Handset shipments in the fourth quarter of 2020 are likely to slip from the third quarter as Huawei is said to have cut 30% of its component orders for the upcoming Mate 40 series flagship smartphones, having anticipated troubles for the smartphones' shipments to grow, while foundries are also seeing their orders for handsets in the fourth quarter dipping, but will still enjoy growths in PC-related orders. AMD reportedly is looking to enhance its chips' offering with customized Wi-Fi 6 technologies via cooperation with MediaTek and is planning to penetrate through the dominate of Intel and Realtek in the Wi-Fi chip industry.Huawei reportedly cuts component orders for Mate 40 lineup by 30%, say sources: Huawei reportedly has slashed component orders for its forthcoming Mate 40 series products by 30%, according to sources from Taiwan's handset supply chain makers.Foundries see 4Q20 demand vary for PCs and handsets: Taiwan-based pure-play foundries have seen orders for PCs and handsets ramp up in the third quarter of 2020. Nevertheless, orders for PCs and handsets received thus far for the fourth quarter vary, according to industry sources.AMD looking to penetrate into Wi-Fi chip sector with cooperation with MediaTek: AMD and MediaTek reportedly will start their collaboration with the development of customized Wi-Fi 6 ASIC chips for notebook applications seeking to break the dominance of the Wi-Fi chips segment by Intel and Realtek Semiconductor and further strengthen its competitiveness in notebook chips platforms, according to industry sources.
Memory chipmakers have seen inventory pile up amid weakening demand from the datacenter sector. They have almost four months worth of memory inventory on average, and mobile DRAM inventory levels are even higher. Although components suppliers are conservative about datacenter demand for the rest of 2020, server vendors and ODMS are generally optimistic. PC vendors are also upbeat about their sales in second-half 2020 due to the stay-at-home needs. And they are now devoting moe efforts to the enterprise and gaming segments.Memory chipmakers hold nearly 4 months of inventories: Samsung Electronics and other major chip suppliers have held nearly four months of DRAM and NAND flash inventories on average, due to a slowdown in orders for datacenter applications and overall weaker consumer sentiment than pre-pandemic levels, according to industry sources.Upstream, downstream suppliers vary in datacenter outlook: Mixed messages are coming from the datacenter server supply chain about the outlook for the rest of 2020, with component suppliers expressing caution about demand and system assemblers generally remaining positive.Notebook brands pushing enterprise and gaming models in 2H20: Brand vendors have seen strong PC sales due to stay-at-home activities worldwide and are now primarily focusing on releasing enterprise and gaming models to cater to related demand, according to sources from the upstream supply chain.
Digital signage, kiosk and commercial PC maker AOpen has disclosed the company and smart medical care solution developer Biomdcare have cooperated to offer an AI-based X-ray osteoporosis detection system.The system combines a Biomdcare-developed AI-based screening solution with medical computers and touch displays provided by AOpen.The medical computers and touch displays comply with EN6060-1 and IEC 6060-1 safety standards for medical devices and can be operated by AiCU, AOpen-developed remote management platform, company president Dale Tsai said.People with osteoporosis usually have no symptoms and the chronic disease is diagnosed when they suffer drastic pains or become disabled due to sudden bone fractures, Biomdcare indicated, adding it is estimated that nearly seven million people in Taiwan have osteoporosis-related problems and more than 10 million people are not aware of their BMD (bone mineral density) insufficiency.
EV-use SiC power semiconductors ae expected account for more than 37% of overall market value for SiC power semiconductors in 2025, up from abot 25% in 2021.Fo EVs, SiC power semiconductors are mainly used in inverters for driving and controlling motors, on-board chargers (OBCs) and fast charging piles.For inverters, SiC power semiconductors in 800V high-voltage operating architecture are 8% higher in overall system efficiency than Si-based power semiconductors. SiC power semiconductors also enable simpler design in heat dissipation system and smaller room for electro-mechanical structure.For OBCs and fast charging piles, SiC power semiconductors, as compared to Si-based ones, reduce energy loss during charging, and the numbers of capacitors and inductors needed.
MediaTek has teamed up with Intel to bring 5G experiences to next-generation PCs with successful development and certification of its 5G modem data card. And the Taiwanese IC designer reportedly is also working with AMD initially focusing on the development of custom Wi-Fi 6 ASIC chips. Meanwhile, the growing stary-at-home economy is shoring up demand for IT devices, such as notebooks. IC distributors belive the stay-at-home economy will continue throguh the end of 2020. And tight supply of LCD applications for IT devices is sending prices up, with order visibility extending to fourth-quarter 2020, according to AUO's chairman.MediaTek reportedly to partner with AMD in communication chip solutions: MediaTek, which will provide its 5G modem chips for Intel-powered PCs, is also likely to partner with AMD for chip solutions, according to industry sources.IC distributors optimistic about demand arising from stay-at-home economy: IC distributors expect stable demand for notebooks, tablets, datacenter and game consoles through the end of 2020, thanks to the rise of stay-at-home economy.Panel prices going up along with tight supply, says AUO chairman: The supply of LCD panels is getting increasingly tight, with most panel makers likely to see their order visibility extend to the fourth quarter of 2020, according Paul Peng, chairman of AU Optronics (AUO).
TSMC is fast expanding output for advanced manufacturing nodes. Its 7nm process has already seen output reach 130,000 wafers monthly, with production to be rising further by the end of the year. Apple is expected to continue to rely on TSMC to build the chips for its next-generation iPhone for 2021, but the iPhone ecosystem faces a major shakeup next year. For Google, it is developing its next-generation Chromebook in collaboration with its ODM partner, Compal Electronics.TSMC 7nm process output to top 140,000 wafers monthly: TSMC has already scaled up its 7nm process output to 130,000 wafers monthly ahead of schedule, with the monthly production set to climb further to 140,000 units at the end of this year, according to industry sources.Apple iPhone supply chain poised for major shakeup in 2021: Firms currently in the iPhone supply chain are believed to be experiencing strong order pull-ins from Apple at the moment ahead of the launch of 5G iPhone line later this year. But the iPhone ecosystem faces a major shakeup in 2021 as Apple has stepped up efforts building a new supply chain in China for its smartphones, according to industry sources.Google, Compal teaming up for new-gen Chromebook: Google is developing its next-generation Chromebook, codenamed Halvor, with Compal Electronics being the ODM partner, according to industry sources.
While IT staff play a crucial role in enterprises' digital transformation, decision makers who use data to optimize operations are key to the success of digital transformation, according to Wu Mei-feng, an industry consultant at i-Torch Technology.Digital transformation is not merely about introducing IT into work, but involves modification in internal operational process and even changes in business model, Wu said at a recent event organized by Digitimes.Responsible for operating and maintaining IT systems, IT staff are actually an auxiliary tool in enterprises' digital transformation because they cannot define the criteria for use of data, Wu noted. For example, OEE (overall equipment effectiveness) consists of many aspects including operation of production capacity and defect rate control, and for data collection it is necessary to define the criteria for abnormal and reliable conditions, Wu indicated.The definition hinges on operational executives' know-how and is essential to meaningful and valuable data collection during digital transformation, Wu said. Many enterprises wrongly believe digital transformation can be attained through IT staff introducing analytical tools or systems to upgrade internal IT systems, Wu added.Reliability of collected data is crucial, Wu noted, adding more standardized operational processes lead to fewer human errors and result in more reliability of collected data.
ZNT-Richter is a global IT company. In the past 30+ years, ZNT has successfully developed software solutions suitable for the manufacturing industry to help customers improve production processes and product quality.In an interview conducted during the 2020 China International Industry Fair CIIF, Bernhard Marsoner, CEO, ZNT (Zentren fur Neue Technologien GmbH), and Aaron Chou, ZNT's general manager of Greater China, talked about the current pandemic-affected global environment, and prospects and challenges in the field of advanced industrial automation.Q: The term "digitalization" is no stranger to the construction of smart factories. Especially during this epidemic manufacturing companies are facing both challenges and opportunities. How does ZNT help customers to accelerate their digital transformation in manufacturing?A: We see two major challenges. First product life cycles get shorter and shorter. Thus, manufacturing companies are forced to introduce new products quicker while achieving a high-quality production in a shorter time. To achieve this, a lot of data is needed and operator influence on production quality like setting the wrong recipe on a machine or recording wrong data must be eliminated.Second products are supposed to become cheaper while margin shall grow. The only way to achieve this is Smart Manufacturing with a high level of automation. Smart Manufacturing enables for more individualized and stable production while reducing cost and increasing efficiency. Automation drives automatic decisions to eliminate manual errors and provides automated traceability and high data quality with feedback loops to Design. This leads to a closed loop manufacturing approach which in turn speeds up new product introductions.The outbreak of the epidemic at the beginning of this year showed clearly that highly automated lights out factories were by far less affected than factories relying on workers on the shop floor.Since the promotion of industry 4.0 about seven years ago to the promotion of General Factory Automation in China, ZNT helped many customers in the semiconductor, solar energy, electronics, medical device and other high tech industries to adopt ZNT solutions for automating their factory and we still continue to upgrade them. Especially global customers appreciate and benefit from the professional level of ZNT in equipment automation solutions and MES consultant services while assisting them in their digital transformation strategy to introduce Smart Manufacturing.Many customers therefore can't get around implementing a forward looking platform-based solution with the flexibility and convenience of high configurability to speed up their automation process. With our global team we can deliver our projects in time, in budget and in quality.Q: Manufacturers who restarted after the epidemic are bound to face the challenges, including adjust the work patterns, environment and processes to ensure the health and safety of employees. How does ZNT help customers quantifying the benefits of automation and reduce risks after restart?A: Several investigations and analysis conducted within mid to large companies showed that following benefits can be achieved by adopting automation on the whole plant: increase of product quality by 2-5 times, increase of production efficiency by 40-70%, increase of equipment utilization rate by 2-3 times, reduction of production cycle times by 30-60%, and increase of working ability of engineers by 3-35 times.From the perspective of lights out factories, the meaning of automation is to be responsible for replacing human and manual judgment. Through digitalization, informatization and intellectualization, judgment and automatic production are similar to those of auto driving. Therefore, under the general trend of intelligent manufacturing, many harmful factors to human beings in many factories will definitely disappear in intelligent factories.While having less workers on the shop floor and having a system that assigns tasks to workers rather than the other way round, providing a safe environment including social distancing gets far easier. From a central control station you can steer all activities in the factory.Q: The Process Automation Control (PAC) product is a powerful and open platform, which is widely used in semiconductor, photovoltaic, electronic manufacturing, medical device and other high-tech industries. From the field level to the monitoring and analysis level, how to effectively organize, track and seamlessly integrate with the subsystems when facing huge data, ensure the stability of the large-scale machine system operation at the factory side, and effectively reduce the control and management cost? And how to connect big data to collect and analyze production information to obtain the possibility of predictive maintenance and prevention of unexpected downtime?A: We see a clear trend in IT departments responsible for maintaining MES systems in multi-site deployments to move MES to the cloud. From their perspective they can heavily reduce cost in maintaining a single solution deployed to several sites. But from an operational side, especially in automated environments, it is very important that the MES together with automation can be adapted very quickly and is highly available.PAC helps to achieve both while running close to the equipment, similar to edge computing. It allows for data buffering while the connection to the MES is temporarily not available. It reduces traffic due to consolidating and if required aggregating data from the equipment before sending them to other systems. It decouples equipment specific logic form central logic required in the MES. This allows an uninterrupted intercommunication between systems in the intelligent factory, error-free and fully automated. In addition, PAC supports an easy, flexible and quick adaption to new demands while still running the MES in a central environment and reducing the impact of changes to other system to a minimum. The flexible configuration platform allows production to deploy ahead of time and respond quickly. When the production line changes the demand, it allows flexible adjustment, and the work assignment to the equipment is more accurate and in place. With our professional consultants we provide the required advice for architecting and implementing the right software solution.Q: SEMI recently disclosed that the fab equipment expenditures in 2021 will hit a record high of US$70 billion. This is the second time it has revised next year's estimates. It is optimistic that this year's fab equipment expenditures will turn from negative to positive 6% to US$59.6 billion. The advanced manufacturing process of fabs and the heavy investment in the China market will increase by 13% in 2021. China is actively investing in foundry and memory, driving its equipment expenditure to the top in 2020 and 2021. Could you please talk about the future expectation and layout of ZNT in the Greater China market? How do you ensure success in your projects while scaling up your company?A: Under the threat of epidemic situation and the current global economic and political uncertainties it is an indisputable fact that the supply chain established by semiconductor and its related industries is one of the decisive factors. With the rapid development of semiconductor in personal consumer goods, scientific and technological products, automobile components, military science and technology, national defense and military industry, aerospace and aviation, the professional level has been incomparable.In the foreseeable future, the global or Asia Pacific strategic layout will definitely take semiconductor and its supply chain as strategic industries. Therefore, the global layout has always been an important part of ZNT's strategy, while Europe, America and Asia are also different. There is a common ground behind the different layouts, which is sustainable development. Five years ago, it began to grow at a 10% annual growth rate in China. It is estimated that the momentum will continue for a while. Not only in China, but also in the whole Asia Pacific area.ZNT will maintain the position of continuous investment promotion focusing on its strength following this economic global trend. The offices in Singapore, Malaysia and Shanghai are still expanding. For ZNT, customer satisfaction is and remains the number one criterion for success and growth. Therefore, we are not only looking at specific skills of our employees, but also on their ability to take responsibility. Our experience shows that rushing in the design and creating quick and dirty solutions doesn't pay off at the end. The Implementation Methodology we are applying for projects is targeted to create solid and long-term maintainable solutions where the customer even can take over own responsibility through our enablement approach. We do not only fish for our customers, but we teach them how to fish.Q: The level of digitalization of China's industry is only about half that of developed countries such as the United States; and the current "new infrastructure" in China is great significance to the domestic economy. It is planned to adopt a new generation of ICT and 5G technology, to interconnect people, machines, and things, to links of all elements, to improve the entire industry chain efficiency, to accelerate industrial transformation, and promote industrial upgrade. In your opinion, how does ZNT and its partners in the future participate more deeply in the industrial upgrading and transformation of Chinese local market? What kind of enabling role could ZNT play?A: The China Gov new infrastructure strategy has standardized 5G, IoT and other technologies enabling national economic growth. This does not only have an impact on the manufacturing industry, construction industry, science and technology industry, but especially semiconductors and other IT based industries will see more and more demand for software and hardware allowing them to support such strategy.ZNT's PAC platform, partner MES solutions and professional consultants address the need of an accelerated industrial transformation - as we have been doing for more than 30 years now and long before I4.0 and IoT - enabling Chinese local markets to upgrade and grow.With the nationwide coverage of partners, we can provide close local support and service to customers, which does not only improve the service scope, but also the performance of local service with the largest support of flexible customization. At present, in addition to the global cooperation network with Siemens and tight cooperation with Siemens partners, having sales and implementation teams in individual regions is a key goal for us to ensure our continuous support to our valued customers. With this approach and our general company philosophy and outstanding products we are aiming for a very satisfied smile on our customer's faces.ZNT CEO Bernhard MarsonerAaron Chou, ZNT's general manager of Greater ChinaPhotos: Company
The US trade ban has driven Huawei to the edge. Taiwanese semiconductor suppliers who have met the Chinese vendor's high-level figures recently have come to a conclusion: Huawei fears its mobile device business will evaporate gradually. But it seems Huawei is not giving it up yet. DRAM spot market prices have gone up since last week amid speculation that Huawei is stocking up ahead of the implementation of the new US sanctions. Despite the Huawei woes, the smartphone market's recovery is fueling shipment momentum for TWS earbuds. Order visibility for TWS earbuds has extended to year-end 2020.Huawei reportedly resigned to worst possible outcome for smartphone biz: Huawei's senior officials have told Taiwan's semicondcutor suppliers that the Chinese company fears for the worst for its smartphone business because of the US trade ban, according to industry sources.DRAM spot prices rise: DRAM spot market prices have rallied over 5% since last week amid speculation about Huawei building up inventory prior to new US sanctions against it.TWS earbud shipments picking up: Shipments of true wireless stereo (TWS) earbuds have started picking up with order visibility stretched through the end of 2020, according to industry sources.
China's IC design industry is forecast to generate more than CNY350 billion (US$51.1 billion) in sales in 2020, representing a CAGR of 22% from 2016 to 2020 - the timeframe of the country's 13th Five-Year Plan, according to Digitimes Research.The country still relies heavily on non-China chip supplies, but development of the ASIC segment is relatively mature.For China's 14th Five-Year Plan spanning from 2021 to 2025, achieving technological independence will remain the main goal for China's IC design industry amid the US-China trade tensions. Developments of IoT chips and open source architectures will be the key directions. Establishing in-house IC production capacity will also become a key strategy in response to the trade war with the US.By the end of 2020, the number of China-based IC design houses is expected to break 2,000, nearly double that of 2015. However, a lot of the efforts have been devoted to ASICs for mobile communication and AI applications, while supply of general ICs such as CPUs and GPUs still relies heavily on imports.Digitimes Research believes the US strategy of cutting chip supply to China will prompt it to gear up efforts establishing local chip manufacturing lines with IoT-related chips to become a key target.Pushing open-source architectures will also benefit China in the development of IoT chips and help it reach the state of technological independence.
