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Company Trend(April 24)

SK hynix invested heavily to build DRAM factory, overweighting AI chip market

Recently, SK hynix, the giant of chip supplier, announced to invest 20 trillion won (about US$ 14.6bn) to build a brand-new memory chip manufacturing fab, M15X, at the land for the originally planned NAND plant in Chungcheongbuk-do. This move of SK hynix aims to consolidate its leading position in the high-performance memory chip market and meet the growing market demand in the current AI chip boom.

According to the plan approved by SK hynix board of directors on Wednesday, M15X will be specialized in producing dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips instead of NAND memory chips as originally planned. The investment plan has been detailed. Of which, 5.3 trn won will be used to build buildings for the fab, and the rest will be used to purchase advanced machinery and equipment. SK hynix expected that the new fab would start mass production of DRAM chips in November next year. This schedule is earlier than expected, showing that the companys ability of rapid response to market demand.

Comments:

SK hynixs decision of this investment not only highlights its strong strength in the semiconductor industry, but also shows its keen insight and quick response to the market trends. Faced with the continuous growth of the AI chip market, SK hynix decisively adjusted its production plan and concentrated its resources on DRAM chip production, showing its strategic vision and market sensitivity.

In addition, SK hynix’s leading position in the field of HBM chips and close cooperation with leading enterprises such as Nvidia have provided strong support for its competition in the global semiconductor market. With the commissioning of the new fab, SK hynix will further enhance its production capacity and efficiency to consolidate its leading position in the market.

At the same time, this investment decision will also create a positive impact on the semiconductor industry of South Korea. SK hynix, as an important pillar of local semiconductor industry, will further promote South Koreas position in the field of global semiconductor production by building the new fab and inject new momentum into the sustainable development of South Korea’s semiconductor industry.

Company Trend(April 20)

Japan’s Sakura spent millions in building AI supercomputing center, with GPU procurement up fivefold

Recently, Japanese digital infrastructure service provider Sakura Internet announced that it had secured Japanese government subsidies to strengthen its cloud service “Koukaryoku” for generative AI. The company plans to expand the number of GPUs to be procured to fivefold from the initially planned quantity, aiming to establish a large-scale cloud infrastructure with a computational power of 18.9 EFLOPS by the end of March 2028.

Sakura had an ambitious plan to procure GPUs, including Nvidia’s latest product, the “Nvidia HGX B200”, unveiled in March. According to reports, Sakura announced last June to purchase approximately 2,000 Nvidia GPUs, which is projected to be completed ahead of schedule by the end of June 2024 due to orders significantly increased than expected. This time Sakura plans to invest around JPY 100bn to make additional procurement of approximately 8,000 GPUs in the coming three years. The overall GPU procurement quantity will be around 10,000 units, five times the original plan. It is reported that Sakura plans to build these high-performance GPUs into servers for enterprises engaged in generative AI R&D to promote the development and application of AI technology in Japan.

Comments:

Sakura Internets large-scale procurement of Nvidia GPUs is to provide strong computing support for its generative AI research, which is undoubtedly a blockbuster in the semiconductor industry. This not only reflects Japans ambition to develop in the AI field, but also shows its high dependence on and large investment in semiconductor technology. By greatly increasing the procurement of GPUs, Sakura is expected to enhance the computing power of its cloud services and provide strong support for generative AI research.

In addition, the financial support of the Japanese government also provided a strong guarantee for the AI development of companies such as Sakura. With the subsidies of the government, these enterprises can better cope with high procurement costs and accelerate their pace of building AI supercomputing centers. This also shows Japans strategic layout in the AI field. In other words, the government and enterprises will make joint efforts to promote the rapid development of the local AI industry and enhance their competitiveness in the global AI field.

However, with the increasingly fierce competition in the global semiconductor market, Japanese companies are also faced with rising prices and tight supply when purchasing high-performance GPUs. Therefore, how to control the cost of procuring GPUs while ensuring the stable supply will be a challenge faced by Japanese companies such as Sakura in the future.

Company Trend(April 23)

ROHM and STMicroelectronics deepen cooperation by signing supply contract of SiC wafers worth US$ 230mn

Recently, ROHM Co., Ltd. (ROHM) and STMicroelectronics (ST), two giants in the global semiconductor field, jointly announced that SiCrystal GmbH (SiCrystal), a subsidiary of the former, will further expand its long-term supply contract of 150mm SiC wafers with STMicroelectronics. According to the new contract, period, SiCrystal will continue to supply STMicroelectronics with SiC wafers made in the Nuremberg production base in Germany in the coming few years, and it is estimated that the trading volume will exceed US$ 230mn during the contract period.

According to the statement of executive vice president and chief procurement officer of STMicroelectronics, by expanding the supply contract of SiC wafers with SiCrystal, STMicroelectronics can ensure that its new demand for SiC wafers will be met in the future, thus accelerating the capacity expansion of corresponding products and further consolidating its leading position in the global automobile and industrial equipment market.

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As a leading SiC wafer manufacturer under ROHM Group, SiCrystal has many years of experience in R&D and production of SiC wafers, and its products enjoy a high reputation in the market. This expanded supply contract will undoubtedly further consolidate the leading position of SiCrystal in the global SiC wafer market, and will also help STMicroelectronics to take a more favorable position in competition in the global semiconductor market.

Simultaneously, with the increasing demand for efficient energy utilization and eco-friendly mobility solutions in the market, the supply stability and scale expansion of SiC wafers as the basic materials for manufacturing high-performance power devices, play a crucial role.

The expansion of SiC wafer market will greatly promote the technological innovation and upgrades of the semiconductor industry. With the rapid development of new energy automobiles and smart electronic devices, the demand for efficient and stable power semiconductors will grow continuously. The cooperation between ROHM and STMicroelectronics will not only meet the current market demand but also lay a solid foundation for future technological innovation and industrial layout.

It is worth mentioning that the cooperation between ROHM and STMicroelectronics also reflects that the global semiconductor industry is gradually shifting from the simple competition of products to the consolidation and strategic synergy of the industrial chain. By strengthening the cooperation between the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain, companies can better cope with market changes and technical challenges to achieve win-win development.

Looking ahead, with the continuous prosperity and the accelerated technological innovation of the global semiconductor market, leading companies such as ROHM and STMicroelectronics will continue to play a leading role and advance the healthy development of the global semiconductor industry.

Company Trend(April 20)

Intel leads the “new era” of semiconductors by first completing the assembly of next-gen lithography scanner

At the critical moment when the semiconductor industry has entered a new technical node, the chip giant Intel announced that it had taken the lead in completing the assembly of ASML’s new generation of High Numerical Aperture (High NA) Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography scanner. This significant progress marks an important step for Intel in the field of ultra-fine process manufacturing, and helps the company establish advantages in the competition landscape of the semiconductor industry.

It is reported that in December last year ASML confirmed the delivery of the first High NA EUV lithography scanner to Intel. This lithography scanner, worth as much as EUR 350mn (about RMB 2.7bn), is not only the technological pinnacle in the field of semiconductor manufacturing but also a key tool for Intel to achieve technological breakthrough, catch up with and surpass its competitors.  

The director of Intel lithography hardware and solutions said that the equipment plays a critical role in meeting the challenges of 1.8nm process and below, for which Intel has made clear strategic planning and firm determination.  

Notably, besides Intel, semiconductor giants such as TSMC, Samsung, SK hynix and Micron also ordered this advanced lithography scanner. However, since it will take six months to complete the transportation and installation of the equipment, Intels current leadership means that it will have obvious competitive advantages over some time in the future.

Comments:

In fact, it is no accident that Intel decided to take the lead in adopting High NA EUV lithography scanner. Although Intel has participated in the development of EUV lithography technology, it lags behind its competitor TSMC in terms of its practical application. The CEO of Intel admitted that it was a serious mistake for Intel and its first adoption of the new generation of lithography scanner is to make up for its weakness in the past.

With the continuous growth of the global semiconductor market, technological innovation has become the key measure for major enterprises to compete for market share. The appearance of High NA EUV lithography scanner has undoubtedly brought unprecedented development opportunities to the semiconductor industry. The technology enables finer chip manufacturing process and a significant step forward of the whole industry.

Domestic Trend

GigaDevice works with TASKING to jointly promote the development of automotive MCU(April 25)

On April 25, GigaDevice Semiconductor Inc. (GigaDevice) , a domestic leading semiconductor company in China, and TASKING, a world-renowned supplier of embedded software development tools,announced that they had reached a strategic cooperation in the field of GD32 automotive MCU chip development tools to jointly accelerate the development cycle of automotive electronic applications and ensure the functional safety and compliance of products.

This cooperation marks that GigaDevices strategic layout in the semiconductor industry has reached a new level and also represents an important step for its deepening development in the field of automotive MCUs. Through the cooperation with TASKING, GigaDevice will further enrich the ecological resources of automotive for developing its MCUs and improve its product performance and quality to meet the growing demand of the automotive electronics market.

The person in charge of the Automotive Products Department of GigaDevice said that TASKING, as a global leader in automotive embedded software development tools, has excellent development tools featuring high performance, high quality and safety orientation. The cooperation between GigaDevice and TASKING will greatly improve the development efficiency of GigaDevice’s automotive MCUs, ensure the functional safety and compliance of its products, and promote the rapid implementation of automotive electronic applications.

TSMC released new chip manufacturing technology A16, expected to put into operation 2026(April 24)

On April 24, 2024, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) released a new chip manufacturing technology called “A16” at North America Technology Symposium and it will enter production in 2026. This technology combines the leading nanosheet transistors with the innovative rear power rail solution, designed to significantly improve the logic density and performance of chip.

A highlight of A16 lies in its super power rail design, which moves the power supply network to the back of the wafer and frees more space for the layout of the signal network on the front of the wafer, thus improving the logic density and performance. This makes A16 especially suitable for high performance computing (HPC) products with complex signal wiring and dense power supply network.

Compared with the N2P of TSMC, the speed of A16 is increased by 8-10% at the same working voltage, its power consumption drops by 15-20% at the same speed, and the chip density increases by 1.10 times. This performance improvement is crucial to meet the demand for AI chips in super large data centers.

MCL capped its 8-inch epitaxial wafer project with capacity of 3.6mn units/year, with total investment of RMB 1.4bn+(April 24)

Recently, there is good news about the semiconductor industry that MCL Electronics Co., Ltd. (MCL) officially capped 8-inch epitaxial wafer project with capacity of 3.6 mn units/year, with total investment of RMB 1.4bn+. This milestone event marks the staged success of the project, laying a solid foundation for the subsequent improvement of its internal installation and electromechanical facilities and indicating that the localization of semiconductor materials will usher in a new development climax in China.

It is learned that the project is located in Luoyang High-tech Development Zone, Henan Province, and is built by MCL Electronic Materials Co., Ltd. The project, with total investment of more than RMB 1.4bn and a construction area of over 50,000 square meters, is one of the important projects in the field of semiconductor materials in the central region. After it is completed and put into production, the project will 3.6 million 8-inch silicon epitaxial wafers per year, which will greatly improve the self-sufficiency rate of semiconductor materials in China and meet the demand of high-quality silicon epitaxial wafers in domestic and foreign markets.

As the first high-tech enterprise capable of producing IC-grade polished 8-inch silicon wafers on a large scale in central China, MCL Electronic Materials Co., Ltd. has been committed to the research of semiconductor wafer processing technology and promotion of the autonomous level of the industry of semiconductor materials. The successful capping of this project not only highlights the companys technical strength and market competitiveness but also makes positive contributions to promoting Henan to develop in terms of emerging industries.