartphone applications, based in Marly-le-Roy in France. Recently STM acquired 2 other companies BeSpoon for UWB technology and Riot Micro for NB-IoT modems. Claude Dardenne, President of STM’s Microcontroller and Digital IC group said that with these acquisitions ST now offers its customers complete connectivity solutions leveraging the market-leading STM32 solutions and ecosystem.”

Japanese photoresist maker Shin-Etsu Chemical have announced it will invest almost US$300million in it’s manufacturing plants in Japan and Taiwan over the next 1.5 years in response to the growing demand and advances in the semiconductor photoresists market. Investment will made to increase production capacity at it’s Taiwan plant in Douliu City, Yunlin County and it’s Japanese Naoetsu Plant in Niigata Prefecture. Completion of all capacity increase construction is targeted for Feb 2022.   

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought a significant increase in the interest in UVC LED’s for disinfection and could double the market size for UVC LED’s from US$144million in 2019 to US$308million in 2020, could reach US$2.5billion by 2025 according to the latest market report by Yole.

That’s all for this week, if you enjoyed this article, why not subscribe to my week newsletter so you don’t miss another issue.

Stay safe and healthy.. bye.