Weekly News

1.TSMC Captures 70% Share of the Smartphone AP/SoC and Baseband Shipments in Q1 2022

Global smartphone chipset (SoC/AP+Baseband) shipment declined 5% YoY in Q1 2022 due to seasonality, weaker demand in China amid lockdowns and over shipping from some chipset vendors in Q4 2021, according to the Counterpoint’s Foundry and Chipset Tracker.

However, this decline was offset by strong growth in the chipset revenues which grew a healthy 23% YoY in Q1 2022, as the chipset mix shifted towards costlier 5G smartphones.

TSMC, the world’s largest foundry, captured nearly 70% share of manufacturing the key chipsets going into the smartphones from the complete System-on-Chip (SoC) to discrete Application Processors (AP) and cellular modems.

Samsung Foundry was the second largest foundry behind TSMC capturing a 30% share of the global smartphone chipsets.

Commenting on the foundry landscape for smartphone segment, Senior Research Analyst, Parv Sharma, said, “Foundries are extremely high CAPEX, cutting-edge technology businesses which have led to a duopoly for manufacturing advanced chipsets for smartphones.

TSMC and Samsung Foundry together control the entire smartphone chipset market and TSMC is more than double Samsung in terms of manufacturing scale and market share.

TSMC CAPEX spending is much higher than the competitors. It will invest $100 billion between 2021-2023 in 5/4nm and 3nm chip fabrication facilities, WFE, 3D packaging, and ramp up for 5/4nm and 28nm to meet the growing demand.

Thus enabling TSMC to capture a large share in the advanced nodes.

2.Samsung Electronics, to Develop High Purity Semiconductor Components with Partners

Reducement of dependence on overseas purchases is expected. It has been understood that Samsung Electronics is developing expandable parts for silicon semiconductors with a number of domestic partners.

This is a key expendable part used in the etching process to remove unnecessary sections of the circuit in the semiconductor process.

Silicon-based parts and silicon carbide-based products are used in the etching process. Silicon products are necessary in the manufacturing of memory semiconductors such as DRAM and NAND Flash.

Samsung Electronics is developing silicon expendables with its domestic partners. This includes electrodes that evenly spray plasma when cutting memory wafers, outers that secure the electrodes in place, and focus rings that are used when precisely cutting wafers with plasma.

The reason Samsung Electronics is developing silicon electrodes, outers, and focus rings is to cope with the demand for memory semiconductors.

The World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) has predicted that the size of the memory semiconductor market will be 182.7 billion USD this year. An increase of 23.8 billion USD from last year's 153.8 billion USD is expected.

3.Micron Announces Availability of DDR5 DRAM For Next-Gen Intel & AMD Server and Workstation Platforms

Micron Technology, Inc. announced commercial and industrial channel partner availability of Micron DDR5 server DRAM in support of industry qualification of next-generation Intel and AMD DDR5 server and workstation platforms.

The move to DDR5 memory enables up to an 85% increase in system performance over DDR4 DRAM. Micron’s new server memory maximizes performance for AI, HPC, and data-intensive applications that require more CPU compute capacity and higher memory bandwidth than DDR4 technology can support.

4.UMC announced that it will build a factory in Singapore to vigorously expand production to meet market demand

On July 7th, UMC announced that the new factory in Singapore will build the Fab12i P3 factory in the form of leased land, with a total contract amount of 8.813 billion yuan for production use.

According to the plan made by UMC, the monthly production capacity of the first phase of the new plant is 30,000 pieces.

It is expected to be mass-produced by the end of 2024, with 22nm and 28nm processes as the main force, mainly for the needs of 5G, Internet of Things and automotive electronics. The investment amount is USD 5 billion.

5.Global cellular IoT module chipset shipments in Q1 2022 increased by 35% year-on-year, with Qualcomm, UNISOC and ASR occupying the top three

Global cellular IoT module chipset shipments grew 35% YoY in Q1 2022, according to the latest research from Counterpoint’s Global Cellular IoT Module and Chipset Tracker by Application.

China was the key region for cellular IoT module chipset consumption during the quarter, with China, North America and Western Europe accounting for over 75% of the volume. PC, router/CPE and industrial were the top three applications for 5G.

Commenting on the market dynamics, Research Analyst Anish Khajuria said, “Qualcomm, UNISOC and ASR held the top three positions in the global cellular IoT module chipset market in Q1 2022, accounting for nearly 75% of the total shipments.

UNISOC, Qualcomm and ASR were top chipset players in China in terms of shipments. For the rest of the world, Qualcomm led, followed by UNISOC and Sequans. 4G (Cat 1 and Cat 1 bis) grew 79% YoY in this quarter.”