Demand for notebooks remains robust, thanks to the stay-at-home economy. Notebook ODMs expect orders to be stable in first-half 2021, and their order visibility for the second half of the year is getting clearer. In the handset sector, demand for 5G smartphones is also picking up. To enhance its competitiveness, MediaTek is expected to upgrade two of its mobile processors for the entry level to midrange segments later this year. Vietnam is a fast growign economy. Digitimes recently interviewed Tien Nguyen, founder of Vietnam-based investment platform Wiziin trying to understand what opportunities the Southeast Asian country offers.ODMs see notebook order visibility extending in 2H21: Thanks to the stay-at-home economy driven by the coronavirus pandemic, notebook shipments are expected to stay robust in 2021, with ODMs see stable orders for the first half of the year and visibility for the second half is also becoming clearer, according to sources from the notebook upstream supply chain.MediaTek to roll out upgraded 5G chips in 1H21: Judging from MediaTek's product roadmap, the chipmaker is expected to unveil the upgraded versions of its Dimensity 800 and 700 5G SoC lineups in second-quarter 2021, according to industry sources.Vietnam investment opportunities: Q&A with Wiziin CEO Tien Nguyen: Many startups are confused about how to find angel investors, while investors are discouraged by the lack of transparency of information about startup investments. Nguyen Ngoc Tien (aka Tien Nguyen), founder and CEO of Wiziin Vietnam, saw this pain point and created a platform to connect investors with startups and quality SMEs, using artificial intelligence (AI) to help startups manage investor relationships and find potential investors, while giving investors real-time and accurate information of startups to help manage their portfolio.

True wireless stereo (TWS) devices were highlighted at the recently concluded online CES 2021, as many handset brands, acoustic device suppliers and startups showcased their latest products at the event.Most TWS devices presented at the fair emphasized their respective ANC (active noise cancellation) capabilities, improved call noise reduction functionality and power efficiency, Digitimes Research has found.The increasing application of ANC technology has increased the number of microphones used by each monaural earphone to over three from 1-2 used previously, improving communication quality and transparency mode.Thanks to increasing competition, prices of ANC-enabled TWS have been lowered to the US$150-segment, enabling more consumers to access ANC experiences, which in turn helps expand TWS market share.Smartphone vendors are launching TWS devices to expand their handset ecosystem, emphasizing that their TWS products deliver a consistent experience with their handsets in terms of outer appearances, colors and designs.Traditional acoustic device makers, including JBL and Bose, are developing TWS devices to expand their portfolios by optimizing their prowess for acoustic products with integrated functionalities such as voice assistance.Most startups focus on target customer groups rolling out TWS products with enhanced performance, such as high water-proof and head-motion sensing capabilities.

Many startups are confused about how to find angel investors, while investors are discouraged by the lack of transparency of information about startup investments. Nguyen Ngoc Tien (aka Tien Nguyen), founder and CEO of Wiziin Vietnam, saw this pain point and created a platform to connect investors with startups and quality SMEs, using artificial intelligence (AI) to help startups manage investor relationships and find potential investors, while giving investors real-time and accurate information of startups to help manage their portfolio.In a recent online interview, Digitimes talked to Nguyen to understand what value this new platform may create for the new venture ecosystem.Q: Could you briefly introduce your background? And what brought you to start your entrepreneurial journey?A: My background is business strategy. And in 2010, I started my first project in e-learning. And we provide the Mass Open Online Courses (MOOC) services for universities. After that startup, I created a new one in Hong Kong, offering cards for loyalty programs for, say, members of Chamber of Commerce. At that point of time, that businesses was very promising, because people used physical cards, but we offered them digital cards with which they could redeem their loyalty rewards. We then exited from this business to a Japanese investor.And then I created my third venture, an outsource platform for software. The Vietnamese engineers of that platform were excellent, and we offered good prices. The outsourcing industry bloom at that point of time allowed us to expand and invest more in other projects in Internet of Things (IoT) and social network.And in 2016, I got a scholarship from the Irish government to study in Ireland in strategy. Therefore, my main academic background is business strategy and military strategy. After that master's program, I went to Beijing, and did a project as a strategic researcher. At the same time, I remained an entrepreneur, I opened companies in Ireland and in England, respectively, both focusing on artificial intelligence and big data.At that point of time, by doing projects with my professors in University College Dublin and the Silicon Dock in Ireland, I realized the real roles and interactions of innovation-based startups and VCs. So I joined Act Venture Capital, which managed a fund of EUR500 million, backed by the European Central Bank. We invested in renewable energy projects, in biotech, and tech companies. I managed that for four years. And then I came back here in Vietnam, but I remain a limited partner (LP) of the firm.I realized that there is a gap in investment in the Asia Pacific region. It is also very difficult to do due-diligence because information sometimes is not very transparent, and not accurate. However, as an investor, we need to release the money. Keeping the money in our pocket is a waste. So that's why we try to narrow the gap by creating Wiziin. Wiziin is an investment platform where we try to collect transparent and accurate information from startups and investors and make them available real-time. And we not only have the matching services to provide for both, we also provide the tools. It costs startups a lot of time to maintain investor relationships to raise funds. Wiziin helps them maintain investor relations on the platform. Startups can focus on their daily operation activities, but when they need to raise funds, they can use Wiziin to find appropriate investors. And for the investors, by using the investor dashboard, they can keep track of whichever startups in their portfolio.I believe that we can create more options for both - not just for investors but also for entrepreneurs.Q: How does AI come to play at Wiziin? How do you make AI work for your platform?A: After years of experience working in big data and AI projects, as an investor, I understand that the first stage of AI should be data. When we try to find one good enough startup, we scan through thousands of startups, and do tons of work just to find the right ones. I realized that some of our analysts, sometimes they get lost in the job, and sometimes they are a little bit biased, when they try to do the initial screening for the startup.So, first, we gather data big enough for analysis. We have got more than 60,000 Vietnamese SMEs data ready for the platform. I believe in the future there will be more because we will expand coverage to entire Asia Pacific region. Why SME? Because in the region the number of SMEs is huge. And with that data, we need to calculate and analyze everything, but it is impossible to do so much work. So, we developed an AI bot that can program themselves. So, the bot programs itself every day by gathering data. When SMEs upload their data to us, such as financial data, operational data and founders' data, we collect everything with high level of privacy standards in order to fuel the investment decision making process.We collect four kinds of data: first, the background of the founding team. The second one is the technology that they use. Do they have patents, licenses? Anything like that. The third thing is market data, about the market and their market share. And the fourth is financial data: revenues, earnings, how much money the founders are putting into the company, etc. We also try our best to collect and analyze data from reliable third parties, like the government.After some analysis, our AI bot will generate an evaluation. So, through time we believe that our valuation will be as close as the valuation that happens in real life. And we try to introduce a kind of machine learning method so that the bot can program itself every day to keep it accurate. That transparent information can assist the decision-making efficiency for investors, because sometimes the investors do not really know what they like. Sometimes they got some policy or criteria to screen investments, but when they make a decision, sometimes it's very intuitive. So, we need a tool to take care of the SMEs and startups and also the buyer side and learn about their behavior. Only behaviour reflects investment decisions.Q: Can you explain more about learning the behavior? Also, do you let investors set up their own preferences?A: The backbone of our platform is that we learn from behavior. So we collect the historical behavior of the investor. For example, I got a case study, which is a local investor. We analyzed hundreds of cases that she already invested, and we realized that 80% of her portfolio has had something to do with sustainable environment or helping women in society.We learn from that, and then we can see she is a social-impact investor. She never told us about it, she probably had never realized that she wanted to invest in impact investment. But now we learn from that behavior. And then we suggest a list of companies heavy with social enterprises. We also have the features that investor can customize. But at the end of the day with the tons of data, it's better to let the AI bot do the job. Investors can set their customization, but that may not be necessary. But it's also the options they may choose.Q: So right now, your focus is still on Vietnam. Do you have plans for future expansions?A: Yes, we have focused on Vietnam. And our next strategy is to open this platgofrm for European investors. We also have plans for expansions in Southeast Asia by the end of 2021, so we can pull in more investors in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. Now we have some Indonesian SMEs on our platform and some from India. In 2022, if it goes smoothly, we hope to introduce the financial market, where we can introduce more options for investors. For example, investors currently can only invest in equity, like they can buy equity from SMEs, but in 2022 we hope that we can offer convertible notes, which means they can give loans to the SMEs and can convert to equity if the KPI do not match. Or we can create a kind of lending services from investors for SMEs with a suitable interest rate. But for that we will focus on Asia Pacific, because the SMEs in Vietnam may be not as many as those in the whole region; it's true also in terms of the number of investors. Especially the investors in Vietnam mainly are the government and some big corporate venture capital funds; there aren't many real investors with huge amounts here yet. The startup ecosystem here is: within more than 110 active funds, Vietnamese investors contribute 25%, another 25% from Singapore, and 17% from the US. In the future the numbers of European, Korean and Chinese VC will rise.On the other hand, we also see the importance of converting the individual traditional investor to venture investment, so that they can have more investment options with more risks and more rewards. This market helps us to scale, especially when we focus on Asia Pacific. So we must focus more on Asia Pacific in the next three to five years for enough volume of the market.Q: I see. So the SMEs you're referring to is not only the startups, you mean they can also be on the investor side?A: Yes, the SMEs mean those we connect from both sides and we work with as a platform - we work with stakeholders and investors. SMEs do not mean only startups. Startups are just a portion of it. We also aim at SMEs that can or want to integrate innovations into what they do, and SMEs that need funding. Even though they are traditional, they know that they want to have new ways of business, which we can help. So, the whole system is for small and medium enterprises, not only startups.Q: I suppose there are many hidden champions - which may be family businesses, but are very competitive in their technologies - that could be discovered by your platform. Is that your purpose of including SMEs which are not startups into your platform?A: Yes. Because for an economy like Vietnam, we don't have many tech firms yet, and we have more traditional enterprises. We need kind of synergies of both. It's not enough to have startups only; we have SMEs that know how to do business with a brand, have know-how, or need funds to grow their businesses. Many startups are good at technology, know about innovation, young, strong, but do not have enough experience in the market. So we want the whole ecosystem that can create synergies for themselves.Q: What is Vietnam's startup landscape right now? And how can both sides create synergy to optimize the value of collaboration?A: The Vietnamese startup ecosystem is quite young and has a lot of potential. Back in 2008, American firms like IDG venture invested in Vietnamese ICT companies, but they invested in software companies mostly. But now Samsung and Philips have set up factories here, and later this year Apple will also be investing here. I must say that this is the time of doing technology business. The government has encouraged this a lot; they put it into the Five-Year Economic Plan. And what Vietnam has now is the capability to make software, and capability of using some designs for hardware and mass production. But in the next 10 to 15 years, I would say that Vietnam will have the ability to design the hardware, semiconductor, and similar stuff. So, invest now; we know these businesses will bear fruit in the next five or 10 years. And the startup ecosystem will be crowded very soon, because after Vietnam and EU signed the Free Trade Agreement, European VCs are now aware of this market and will want to jump on the bandwagon here, like Japan. The Japanese also have VCs around here. They have some tractions in this market. So, as I will say this is the right time for investors to get into the market. And as an investor, we can consider Vietnam as a player with the ability of creating high value products, not just a market with a huge population. A population of more than 90 million is remarkable, so there is great potential that will materialize in the next five or 10 years.Q: Can you talk more about Vietnam's design capability?A: We're talking about the next 10 to 15 years. In the case of eSilicon (which designs and manufactures digital CMOS and finFET ASICs chips), they are based in Silicon Valley, but 80% of their engineers are Vietnamese. And they have managed to sell the company at US$216 million to Inphi. They hire Vietnamese engineers for design work and then they send those engineers to Silicon Valley to work for the mother company. I believe that in the next 10 to 15 years, when these engineers want to return and contribute to Vietnam, that is the right time for a wave of hardware creation and production.And there's a company that we work with - Akselos.About 90% of their engineers are Vietnamese. It is an Internet of Things (IoT) company that creates the world's fastest and most advanced engineering simulation technology. So normally, if you have a failed wind turbine in the sea, it will take more than three weeks to send the engineer up, take it down, and then fix it.Akselos has a solution, which takes just three hours: they can detect everything that happened via sensor data, and send the engineers up to fix it. So Akselos has US$10 million from Shell as a grant. And that's a very interesting case about a Vietnamese engineers that can work for a global firm. So I believe in the human resources and entrepreneurial spirit, especially in the ability and the ambition of the founders. We can find good talent here. We don't have advanced technology yet, but we will in a very near future.Q: How can Taiwan and Vietnam work together to create synergy?A: In my opinion, let's have a look at the strengths and weaknesses. We must say that Taiwanese technology is remarkable in the world, everybody knows that. But there are limitations of the island. I seem similarities between Ireland, where I lived several years, and Taiwan. In Ireland, they just have five million people. But Ireland has great industry, so we invested in the technology companies located in the Silicon Dock in Dublin, continental Europe and America.And investment will be the key for Taiwan, to reach new markets, to create more value and create more jobs. So I believe that investment in a growing country is what Taiwanese companies should have a look at. I believe that Taiwanese firms can invest in technology in Vietnam, Indonesia, in the ASEAN region. So people can see the value that Taiwanese company can add to those economies. The Taiwanese companies then can own some pieces of the bigger pie. Not limited to the Taiwanese pie but enjoy the pie of the whole region. What is Taiwan's advantage? I believe that is the advanced technology, especially hardware, and stable financial resources.This can be suitable for the ecosystem in Southeast Asia. The key is investment in technology around this region. And also, in the next five or 10 years, I believe that we can be a place to mobilize investments to other countries. Because the FTA that we have signed with other countries, there are hot money chasing after technology, so we can also mobilize the investments from Vietnam to some companies in Taiwan and create more jobs. For Taiwan, investing overseas is the key.Wiziin CEO Tien NguyenPhoto: Company

Weaker-than-expected sales for the iPhone 12 mini in the US and Europe reportedly has prompted Apple to have its manufacturing partner, Pegatron, reduce production for the smartphone model. Competition in the handset remains as intense as ever, and processor vendors are keen to secure orders from smartphine vendors on the one hand, and capacity support from the upstream, particularly from the semiconductor sector. Qualcomm reportedly has reached an agreement with TSMC for the foundry house's next-generation manufacturing processes. Many companies in the semiconductor supply chain have been running at full or tight capacity, including foundry house PSMC.Pegatron sees slowdown in orders for iPhone 12 mini: Pegatron has seen a slowdown in orders for the iPhone 12 mini as sales of the model in the US and Europe are affected negatively by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to industry sources.Nvidia, Qualcomm reportedly seeking TSMC support for next-generation manufacturing processes: Nvidia and Qualcomm reportedly have already reached agreements with TSMC for capacity support from its next-generation manufacturing processes, and with orders from Intel, Apple and AMD, the Taiwanese foundry house is expected to enjoy growth from 2021 to 2025, according to sources from the semiconductor industry.Powerchip runs 12- and 8-inch fabs at nearly full utilization: Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing (PSMC) has run its 12- and 8-inch wafer fabs at nearly full capacity utilization, according to the Taiwan-based foundry.

Strong demand from various product sectors and tight supply from chip vendors, DRAM pricing is expected to stay robust through third-quarter 2021 before correction occurs in th elast quarter of the year. Tight capacity is troubling the semiconductor ecosystem across different sectors. GaAs foundry AWSC is looking to raise quotes for its 6-inch fab quotes to reflect strong demand amid tight supply. Meanwhile, Apple reportedly will upgrade the camera specs for its next-generation iPhones to be launched this year. All new iPhone models for 2021 are said to be coming with sensor-shift stabilization technology.DRAM prices to rise through 3Q21: DRAM prices are expected to rise through the third quarter of 2021 before heading for a correction in the fourth quarter, according to industry sources.GaAs foundry AWSC raises quotes: GaAs foundry Advanced Wireless Semiconductor Company (AWSC) has notified its clients about an around 10% hike in its 6-inch foundry quotes, according to industry sources.Next-gen iPhones to all feature sensor-shift stabilization technology: Apple's next-generation iPhones slated for launch in the second half of 2021 will all come with sensor-shift stabilization technology, according to industry sources.

Digital transformation of the manufacturing sector driven by Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and autonomous driving enabled by Internet of Vehicles (IoV) are key focus areas of today's industrial development and they offer tremendous business opportunities. In particular, with 5G commercialization kicking off, vendors have high hopes for the explosive market potential to be ignited by 5G, featuring low latency and high-speed data transmission.However, flourishing market developments also introduce rising cybersecurity risks to the diversity of connected devices. There have been frequent reports about manufacturers under cyberattacks. It is foreseeable that cybersecurity risks will only multiply when the Internet of Everything (IoE) era is here. Accordingly, both suppliers that look to capture preemptive IoT opportunities and manufacturers that want to undertake digital transformation cannot afford to overlook the importance of how to meet the latest cybersecurity requirements.During a recent interview, TUV NORD management gave an in-depth look into IEC 62443, a series of standards aimed to address the security of industrial automation and control systems (IACS), Automotive Software Performance Improvement and Capability Etermination (ASPICE), which provides the framework for software development and capability test in the automotive industry, and ISO/SAE 21434, which provides standardized cybersecurity engineering elements for vehicles. TUV NORD hopes to keep vendors abreast of the latest standards and enable them to begin early preparation and to foster a cybersecurity culture so that they can capture rising opportunities and ensure sustainable success.Becoming the target of cyberattacks, manufacturers must deal with IACS cybersecurity threatsAccording to David Lin, Senior Technical Manager, Industrial Service, TUV NORD, manufacturers have always focused on safety, making efforts to prevent equipment failure from causing harm to human safety. However, when factory machines now become connected to networks, manufacturers have to start taking into consideration how security will affect safety. IEC 62443 was established with an aim to address this issue. It provides a set of standards for IoT applications that complement what was missing from operational technology (OT) security frameworks in the past. The IEC 62443 standard is different from the Common Criteria for Information Technology Security Evaluation (referred to as Common Criteria or CC), which the IT industry has long been practicing.Jack Liao, Senior Manager, Product Certification, Industrial Service, TUV NORD, added IEC 62443 makes it clear that it is aimed to ensure the availability of critical infrastructure such as harbors, power plants, docks and airports and prevent cybersecurity breaches from disrupting services. It is not the same as ISO 27001, which is a specification for an information security management system that highlights data confidentiality.This is also why the EU is strongly promoting IEC 62443 as IACS standards. When cyberattacks are launched against a country, it is imperative that infrastructure services maintain continuous operation without interruption. The same is true in the case of Taiwan, nicknamed Silicon Island. Should the semiconductor supply chain that Taiwan takes great pride in fall under cyberattacks, the global market will feel the impact.This sheds light on the importance of IEC 62443 and the challenges it is intended to address. Within the vast scope of IACS cybersecurity, IEC 62443 highlights "defense in depth," a multi-layered defense mechanism with several levels of security requirements distributed throughout the system from the outer layer management to the core product technology. More specifically, taking network devices for example, IEC 62443 specifies requirements for each of the seven layers of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model, enabling all-round protection against any potential cybersecurity threat.IEC 62443 includes four parts - General, Policy and Procedure, system and Component. Taiwan-based manufacturers have to pay attention to establishing a management system that guarantees the security of the connected devices and minimizes the risks of cyberattacks. With global IACS manufacturers taking the lead in obtaining IEC 62443 compliance certification, Taiwan-based IACS manufacturers have to follow suit so as to be able to enter the global market and capture the next wave of opportunities. In the meantime, they also need to build up IEC 62443 compliant development processes and create IEC 62443 compliant products.David Lin noted that although parts of the IEC 62443 standard are still under development, the quantity of certificates issued worldwide has increased from three in 2019 to more than 50 in 2020, indicating the new standard is growingly accepted. With EU mandating IEC 62443 compliance for all infrastructure equipment by year-end 2023, IEC 62443 will become widespread and vendors should take early action and get a closer look at IACS cybersecurity.Three main automotive electronics standards ensure information security and functional safetyAmong automotive network security standards, the Cyber Security Management System (CSMS) and ISO/SAE 21434 are two new sets of standards. According to Jack Liao, CSMS and ISO/SAE 21434 can be considered as extensions of IEC 62443. CSMS focuses on the management system while ISO/SAE 21434 addresses the technology and development process.In line with the spirit of IEC 62443, CSMS and ISO/SAE 21434 also highlight availability and defense in depth with an aim to ensure cybersecurity for automotive networks. CSMS is set to go into effect in January 2021. EU will mandate a certified CSMS for approval of new vehicle types from 2022 and for first registrations of all existing vehicle types by 2024.As to ISO/SAE 21434, which looks at cybersecurity engineering and the entire development process, there is currently only a draft version as IEC 62443 is still under development. The finished version is not expected until the first half of 2021. Nevertheless, with automakers strongly promoting ISO/SAE 21434, all automotive electronics component suppliers will have to get ready to meet their customers' requirements.Apart from automotive network security, automotive electronics suppliers also need to take functional safety standard ISO 26262 and ASPICE into consideration.David Lin thinks ISO/SAE 21434, ISO 26262 and ASPICE are the three indispensable elements to Taiwan-based suppliers looking to foray into the automotive electronics market.In practice, ISO/SAE 21434 and ISO 26262 focus more on the methodology while ASPICE provides a framework that connects the development process. As such, suppliers are advised to first incorporate the ASPICE process and then based on that, introduce the ISO/SAE 21434 and ISO 26262 frameworks to reap the biggest benefit.Jack Liao added that ISO/SAE 21434 and ISO 26262 are similar in that they are both based on a V-model as a reference process model for the different phases of product development. The difference is that the former targets information security and the latter functional safety. As software will play a critical role in autonomous driving in the future, if suppliers develop software using the ASPICE process, they will be able to ensure robust security for the entire automotive electronics system. Taiwan-based automotive electronics suppliers including developers of IC chips, software, modules and subsystems all need to follow ISO/SAE 21434, ISO 26262 and ASPICE to build their products in accordance with their product's characteristics.In conclusion, Jack Liao emphasized that IEC 62443, ISO/SAE 21434 and ISO 26262 are all established with an aim to drive security policy formation and foster security culture. This has to be a full-scale effort by every level of the corporation from top to bottom. Only by doing so can a corporation internalize cybersecurity awareness instead of just using the security certification to penetrate into the market.As a wide variety of IoT applications reach maturity over the next few years, cybersecurity incidents will skyrocket. It should be noted that all these cybersecurity standards will go into effect by 2024. It is essential that suppliers take early action and actively build up a cybersecurity culture to enable themselves to overcome future security challenges and capture rising opportunities.Jack Liao (right), senior manager of Product Certification and David Lin (left), senior technical manager, Industrial Service, TUV NORD

As shortages of components continue to haunt the semiconductor industry, LED chipmakers are now looking to raise their product quotes, which will drive downstream LED lighting product vendors to also increase their prices to reflect the costs. Meanwhile, Taiwanese IC design houses have seen their supply being seriously constrained by foundries' insufficient capacity, while backend houses extending their delivery time will also have some effect. Server shipments, however, are expected to enjoy double-digit on-year increases in 2021 thanks to robust demand for cloud computing services.LED chipmakers, downstream vendors raising prices: LED chipmakers in Taiwan and China have seen their delivery lead times extend, and have raised quotes for some of their products particularly non-blue light LED chips, which in turn has also driven downstream LED lamp vendors or illumination solutions providers to hike sales prices to reflect increased materials costs, according to industry sources.Taiwan IC design houses see supply constrained: Taiwan-based IC design houses have seen their supply constrained by tight foundry capacity, as well as longer delivery times at backend houses, according to industry sources.Taiwan server makers eyeing double-digit increases for 2021 shipments: Taiwan-based server makers including Quanta Computer, Inventec, Wiwynn, Mitac Computing Technology and Foxconn Technology are optimistic about their business prospects this year with expectations that their 2021 cloud server shipments will see double-digit on-year increases, according to industry sources.

Because of Apple's promotion of UWB (ultra-wide band)-enabled devices, applications based on UWB technology have increased and have a broader coverage, according to Digitimes Research.Apple has adopted the UWB technology for iPhone 11 and 12 series, Apple Watch 6 and HomePod mini, while Samsung Electronics has launched UWB-enabled smartphones including the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra and the Galaxy Flip 2 and China-based Xiaomi has also offered a UWB-enabled smartphone model, Digitimes Research indicated.However, Apple seems to be uninterested in joining UWB Alliance or FiRa (fine ranging) Consortium but prefers Car Connectivity Consortium in which it is expected to promote addition of UWB technology to digital car keys.Other China-based smartphone vendors including Oppo and Vivo are expected to adopt UWB technology for their flagship models.NXP Semiconductors, at its NXP Connects 2020 taking place in the Netherlands in October, presented scenarios of applying UWB technology and urged standardization of UWB specifications.STMicroelectronics and US-based semiconductor maker Qorvo have obtained UWB patented technologies via merger acquisition.

Electric vehicle (EV)-use lithium batteries suffer large decreases in operating efficiency when exposed to working environment of very low temperatures, but the problem can be solved by a few methods, according to Digitimes Research's findings.Working temperatures for normal operation of such batteries range from -20 degrees to 60 degrees Celsius, Digitimes Research indicated. If working temperatures drop to below -20 degree, electrolytic solution becomes more viscous like hair spray and consequently, mobility of lithium ions is reduced and so is operating efficiency for batteries, Research Insight explained.Heating of batteries or addition of anti-freezing agents to electrolytic solution can solve the problem.Similar to heating of copper sulfate solution in batteries used to start fuel cars in freezing environment, additional heating devices are used to hike working temperatures of batteries to -20 degree to let batteries start normal operation and then working temperatures will rise to above -20 degree after EVs run.In order for higher operating efficiency, some EV vendors adopt thermal management technology for which heat-circulating pipes provide heat to maintain batteries at optimal working temperatures.Alternatively, anti-freezing agents can be added to electrolytic solution to prevent it from getting more viscous. However, formulas of anti-freezing agents should be matched with electrolytic solution, cathode and anode materials, separation film of batteries to avoid reduction in battery's operating efficiency and service lives.A fundamental solution of the problem is solid-state batteries, for solid-state electrolyte of them does not have the problem concerning viscosity of liquid. However, technological development of solid-state batteries is not yet mature and commercial use is estimated to begin three years after.Besides impact of very low temperatures, chemical activity of batteries decreases when working temperatures drop to below zero degree, resulting in lower capability of discharging power and accordingly EVs' less endurance running distance.Most of new EV models are equipped with cloud computing-based battery management systems to enable drivers to inquire about remaining power storage capacities of batteries via smartphones for estimating residual endurance running distance. This also enables EV vendors to detect low levels of power storage capacity and remind drivers of the need for power charging via smartphones.

As demand for semiconductor products has continued picking up, their supply has also grown tighter. Foundries' supply of automotive MCUs, storage controller chips and power management ICs has already fallen short of demand by 25-40%, while HPC, server and 5G networking chips are also seeing insufficient supply of high-end ABF substrates due partly to low yield rates. Automotive chip makers have also been pushing keenly to obtain services from foundries as the automotive industry has started to recover.Foundries see supply for auto chips fall far short of demand: Pure-play foundries have seen their supply for automotive ICs, including MCUs, storage controller chips and power management ICs, fall short of demand by 25-40%, according to industry sources.High-end ABF substrates in increasingly short supply for HPC, server chips: The supply of more lucrative high-end ABF substrates for use in HPC, server and 5G networking chips has been increasingly short of demand due partly to insufficient yield rates at IC substrate suppliers, squeezing suppliers' capacity allocation for ABF substrates needed to process notebook processors long in shortage, according to industry sources.More automotive chipmakers seek foundry support amid tight capacity: More automotive chipmakers have approached Taiwan-based foundry houses TSMC, UMC and Vanguard International Semiconductor (VIS) seeking capacity support to meet a ramp-up in automotive chip demand from automakers who are recovering from the pandemic-induced factory shutdowns, according to industry sources.