Logic IC manufacturing process technologies have been making rapid advances with lithography technologies and machines, transistor architecture and power delivery network (PDN) design all playing vital roles in driving the advance.

US government's Export Administration Regulations (EAR) are expected to set back China's progress in AI and supercomputer research and weaken its technological and military strength which otherwise could be empowered by its semiconductor advances.

Global foundry revenue is set to reach US$137.2 billion in 2022, soaring 25.8%, and the brilliant performance is a result of price hikes, customer long-term agreements (LTA) and capacity expansions.

DIGITIMES Research expects smartphone shipments to grow 2-9% a year throughout the period from 2023-2027 with the CAGR for the five years to come to 4.8%.

DIGITIMES Research expects smartphone shipments to grow 2-9% a year throughout the period from 2023-2027 with the CAGR for the five years to come to 4.8%.

Seeing the feeble smartphone sales in their home market China and reduced smartphone purchases by consumers in overseas markets because of inflation, Chinese smartphone brands, to lower channel inventory levels, stayed conservative with their global shipments in the third quarter of 2022 with combined volumes amounting to around 140 million units in the quarter, down 5.5% sequentially and 18.2% on year.

Global tablet shipments reached 38.4 million units in the third quarter of 2022, slightly better than DIGITIMES Research originally anticipated, driven mainly by increased orders from Apple, which saw tablet shipments disrupted by China's COVID-19 lockdowns implemented in cities of the Yangtze Delta, and other brand vendors' keen promotions on tablets.

Shipments of application processors (APs) used in smartphones released by China-based brands went up 10.2% sequentially, but down 19.4% on year to reach 199.5 million units in the third quarter of 2022.

Global server shipments went up 4.3% sequentially in the third quarter of 2022 due to rising demand from public cloud services providers and server brand vendors as well as ODMs' deferred orders from the previous quarter.

Taiwanese notebook makers had shipments weaker than expected in the third quarter of 2022, growing only 2.7% sequentially, far less than the double-digit increase estimated by DIGITIMES Research originally, but still slightly higher than the growth of the global volumes.

Soaring silicon carbide (SiC) demand from electric vehicles (EV) is leading to a tight supply of 6-inch SiC wafers, of which the cost will unlikely go down.

The four leading Taiwan-based foundries - TSMC, UMC, PSMC and VIS - together are on course to generate revenues exceeding US$90 billion in 2022, soaring 31.8% from a year ago.