Chip vendors have been striving to obtain capacity support from Taiwan-based foundry houses, which nevertheless have been unable to meet all demand due to tight capacity. The foundries are prioritizing long-term clients. The foundries also have given priority to automotive chip clients, but support for them will increase at the expense of some Taiwanese IC design houses who may see delays in shipments. The pandemic has created unexpectedly strong demand for some industry sectors, such as LCD. Taiwan-based panel maker AUO will keep production lines running at full throttle during the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday in mid February to satisfy clients' demand.Foundries to prioritize long-term orders amid tight capacity: Taiwan-based foundries intend to give supply priorities to long-term and established clients amid tight capacity, according to industry sources.Automotive chip demand could slow growth at Taiwan IC suppliers: Taiwan's wafer foundry houses are under increasing pressure to allocate more capacity for automotive chips, which in turn could undermine shipments of Taiwan-based IC suppliers in the second half of 2021, according to industry sources.AUO to run production at full utilization during upcoming holiday: LCD panel maker AUO will manage to maintain full capacity at its facilities in Taiwan and China during Lunar New Year to meet robust demand from clients, according to company chairman Paul Peng.

The just-concluded Automotive World Expo 2021 in Tokyo was characterized by hardware/software-integrated solutions to create connected, autonomous, shared/service and electric (CASE) vehicles, showing the trend of digital transformation for the car industry.Japan-based Rohm showcased a variety of automotive components, including SiC power semiconductor devices with high voltage tolerance and low power consumption, power management ICs supporting ADAS and LiDARs, driver ICs used in LED automotive lighting.Rohm's subsidiary LAPIS Technology showcased image controller ICs used in electronic rear-view mirrors and correcting images projected on windshields from head-up displays.Rohm plans to invest JPY60 billion (US$579 million) to expand production capacity for SiC power semiconductor devices over the next five years, aiming to hike its corresponding global market share from 20% at present to 30%.Xilinx exhibited Zynq UltraScale+, an in-house-developed multi-processor SoC that has been adopted for EyeSight, an ADAS installed on Subaru Levorg car model, with the SoC providing safety functions of adaptive cruise control, lane departure warning, collision warning and active brake. The SoC is an FPGA that can be updated to match Subaru's upgrading autonomous software via OTA (over-the-air programming).Japan-based taxi app JapanTaxi showcased an autonomous taxicab with LiDARs installed on the top, automotive cameras on sides and an autonomous control device in the trunk. With autonomous software provided by Japan-based self-driving software developer Tier IV, the cab is under trial run in Tokyo and Aichi Prefecture, central Japan.Coping with the coronavirus pandemic, Japan-based MaaS (mobility as a service) operator Mobility Plus exhibited a cold-chain logistics vehicle equipped with freezing storage under minus 120 degrees Celsius - much lower than those for general cold-chain transportation cars - for delivering COVID-19 vaccines.Honda Motor showcased Honda Fleet Management, a cloud-based logistics management system for fleets of motorcycles used in last-mile deliveries of goods.Japan-based JVCKenwood exhibited STZ-DR00, a SDK for logistics operators and insurance companies to develop software for analyzing real-time data collected by car movement recorders. The SDK enables processing of far-transmitted AIoT messages in short time and at low cost and its function library can provide additional functions such as ADAS, VoIP and DMS (driver monitoring system).

MediaTek is optimistic about its operation in 2021, with revenues expected to rise up to 8% sequentially in the first quarter of 2021 thanks to clients' robust orders, and the momentum is also expected to benefit MediaTek's backend services partners. Many of them are set to increase their capacity support to the chip designer in 2021. Meanwhile, carmakers in Germany, Japan and the US are lining up for the capacity support from Taiwan-based wafer foundries due to seriously shortages of chips.Backend firms upbeat about demand for MediaTek chips: Backend houses in the supply chain of MediaTek have expressed optimism about demand for the fabless client's 5G, Wi-Fi 6 and automotive chip solutions in 2021, and are ramping up capacity support for the chipmaker, according to industry sources.MediaTek expects up to 8% revenue growth in 1Q21: MediaTek expects to post revenue growth of up to 8% sequentially to between NT$96.4 billion (US$3.44 billion) and NT$104.1 billion in the first quarter of 2021. Despite foundry capacity constraints, overall demand will grow outperforming seasonal patterns during the quarter, according to company CEO Rick Tsai.Automotive chip suppliers queuing up for capacity support: Automotive chip suppliers are queuing up for capacity support from foundries, particularly 8-inch ones, and may be prompted to accept higher quotes for more capacity, according to industry sources.

Just days after Intel seemingly dismissed speculation about expanding outsourcing to TSMC, sources from Taiwan's supply chain have disclosed that the US chip vendor has plans to have the pure-play foundry fabricate its core CPUs at 3nm node in 2022. In the display sector, LCD panel prices are set to rise again in first-quarter 2021, thanks to strong demand amid component shortages. For touch panel makers TPK and GIS, they stand a good chance of receiving most of the orders from Apple for iPad devices in 2021.TSMC to make 3nm chips for Intel, sources claim: TSMC has already struck a deal with Intel under which the pure-play foundry will use 3nm process technology to manufacture the US vendor's core CPU products, with volume production scheduled for the second half of 2022, according to sources familiar with the matter.LCD panel prices to rise over 10% in 1Q21: LCD panel prices are poised to rise another 10% on average to hit a four-year high in first-quarter 2021, having been raised by 15-20% in the previous quarter, according to industry sources.TPK, GIS to share most touch-panel module orders for iPad in 2021, say sources: Taiwan's top-two touch-panel module makers TPK Holding and General Interface Solution (GIS) are likely to share the majority of Apple's iPad device orders in 2021, according to industry sources.

Amazon Web Service (AWS) has announced industrial AI solutions designed specifically for the manufacturing industry that provides sensor and image recognition equipment.The move has helped AWS expand its business coverage to the AIoT market and showed that public cloud services providers are already able to enhance their AI as a service (AIaaS) from general purposes to applications for specific industries, Digitimes Research noted.This will accelerate the penetration of AI and help industries conduct digital transformation, but will undermine AI startups as well as existing AIoT device makers and service providers.Many public cloud platforms have offered general-type AIaaS to satisfy their enterprise clients' needs, but lacking domain knowhow, many enterprises find the platforms difficult to use, resulting in weak demand for the services. To improve the situation, public cloud service providers have begun releasing AI solutions for specific industries.

Taiwan is the leader in many semiconductor sectors, but the "last mile" in terms of logistics and shipping centers is missing in the country - a gap that WPG Holdings is ready to fill with its plans to support the Taoyuan Aerotropolis project, according to Frank Yeh, vice chairman of the IC distributor.The last mile for logistics and shipping centers has been often held by Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia, but WPG's LaaS (logistics as a service) digital transformation platform will play a major part in the development project around the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport to bridge that gap in the semiconductor supply chain, said Yeh.Yeh, who is in charge of digital transformation at WPG Holdings, noted that in terms of warehousing for leading US chip vendors, Qualcomm is mainly based in Singapore, Nvidia in Hong Kong, and Broadcom in Malaysia.But Taiwan plays an important role in the upstream semiconductor supply chain, with Taiwan's top design houses, such as MediaTek, and Rexchip and major chip vendors from the US and China, all relying on support from foundry houses, such as TSMC and UMC, from OSAT providers, such as ASE Technology Holding, and IC substrate suppliers, such as Unimicron, Yeh said.Among them, TSMC can provide one-stop services from wafer foundry to advanced packaging and testing for the most advanced chips such as Apple's APs and HPCs.Though the manufacturing of ICs is done in Taiwan, the shipping centers for them are not, said Yeh.WPG has seen its smart warehousing transforming from 1.0 and 2.0 to the present 3.0, which is the LaaS model, which will be further implemented in Taoyuan Aerotropolis, said Yeh.Yeh believes turning Taoyuan into a global shipping center and integrating into the supply chain the "warehousing OEM" model will make Taiwan's semiconductor supply chain a complete one - or an "Taiwan IDM," said Yeh.Yeh said this is the ultimate goal - turning Taiwan into a global semiconductor logistics center - of the MoU that WPG and Taoyuan Aerotropolis have singed.Yeh estimates that the logistics center should be able to start operation as early as 2024.Such smart warehousing operations at Taoyuan Aerotropolis will require considerable investment, but it will be neccessary if one needs to serve customers who set up factories in Vietnam or India amid the US-China trade war, said Yeh.WPG has first "practiced" from the Hong Kong warehouse and completed smart warehousing 1.0, Yeh said. Its operations in southern China serves Chinese customers and has regional functions, which is 2.0; and the warehouse in Taoyuan will be the smart warehousing 3.0 version, which is the most important and most comprehensive, he said.According to Yeh, in Singapore, for example, the management of semiconductor-related warehousing services is carried out in traditional ways, with only two warehouses and no value-added services, and the cost for clients is even higher. It is similar in Hong Kong.Customers are aware of these difficulties, but there is no better solution, Yeh said, adding if they can ship out the chips from warehouses in Taoyuan, the labor and time costs will be much lower.

Global car sales may be recovering, but carmakers are deeply concerned about shortages of automotive components. IC foundries are trying to devote more capacity to making automotive chips, but carmakers may have to wait for months before additional foundry capacity comes online to serve them later this year. Foundries have been devoting their capacity mainly to IT and 5G applications, demand for which has been robust. Taiwan's ABF substrate suppliers have seen order visibility extending further to second-half 2021, thanks partly to strong demand from major CPU and GPU vendors. Notebook vendors' growths last year might have been higher had it not been components shortages. Acer reportedly saw its commercial notebook sales more than double in the US in 2020.Foundries building additional capacity for automotive chips: Taiwan-based pure-play foundries will be expanding production capacity for automotive chips at a gradual pace, with additional output to arrive as early as the third quarter of this year, according to industry sources.ABF substrate suppliers see clear order visibility stretch into 2H21: Taiwan-based IC substrate providers including Unimicron Technology, Nan Ya PCB and Kinsus Interconnect Technology have seen the visibility of orders for ABF substrates extend to second-half 2021, promising another lucrative year for them, according to industry sources.Acer notebook sales surge in US: Acer saw its commercial notebook sales hike 119% on year in the US in 2020, according to some market observers citing research figures.

COVID-19 and the US-China trade war have combined to accelerate a split of the global supply chain in two - namely a "G2" pattern with one serving China and the other the rest of the world. Such a scenario has also highlighted Taiwan's importance.Digitimes recently interviewed Frank Yeh, vice chairman of WPG Holdings - a leading IC distributor - as the world entered 2021 with coronavirus still wreaking havoc and the trade tensions between the superpowers raging on. Yeh talked about the future of supply chains and changes to the world.Q: What upgrades to the supply chain will smartization bring?A: I can say that all manufacturing industires are customers of WPG Holdings, but I do not understand manufacturing. I have read Digitimes president Colley Hwang's book "Disconnected ICT Supply Chains" at least three times.The broken supply chains, the US-China trade war that started two years ago, and the COVID-19 pandemic that began in early 2020 - they have combined to deal an enormous blow to the world. All the supply chains are changing. In 2019, everyone was busy running to Southeast Asia, and in 2020 they were not even able to reach there. The situation about broken supply chains will be more serious. Is this a crisis or an opportunity? Depending on how you look at it, it may be a great opportunity.What I want to do is to train myself, to train my mentality and way of thinking. What is really happening when we say the supply chains are broken? It is clear that the world's factory no longer exists. In the past, massive resources concentrated in China, from which products were delievered globally. This is changing. The G2 pattern resulted from the US-China trade war has gradually become the new normal, and the pandemic still seems to be raging on.In the traditional upstream-downstream communincation model, A may pass information directly to B, who then paases it to C. But in platform-style management, everyone shares information with each other, and nowadays with regionalization becoming the trend, digital platform management is becoming more and more important.Q: What are the changes in human lifestyles and industries that are worthy of attention in 2021?A: The concepts of remote work and co-presence will continues to be relevant. For example, online concerts and online inventors conferences. This echoes what I've mentioned before about getting "digital tools" ready to do these things. Taiwan's success in containing the epidemic has allowed study, work and social activities to remain normal without having to switch to the remote mode. But that has ironically limited their awareness of the fact that remote work and co-presence will be the new normal in the future.For companies, it is very important for managers to learn one thing, that is, managing without seeing employees. Do we pay for employees' time or employees' work results? Under the former model, employees might be late for work and get pay deducted. But if they can work from any places, what companies want are the results of their employees' work. This is the biggest change.For example, WPG's operations in the US have yet to allow employees to go into the offices. Of course the warehouses have to remain open, but offices of sales departments remain closed to employees. After the outbreak began, about 2000 WPG employees in China were unable to go into their offices starting February 1, 2020 until the end of March. And we have take note of the demographic changes - both qualitative and quantitative changes.Q: How do you see the impact of demographic changes on the industry?A: In the first half of 2020, Taiwan finally came to the point where the birth rate was lower than the death rate. According to the Ministry of the Interior, if there is no change in Taiwan's future birth plan, it is estimated that by 2049, Taiwan's total population will be less than 17 million. In light of these trends, when we talk about the issue of talent cultivation, the population size is not big enough with the people continuing aging and the number of children shrinking.These so-called digital natives have been accustomed to various digital devices since childhood and are familiar with the digital environment. Do they want to work in the same company for a long time? Or do they want to keep working for themselves? This is what is often referred to as the "slashie life" where one can get any information to do anything through digital platforms.If business leaders realize the importance of results, rather than the time employees spend on work, it is not necessary for employees to travel to Taipei (in nothern Taiwan) if they are in Hualien (in eastern Taiwan), and it is even possible for one person to serve multiple companies, and even for one company to serve multiple companies. As these global demographic changes continue to develop, we need to look at it not just for tomorrow, but for the next 10, 20 or 30 years.Q: What kind of changes will the industry face in the next 30 years and how should we deal with them?A: Since we are not just looking at tomorrow, but the longer-term future, we should also think about what we should do today at this point in time.In the past, industry competition only focused on the opponent, and all we thought about every day was the opponent's "A," and that I could respond with "A+B." But we might be able to defeat the opponent and yet end up a loser in the bigger perspective of an entire era. There have been too many such cases, such as companies focusing too much on dealing with opponents and forgetting the needs of customers. Is the future really all about competition? Are there any opportunities for cooperation? What areas should we compete in and what areas should we cooperate in? The future will be an era of coopetition. It is impossible for every company to be the industry leader, but there are still ways for others.In my opinion, companies should think about the vertical and horizontal aspects. For example, business and manufacturing areas are considered matters of vertical aspects. What is the horizontal aspects? We can think about the future era of big data. If a company hosts the main server on its own premises, then 10,000 companies means employing 10,000 server engineers? This is the horizontal aspect. I think for future logistics, we may consider the "sharing" approach, undergoing transformation to digital platforms.With the advent of the era of coopetition, coupled with the future demographic changes and new thinking, we must change in order to keep up with the times. A company is only a particular point; we must look at the bigger picture, namely how to operate an industry. WPG Holdings has been undergoing digital transformation for five years. I also think I am operating an industry.Q: How can we proceed from the perspective of electronics-related sectors?A: As an IC distributor, I have been thinking about how to help customer succeed. The core is the supply chain. There are four groups and 53 companies under WPG Holdings, and under the digital transformation strategy, we have been carrying out group optimization. We embrace the collective optimization of the value chain, all for the sake of the success of customers.Take the notebook industry as an example. There are at least 400-500 suppliers, and only through collective optimization can we have the opportunity to become a worldwide ecosystem. Through the collective optimization of the notebook industry, all relevant supply chains in Taiwan can have a grasp of the global notenook market. Just like the machinery tool industry: through multiple "lines" of several sectors the "surface" will be formed and eventually become an "ecosystem". In my opinion, underlying co-production, co-prosperity and co-creation is sharing.In the past, people sacrificed their holidays for work, or some people chose to sacrifice their jobs in order to retire early. Work and life were opposites. But if co-presence is enacted in the future, life and work can be mixed flexibly through the digital platform management. This is the so-called "workation." Even if we are in a beautiful mountain, we can still work as long as we have connection to the Internet. With networks and the clouds, everyone could work till 85 years old.Q: How can IC distributors face issues concerning regionalized supply chains and how can LaaS (logistics as a service) bring new values into play?A: The smart manufacturing supply chain is concerned with only one thing, that is, the cost resulting from time. If the time required is close to zero, the cost is also close to zero. For example, if the days of inventory are 30, they must be kept in the warehouse, and this is the cost. The semiconductor industry is committed to introducing intelligent factory automation to reduce time. These have gradually emerged as successful cases.But whether we can be of further help in the future, we always have to zero in on whether we can bring the successful experience to the next 30 years, and boldly dream about the next 30 years. For example, my personal dream is to continue working at 85, so what do I have to learn? This includes maintaining health and embracing the concept of workation.In 2020, for example, despite the challenges of the pandemic, many industries were still doing very well. For WPG, business has bene robust despite the pandemic, so what else do you need to think about? Of course, if we just look at tomorrow, it seems that we do not need to think much. But if it is 2030 or 2040 we are looking at, there will be surprisingly a lot.With the new business model of LaaS proposed by WPG, we can think of two things: first, whether the cost of transaction time can be close to zero; second, what the channel operators have to do, so that customers' transaction time can be close to zero, which may further be translated into energy savings and carbon reductions. In terms of transportation, materials are sent from WPG's warehouses to customers' warehouses, which is the traditional way. But in the future, they will be sent directly from WPG's warehouses to customers' assembly lines. Even blockchain and other technologies can be introduced.WPG distributes products from about 250 companies. Its warehouses receive shipments from around the world every day. They have to check the items and label them before storing them. After receiving orders, the warehouses need to prepare the items and ship them to clients, who, after receiving the shipments, will have to spend three days unloading and checking them. They will have to spend another three days moving the items to the assembly lines, where the items have to be checked and confirmed again.The warehouses and production lines belong to different departments, and every time you place an order, it necessarily involves time costs. It doesn't matter whether you employ manual labor or automated assembly lines; it's the same. It's particularly difficult to do inventory accounting for ICs that are so small. This is the current situation.But if the transaction time is shortened to zero, customers can reduce costs. IC distributors will not need to carry out the process of putting items into cartons and so on; they can send the items directly to the assembly lines. Are there big customers doing so? So far, we've only reached "particular points," so to speak. The key is how we can convince others to come on board, so we will continue promote the concept of coopetition.The chief operating officer of a client company pointed out that the LaaS model seems "too crazy to be possible." It is a very difficult approach, but the clients admits that it could be beneficial for clients.WPG Holdings vice chairman Frank YehPhoto: Michael Lee, Digitimes, January 2021

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.