China, the world's leading consumer of semiconductors, is undergoing a third semiconductor shift in tandem with the development of 5G, consumer electronics, and AI. Owing to the shift of the semiconductor industry – growing downstream demand, and strong support from the government, China's IC design industry has grown rapidly in recent years.
Renesas Electronics has announced plans to reopen its Kofu factory located in Kai City, Yamanashi Prefecture as a 300mm wafer fab capable of manufacturing power semiconductors. The facility was closed in October 2014.
Samsung Electronics is reportedly mulling developing a new application processor series exclusively for its flagship smartphones, while having its existing Exynos chip series power midrange and entry-level phone models for other brands, according to industry sources. The Exynos series would compete against mobile APs from MediaTek and Qualcomm.
Quanta Computer is mulling the feasibility of relocating production of Apple's MacBook Pros to its plant in Chongqing, southwestern China, as output at its Shanghai plant in the eastern region of the country continues to be constrained by lockdown restrictions, according to industry sources.
China's handset shipments came to about 21.46 million units in March 2022, down 40% from a year earlier, with 5G smartphone shipments falling 41% on year to 16.19 million units, according to data compiled by the Chinese Academy of Information and Communication Technology (CAICT).
Xiaomi's mid-range smartphone brand Poco launched a new model F4 GT this week in Taiwan, which is likely to provide momentum for sales of gaming smartphone and give another push to Xiaomi's shipments, according to sources at retailers.
China's top foundry Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC) has estimated the Shanghai lockdown could reduce its production by 5% in the second quarter, while another major foundry Hua Hong Semiconductor has expressed optimism about second-quarter revenue gains.
Hyundai Motor India and Tata Power have entered into a partnership to build fast-charging facilities for Hyundai's dealer stores and customers, an important step for Hyundai's electric vehicles (EV) expansion in India.
South Korea's 5G-V2X cooperative autonomous vehicle infrastructures and service research projects are now open for bids, according to Korean-language media ET News.
SK On and Ford Motor are spending KRW8 trillion (US$6.35 billion) on equipment for EV battery factories they are jointly setting up in the US states of Kentucky and Tennessee, according to South Korean media ET News.
In the first quarter of 2022, Xiaomi secured a 22% share in Vietnam's smartphone market, becoming its second-largest, according to VIR citing Canalys' latest report.
Renesas Electronics has announced an integrated automotive ECU virtualization platform that enables designers to integrate multiple applications into a single ECU that are safely and securely separated from each other to avoid interference. The solution enables customers to adopt new electrical-electronic (E/E) architectures using MCU-based zone ECUs supporting multiple logical ECUs on one physical ECU, said the vendor.
Industrial computing solution provider Advantech expects second-quarter 2022 consolidated revenues to decrease 1.4-5.0% sequentially due to impact of COVID lockdowns in China, according to company CFO Eric Chen.
LED packaging specialist Brightek Optoelectronic has expressed caution about its business prospects for the second quarter, when sales are expected to hit bottom for 2022.
China's Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC) has delivered samples of its in-house developed 192-layer 3D NAND flash memory to a few customers recently, according to industry sources.
