SEMICON Taiwan 2020 is scheduled to take place in Taipei during September 23-25.

China has been stepping up its de-Americanization campaign seeking to strengthen its chip self-sufficiency in 2020 as its trade disputes with the US intensify, according to industry observers.

With major CMOS image sensor (CIS) vendors including On Semiconductor and Sony set to put increased focus on automotive applications, Taiwan-based backend houses including Tong Hsing Electronic Industries, King Yuan Electronics and Xintec have all stepped up their deployments in the segment seeking...

Chinese chipmakers including Lansus Technologies, MeidaTek-affiliate Vanchip Technology, and Unisoc Communications under the Tsinghua Unigroup are keenly developing 5G RF-FEM products including PA (power amplifier) components to support the government's efforts in boosting semiconductor self-sufficiency...

TSMC saw its June revenue climb to a record high of NT$120.88 billion (US$4.1 billion), rising 28.8% sequentially and 40.8% on year. Revenue for the first half of the year totaled NT$621.3 billion, gaining 35.2% from a year earlier.

Leading IC backend house ASE Technology Holding saw its revenues for both second-quarter and first-half 2020 hit record highs, thanks mainly to high capacity utilization for wire bonding and high-end FC and SiP processes driven by strong demand from clients, according to industry sources.

Pure-play foundries United Microelectronics (UMC) and Vanguard International Semiconductor (VIS) both saw their consolidated revenues hit record-high levels of NT$44.39 billion (US$1.51 billion) and NT$8.23 billion, respectively, in the second quarter of 2020.

Imec and Globalfoundries (GF) have jointly announced a hardware demonstration of a new artificial intelligence chip. Based on Imec's analog in memory computing (AiMC) architecture utilizing GF's 22FDX solution, the new chip is optimized to perform deep neural network calculations on in-memory computing...

Taiwan's monthly IC exports soared past the US$10 billion level in June for the first time ever, reaching US$10.253 billion for an annual increase of 27.54% due mainly to rush shipments to China's tech giant Huawei, according to customs statistics.

Orsted and TSMC have signed a corporate power purchase agreement (CPPA) where the foundry house will offtake the full production from the former's 920MW offshore wind farm in central Taiwan.

Artilux has announced that through its collaboration with TSMC, the company has developed its fully compliant all optical HDMI 2.1 IC solutions based on CMOS technology.

Silicon wafer manufacturer GlobalWafers saw its revenue increase 16.8% sequentially to a nearly one-year high of NT$5.06 billion (US$171.9 million) in June 2020.

Taiwan's IC testing houses Sigurd Microelectronics, Ardentec, King Yuan Electronics (KYEC) and Ardentec are expected to see their production lines run at high capacity in the third quarter of 2020 thanks mainly to a surge in orders for 5G applications, according to industry sources.

Taiwan's exports totaled US$27.13 billion in June 2020, growing 0.5% sequentially but slipping 3.8% on year, while the month's imports reached US$22.29 billion, unchanged sequentially and down 8.6% on year, according to the Ministry of Finance (MOF).

Though there is still uncertainty lying ahead because of the coronavirus pandemic, fabless IC designers are still anticipating a seasonal pick-up in demand from end market segments includign 5G phones. The IC designers are requesting...

Soitec has announced a business agreement with Qualcomm Technologies on the supply of piezoelectric-on-insulator (POI) engineered substrates for 4G and 5G RF filters. Soitec's piezoelectric-on-insulator substrate brings strong value proposition to smartphones' 5G filters for mass markets.

IC analysis and certification lab Material Analysis Technology (MA-tek) saw its revenue climb 20.2% from a year earlier to NT$1.42 billion (US$48.3 million) in the first half of 2020, and expects stronger growth momentum for revenues and profits in the second half to come from more analysis services...

The global semiconductor industry posted May sales of US$35 billion, up 1.5% sequentially, according to Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA).

Taiwan's first-tier IC design houses, such as MediaTek, have demanded more capacity support from their foundry partners recently, according to industry sources.

TSMC has also developed InFO_SoW (system-on-wafer) technology mainly for processing supercomputing AI chips. Demand for such extremely costly chips may be limited, but TSMC looks to commercialize the InFO_SoW technology in two years....

Taiwan's leading IC test interface solutions provider Chunghwa Precision Test Tech (CHPT) ended the first half of 2020 with impressive results, with revenues for the period spiking 53.3% on year to NT$1.96 billion (US$65.33 million), according to company sources.

TSMC, after launching 3D SoIC backend service, has also developed InFO_SoW (system-on-wafer) technology mainly for processing supercomputing AI chips and is expected to enter commercial production with the InFO-derived process within two years, according to sources familiar with the advanced packaging...

Taiwan-based semiconductor equipment suppliers engaged in TSMC's supply chain are set to be among the beneficiaries of the foundry house's advanced process capacity expansion with their short- and mid-term growth outlook promising, according to industry sources.

As demand for locally-developed CPUs and GPUs in China continues rising amid the US trade sanctions against Chinese IT enterprises, Taiwan-based IC substrate suppliers are expected to see more orders from China-based chipmakers in the next few years, according to sources from the upstream supply cha...

The board of directors of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has approved plans to issue NT$13.9 billion (US$471.7 million) in unsecured bonds to help purchase new equipment and facilities for capacity expansion, according to the world's largest dedicated semiconductor foundry.