Foxconn is stepping up its effort in the semiconductor industry and began installing equipment for packaging high-end ICs at plants in China, while Chromebook shipments will experience a major drop, due to weakening demand from the end market. Seeing demand for memory products is still rising, Macronix is planning to expand its 12-inch fab by investing NT$41.5 billion.
Foxconn Technology (Hon Hai Precision Industry) has started installing equipment including lithography systems for high-end IC packaging at its chip plant in Qingdao, northeast China, according to industry sources.
The plant is set to kick off trial production in October, and will focus on packaging and testing 5G, AI and other HPC chips, with full-scale production slated for 2025 at the latest, the sources said.
Logic and memory IC backend house Powertech Technology (PTI) has revised upward its capex target this year to NT$17 billion (US$606.05 billion) from the NT$15 billion estimated previously.
Taiwan-based analog IC suppliers all intend to follow in the footsteps of their bigger international peers and raise their chip quotes, according to industry sources.
North America-based semiconductor equipment manufacturers posted US$3.67 billion in billings worldwide in June 2021 (three-month average basis), a record high for the sixth consecutive month, according to SEMI.
Following its move to set up a 5nm chips fabrication plant in the US and expand foundry capacity in China, TSMC has recently confirmed its intentions to build fabs in Japan and Germany to better serve its clients in the countries. The aggressive overseas production deployments, however, have sparked market doubts that the foundry giant may face tremendous cost pressure and can hardly break free from the world's main powers in the short term.
Texas Instrutments has given a less optimistic outlook for the third quarter of 2021, but industry sources have claimed that TI still sees prolonged lead times. TSMC has disclosed it is in early talks with clients about the feasibility of constructing a fab in Germany, and industry observers say such a fab could be a boost to Europe's car supply chain. DIGITIMES Asia president Colley Hwang has just published the first of his latest series of analysis of the global IT supply chain.
Networking IC specialist Realtek Semiconductor has said that it remains guardedly optimistic about its business prospects for the third quarter of 2021 as demand for its products across the board remains robust.
Industry sources have expressed doubts about Texas Instruments' less optimistic outlook for the third quarter, given the still prolonged lead times at the analog IC vendor.
The persistent tight supply of controller ICs for memory devices, particularly those built using a 28nm process node, will stretch into the end of 2022, with related suppliers expecting only to fulfill no more than 80% of their orders, according to industry sources.
SEMICON Taiwan 2021 has announced that starting from September, five online technology forums will be held as a prelude to its physical exhibition, which has been rescheduled to December. A spike in COVID-19 infections locally in Taiwan prompted the organization to postpone its physical event.
After the peak of component crunch in the second quarter along with insufficient inventory in the third quarter, stress of stagnant deliverables on the highway seems to have been relieved. A consensus of the supply chain is to let the manufacturers breathe. The fourth quarter is in line with the traditional off-season, and the days should be easier. From foundries to IC design houses, Taiwanese manufacturers are in the limelight now. DIGITIMES Asia has noted in its reports that the foundry sector is now a seller's market with strong demand to last in end of 2022. Such messages are based on dynamic changes in demand-supply status of IT industry from the most upstream of the supply chain. Component shortages and component cannibalization require long-term rolling tracking. DIGITIMES Asia has been making dynamic adjustments to its views in line with rolling forecasts.
TSMC is evaluating the feasibility of building more fabs overseas fabs, including Germany, according to the foundry house's chairman. Strong demand and tight capacity are sending foundry quotes rising. UMC is mulling raising service fees further by 10-15% in first-quarter 2022 for 40nm process. MIH CEO Jack Cheng believes the Foxconn-led open platofrm for EV development is revolutionzing the car industry.
TSMC is in the early stages of discussions with clients over the feasibility of setting up a new fab in Germany, chairman Mark Liu told shareholders at the company's annual general meeting on July 26.
China's top-3 OSAT providers - Jiangsu Changjiang Electronics Technology (JCET), Tongfu Microelectronics and Huatian Technology - are expected to see their combined revenue surge over 20% on year in 2021, according to Digitimes Research.
United Microelectronics (UMC) plans to raise its foundry quotes for 40nm process technology by 10-15% starting the first quarter of 2022, as well as quotes for other mature process nodes by 5-10%, according to sources at IC design houses.
The industrial production index in Taiwan increased 18.37% in June 2021, compared with the same month in 2020. The annual production index by some major industrial divisions is as follows: manufacturing increased 20.20%, mining & quarrying decreased 5.11%, electricity & gas supply decreased 0.29%; water supply decreased 4.39%, according to the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA).
Demand from the car sector has been strong, and foundry houses are stepping up efforts to rolling out more automotive chips. Apple's manufacturing partners are seeing COVID-induced disruptions to their production in Vietnam, and will have to move poduction of new-gen AirPods to China. And in China, construction of 5G base stations is slowing down this year.
First-tier automotive IC IDMs in the US, Japan and Europe have reportedly approached OSATs including ASE Technology, Powertech Technology (PTI) and Greatek Electronics to book backend capacity for 2022, according to industry sources.
OSATs are expected to raise their quotes again for wire-bonding packaging services in the first half of 2022 to reflect ever-rising costs for materials such as leadframes and molding compounds as shortages worsen, according to industry sources.
Taiwan-based pure-play foundries including TSMC, United Microelectronics (UMC), Vanguard International Semiconductor (VIS) and Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing (PSMC) are all gearing up for a boom in demand for automotive electronics by ramping up their output for related chips, according to industry sources.
TSMC will be ramping up its output for automotive chips through 2022, as the foundry has struck multiple contracts set to be fulfilled next year, according to sources at fabless chipmakers.
Chip shortage gas been serious, but Apple and carmakers are both asking for more ICs, the former looking to secure supply for its upcoming devices and the latter to prevent dirsuptions to their productions. Chinese IC designers are seeking more advanced manufacturing support from TSMC for their AI and HPC chips. Taiwan-based server makers are keen on expanding production capacity to meet strong demand.
