Global tablet shipments are forecast to climb 45.5% sequentially and 9.9% on year in the second quarter of 2020 thanks to a recovery in the related supply chain's capacity in China and educational tablet orders deferred from the first quarter, according to Digitimes Research's latest tablet shipment figures.Shipments in the fist quarter slipped 33.6% on year to reach around 24.7 million units due to the coronavirus outbreak, which crippled the supply chain's upstream production in China. First-tier brands' tablet shipments had a below-average decline of 29.1% on year in the first quarter, while those of white-box models had a bigger drop at 38.2%, Digitimes Research's figures show.Apple remained the largest tablet brand worldwide in the first quarter, followed by Samsung Electronics in second and Huawei in third. Lenovo became the fourth largest brand with increased procurement orders from the education sector and Microsoft was in fifth place. Amazon fell out of the top-5 in the first quarter, but will return to the fourth position in the second quarter with increased orders and will relegate Lenovo and Microsoft to fifth and sixth respectively.Over 75% of global tablet shipments in the first quarter were models with over 10-inch displays, but the shipment share of 7.x-inch tablets is expected to pick up slightly from a quarter ago in the second quarter due to growing shipments of the iPad mini and Amazon's Fire 7.Apple's tablets had a sequential shipment decline slower than those of othe first-tier brands in the first quarter of 2020, which relatively increased the shipment share of tablets using the GF2 touchscreen technology. Among non-Apple tablets, in-cell technology has grown popular with a share of over 20% in the first half of 2020. The share of tablets using the GFF technology has continued to slip.With Apple to significantly increase its tablet orders for the second quarter, the shipment share of GF2-featured tablets is expected to rise further, while Taiwan-based ODMs, which are key manufacturers of iPads, will see their combined shipments grow 60% sequentially in the quarter and command over 50% of worldwide volumes.
Demand has been for notebooks supporting remote work, distant learning and other staty-at-home activities necessitated by the coronavirus pandemic. Digitimes Research estimates that global notebook shipments will spike by more than 40% in second-quarter 2020. The handset market may have been hit hard by the virus, but it has not dampened MediaTek's optimisim for 5G phones. The chip vendor has reiterated its forecast that global 5G smartphone shipments will still 170-200 million units in 2020. But it remains to be seen when Apple will launch its 5G iPhone, development of which reportedly has been hindered by virus-imposed bans on its engineers from traveling to China to conduct engineering verification tests for the new device. Tech companies are said to be mulling changes to their deployments by turning Taiwan into their test production hubs.Global notebook shipments to climb over 40% in 2Q20, estimates Digitimes Research: Global notebook shipments are forecast to surge more than 40% sequentially in the second quarter of 2020, thanks to demand arising from remote work, online learning, and other stay-at-home activities amid the coronavirus pandemic as well as deferred orders from the first quarter, according to Digitimes Research's latest notebook shipment figures.MediaTek remains upbeat about 5G phone shipments in 2020: MediaTek is still upbeat about 5G in 2020 and its forecast for global 5G smartphone shipments to reach 170-200 million units in the year remains unchanged, according to company CEO Rick Tsai.US tech giants seeking to expand test production in Taiwan: US tech giants including Apple, Facebook and Google reportedly are mulling expanding test production of new products in Taiwan, whose advantages in the IT manufacturing sector have been highlighted by US-China trade war and the coronavirus outbreak, according to industry sources.
Demand for notebooks has been fueled by stay-at-home needs during the coronavirus pandemic. Digitimes Research expects panel makers to see sharp increases in shipments for notebook applications in the second quarter 2020, which is likely the peak period of 2020 for notebook panels. But the desktop PC market has been far weaker. The PC DIY market is likely to decline 30% in 2020. For the smartphone market, fingerprint recognition solution supplier Egistec is expanding its presence in China, and has entered the supply chain of Huawei's 5G handsets.Notebook panel shipments to peak in 2Q20: Global shipments of notebook panels are expected to surge 26% sequentially in the second quarter of 2020, driven by demand from the world's top-three notebook brands, Digitimes Research has estimated.DIY PC market likely to shrink 30% in 2020: DIY desktop PC sales have been sluggish so far this year, unlike the notebook market bolstered by the rise of stay-at-home economy amid the coronavirus pandemic, and the DIY market may shrink by 30% in 2020 if the pandemic lingers, according to sources from motherboard and grahics card makers.EgisTec enters supply chain of Huawei 5G phones: Egis Technology (EgisTec) has made inroads into China's fingerprint sensor market, with its products now finding their way into the supply chain of Huawei's 5G smartphones, according to industry sources.
The global smartphone market stands little chance of seeong a recovery in the second quarter of 2020 as the impacts of the coronavirus persist. Even Apple reportedly has cut its iPhone 11 orders for the second and third quarters of the year, with global smartphone shipments likely to drop 15% in 2020. In the IT market, Western Digitial is raising prices for its enterprise HDDs amid tight supply, as a result of strong demand and extended lead time at its pandemic-impacted production lines. Global smartphone shipments to dip to 1.15 billion units in 2020: Global smartphone shipments are expected to contract by 15% on year to 1.15 billion units in 2020, as major brands including Samsung Electronics, Huawei and Apple all have slashed their shipment targets for the year in the wake of coronavirus pandemic, according to the latest estimate of Digitimes Research.Western Digital raising enterprise HDD prices: Western Digital reportedly is raising its prices for enterprise-use HDDs to reflect increased costs from production and logistics with mainstream products expected to see more than 10% increases, according to sources from the upstream supply chain.
Startup Kapito has developed an AI-based solution for detecting defective products at production lines, according to company co-founder and CEO Riccardo Sun.The solution - fastable.ai - combines image collecting equipment with image recognition engine based on machine vision, deep learning and algorithms for automatic detection of defects in products, Sun explained.Before developing fastable.ai, Kapito had visited 40-50 semiconductor and electronics manufacturers in Hsinch, northern Taiwan, to observe their production lines, and found that quality inspection relied much on labor, reducing efficiency in operation of production lines, Sun said.Manual quality inspection or conventional AOI (automatic optical inspection) merely divides products into normal ones and defective ones, rendering it easy to scrap products with relatively slight or small defects, Sun indicated. Fastable.ai is equipped with a function of grading defects, such as grades A, B, C, based on data concerning defects, Sun noted. As clients may have varying standards for required quality, grading of defects enables manufacturers not to scrap products with relatively slight or small defects instead of wasting them, Sun explained.To enhance applicability of fastable.ai, Kapito has provided open API to allow users to connect defect detection data with their internal databases or MES (manufacturing execution system) for more value-added application, Sun said.Kapito co-founder and CEO Riccardo SunPhoto: Chleo Liao, Digitimes, April 2020
Server demand has been strong, but ODMs have seen disruptions to shipments to clients due to components shortages amid the coronavirus pandemic. Curently cables are in serious short supply. In the handset sector, demand remains weak, and 5G smartphone AP vendors are banking on 5G smartphones inject momentum into their businesses. But major mobile AP suppliers, MediaTek and Qualcomm, are lowering prices in their race to win orders from handset vendors. In the foundry sector, TSMC, keen to extend its techological leadership, has already began R&D for its 2nm manufacturing node. Component shortages disrupting server shipments: Shortages of components caused by the coronavirus pandemic have begun to undermine server makers' shipments to their clients, according to sources from the upstream supply chain.Qualcomm-MediaTek 5G SoC price competition heating up: 5G AP price competition between Qualcomm and MediaTek is expected to heat up further in the second quarter of 2020 as both chipmakers are gearing up to win more orders from Chinese handset vendors in the upcoming 5G handset replacement boom in China.TSMC launches 2nm process R&D: TSMC has kicked off its 2nm process R&D, and is progressing in research and exploratory studies for nodes beyond 2nm, the foundry has diclosed in its annual report to shareholders.
Memory vendors may have seen robust demand from the server sector, but shipments to consumer electronics have slumped. Now memory spot market prices are under downward pressure, as transactions remain slow amid buyers' wait-and-see attitude towards the developments of the coronavirus pandemic. While memory buyers are cautious, chip vendors at the top of the semiconductor sector are still keen on R&D for their advanced offerings and on securing the most advanced manufacturing capacity support from TSMC, keeping the world's top foundry house in good health. In the smartphone space, Samsung remains a trendsetter. It is reportedly developing its next-generation foldable Galaxy Fold with ultrathin cover glass, instead of polyimide.Memory prices come under downward pressure: DRAM and NAND flash prices are facing increasing downward pressure, due to a slump in demand for consumer electronics devices, according to industry sources.TSMC enjoys ramp-up in orders from AMD, Nvidia: A ramp-up in short lead-time orders placed by AMD and Nvidia will allow TSMC to post relatively strong results compared to other foundries in the first half of 2020, according to industry sources.Samsung likely to use UTG as cover glass for next-gen Galaxy Fold: Samsung Electronics is expected to give the priority to the use of ultrathin glass (UTG) over polyimide (PI) films as cover glass solutions for its upcoming second-generation Galaxy Fold, according to industry sources.
PC demand has been inadvertently propelled by the coronavirus pandemic, but some market observers are concerned that the PC market may start seeing a slowdown in May, followed by a sharp falls in the third quarter. But some makers in the supply chain are more optimistic, such as cooling module solution supplier Auras, which believes its shipments to the notebook segment will remain strong in third-quarter 2020. Memory backend firm Powertech is also reporting clear order visibility through the third quarter, and is expecting sales to hit a record in 2020.PC, CE chip demand may disappoint in 3Q20: Chip demand for PCs and consumer electronics devices may disappoint in the third quarter of 2020 despite the period being a traditional peak season for the two sectors, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, according to industry sources.Auras expects orders for notebook cooling solutions to remain strong in 3Q20: Taiwan-based Auras so far only has visibility until the end of June for it notebook cooling module orders, but the company still expects the shipment momentum to continue in the third quarter with brand clients' releases of new products, according to company chairman Steve Lin.Backend firm PTI poised to challenge new revenue records in 2020: Memory backend specialist Powertech Technology (PTI) has seen clear order visibility through the third quarter of 2020 and may have a chance to end the year with record revenues as long as the coronavirus outbreak can stay controllable in the months ahead, according to company executives.
The Taiwan Instrument Research Institute (TIRI) has disclosed it has teamed up with mechanical motion control component maker Hiwin Technologies to develop smart real-time equipment for inspecting quality of CIGS thin-film PV modules at production lines.The equipment is customized for Eterbright Solar's CIGS thin-film PV module production lines through combining TIRI's array optical imaging system, high-performance computing & storage system, AI algorithm-based metric computing core with Hiwin's precision positioning mobile platform and loading/unloading robotic arm, said TIRI under government-sponsored National Applied Research Laboratories (NARLabs). Hiwin is the parent company of Eterbright.As manufacturing process of CIGS thin-film PV modules entails scribing of module panels, width and depth of scribing and pitches between scribing may not meet standards or scribing is likely distorted, Eterbright president Lin Ming-yao indicated. Therefore, quality of CIGS thin-film PV modules has to be inspected, Lin said.The equipment can scan a 122cm x 62cm PV module to capture and store its images and immediately analyze and judge its quality in 60 seconds, TIRI noted. In comparison, Eterbright used to manually inspect sampled PV modules off production lines, with inspection of a PV module taking as long as 30 minutes, Lin noted.Inspection results are automatically connected with computers and databases to enable real-time judgment on possible problems occurring during manufacturing, providing reference for adjusting parameters to improve production efficiency and product quality, TIRI indicated.Eterbright has adopted the equipment for a CIGS thin-film PV module production line, resulting in a yield rate of 99.2%, which is much higher than global averages of 75-80%, Lin said.Based on the achievement, similar equipment can be developed for use in production of glass substrates, flat display panels, PCBs, semiconductor devices and even textile and leather products, TIRI director general Joseph Yang noted.Smart real-time inspection equipment for CIGS thin-film PV modules adopted by Eterbright SolarPhoto: NARLabs
The coronavirus pandemic is driving more companies to embrace digital transformation, but the biggest pain point in the process for many corporate CTOs is the difficulty in assessing the technical capabilities of job seekers through traditional HR recruitment models.Founded three years ago, Terminal 1 Recruitment (T1), a Hong Kong-based startup which has joined the SparkLabs accelerator network, is applying artificial intelligence (AI) technology to disrupt the recruitment process for tech companies. During a recent interview by Digitimes, Edwin Shao, founder and CEO of T1, talked about how AI can help enterprises build a strong technical team to ensure a smooth and successful digital transformation. Edgar Chiu, co-founder and managing partner of SparkLabs Taipei, joined him in the interview.Q: Please tell us about T1 and your motivation for starting this company. How different is your solution from the traditional technology recruitment process?Shao: I started this company three years ago with the goal of helping corporate technology executives find the best software technology talent and address their pain points where it's difficult to assess a job seeker's technical skills through traditional HR processes.Before that, I sold the first company I founded, Kites, to Asia Miles, a Cathay Pacific company, and wanted to build a big data analytics team there. I asked the HR department for help and tried to find the right people through nearly 10 headhunters, but the results were not very satisfactory. So I have found that there is indeed a big demand in the international technology recruitment market that has been unmet because most companies are hardly competent enough to judge whether a technical candidate is suitable for the position he is applying for.When I was building Kites myself, I built a 10-person team from scratch, and the key to the success of this company is finding good people and building strong teams. So by leaving Asia Miles and starting a second business, we believe that we can be the best advisor to the CTOs of companies to help them find the best technical talent with external resources.Q: Is there any special meaning behind the name Terminal 1?Shao: Terminal 1 Recruitment's name comes from a past job change experience, growing up on the East Coast of the United States, working in the San Francisco Bay Area on the West Coast, and starting a business in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Every job change comes with a location move. So when you are in an airport terminal, there are also worries about the unknown and expectations of a new life. The name Terminal 1 Recruitment is an attempt to use the power of AI to break geographical boundaries and do what the headhunter industry has not been able to do in the past, providing engineers from around the world with more opportunities to work abroad, giving them an international stage to meet the challenges and opportunities that match their abilities.Q: What tools or solutions does your platform offer to address customer pain points?Shao: We position ourselves as a full-service technology recruitment and executive search firm, complementing our recruitment consultants with technology tools that combine the best of AI and human services to provide our clients with the best possible service to enhance customer satisfaction. Our platform is categorized by different functions such as software engineer, back-end engineer, R&D engineer, data science analyst, etc.We update the status of the job seeker from the beginning, let the machine learn the job content and requirements of the position listed by the client, and let the machine calculate the job seeker to know which company to pitch the resume to and how to pitch it. It may seem simple, like it's just matching job seekers with clients, but it's actually a very complicated process. We automate the process as much as possible, and each person generates a lot of data that will help improve the accuracy of the matchmaking.Most of our clients are quite demanding, they don't mind paying a higher fee to a better headhunter, but they also want the benefits of technology automation. So we try to combine the strengths of people and technology to create a platform where a job seeker can determine which job openings he or she is best suited for and suggest resumes to those companies as soon as they come in.We have developed a set of test tools, with over 40 tests in total, that allow companies to first give applicant engineers a chance to verify their practical abilities. This set of tests is a project-based design that simulates the problems and scenarios they would actually encounter on a day-to-day basis in the positions they are applying for.I developed this tool because when I was still a corporate executive, I used to test job seekers with existing coding games on the Internet such as HackerRank or Codility, but that only measured their coding ability. However, other abilities such as communication, structure, organizing information, and teamwork are essential to being a good teammate in the daily work.For example, if you're a data analyst, you can't just have machine learning coding skills, you have to know how to download the data needed to solve a problem, how to clean that data, and how to gain insight, how to train machine learning, and finally how to present the results of your work to an officer. So our test will require staff to accomplish all of the above tasks and show us the results at the end. The test results come back, and we provide them to our corporate clients. Currently the customers are very satisfied.This helps the talent we recommend stand out from the crowd of job seekers. For example, three years ago we had a candidate who had just graduated from university and at that time he was offered a job that paid US$18,000 a month, but we thought he was a very good engineer, so we helped him get a better salary, US$35,000, almost double the original. Many times, a resume does not reflect the true strength of a talent, and we hope to overcome this with technology.We also give job seekers some feedback on what they need to add to their abilities and what their strengths are. Such technical advice is hard to get from elsewhere. Even if they don't pass our test, they can go back and strengthen themselves with our advice.Q: So your business model is basically the same as a headhunter, but you're focused on tech talent acquisition.Shao: Yes, we charge just like any headhunter, but we offer better quality of talent and service because we are the only recruiting service that has high tech engineering expertise and can test job seekers on their behalf.We also provide consultancy services such as streamlining the recruitment process, saving our clients valuable time, and ensuring that we find enough quality talent for our clients to review. Customers can also see the progress of the recruitment process in real time from the platform dashboard, a full service that no other company in the market currently offers. We are also happy to work with clients who would like us to license this testing tool to them.Q: What regions and countries are your clients currently located in?Shao: We have clients in Singapore, Canada, the United Kingdom, China and Taiwan who we have already served, and many foreign clients who are willing to assist in applying for a work visa in order to secure talented people.We are able to identify talent worthy of sponsoring visas by our clients and helping them move their families. Because people like that are worth the heavy money the company is paying to move them from overseas.What companies need most is such talent to be the backbone of their IT team. It's our job to find these great techies and help them find the work they truly love.Chiu: There's a huge shortage of tech talent all over the world, not just for startups, but for large companies as well. One of the advantages of T1 is to help the talent and enterprises break down national boundaries so that supply and demand can be met.Shao: Yes, and most international headhunters these days have a branch in each country, and usually don't share information or databases between branches, so they can't see the talent data from another country. Our database, however, is global across borders, and no matter what country a talent is a citizen of, if they are strong enough, the system can help him find the right job. Of course, sometimes there are factors that make it more difficult for foreigners to apply for work visas in certain countries, and the system takes that into account.More and more companies are seeing the value of good engineering talent and understand that such talent is very different from hiring people in operations or marketing. If there is an employee on the operations or marketing team who can't keep up, he won't drag a team down, but on the technology team, it's important to make sure everyone is good enough to do it. In particular, more and more companies are undergoing digital transformation and want to transform into technology companies, they understand that it is not enough to find a "not bad" engineer, they need excellent engineering talent.If one wants to find such talent, relying on the traditional model of having them come into a small room to answer questions will not be enough. Businesses need modern ways to assess the technology talent they need. We have previously helped a logistics company find a very good technical team to successfully help the company achieve its digital transformation goals.Chiu: What we at SparkLabs Taipei have observed is that there are more and more engineers in Taiwan who want to work in Silicon Valley or Southeast Asia, including Singapore. However, more and more companies in these regions are looking to Taiwan to set up IT teams or R&D centers. In addition to an ample supply of technological talent, salaries are very competitive, and the loyalty of employees, quality and speed of Internet connectivity, and quality of information security are all important reasons for these companies to want to come to Taiwan. Therefore, it is a good choice to go through T1 to find a good IT team leader or R&D center manager. They help recruit at all levels, from senior executives to mid-level executives to junior engineers.Shao: We do everything from front-end web or iOS/Android mobile technology engineers, high-frequency trading software or low-latency software engineers, data analysts, back-end C-Sharp/JS, Python/Java architects, or management talent such as managers/technologists at the senior level. In fact, there are already three Silicon Valley executives who have come to Taiwan and want to build their overseas teams here through us. The goodness of Taiwanese talent makes them all want to keep secrets from their opponents. Compared to setting up a technical team in Vietnam or Indonesia, where it's half luck, almost all customers in Taiwan are happy.Q: How has the growth trajectory been over the past three years?Shao: Our annual compounded average growth rate (CAGR) of revenue has been above 200% for the past three years. Although it was not long in the making, we are growing at a very fast pace, although now we are still small compared to some international human resources companies. Our challenge is to establish a standard operating procedure (SOP) to maintain consistent high quality service as the team continues to grow. We also ask our customers to give us their feedback on a quarterly basis as a reference for improvement.We are committed to being a truly global technology talent acquisition company, and unlike other international groups of local companies, we are very interested in understanding the needs of different countries. So we also put a lot of effort into cross-cultural training to ensure that our consultants are able to think differently and understand the thinking of job seekers from different cultures. In addition to identifying technology talent that fits their corporate culture and values, and enabling job seekers to find jobs that fulfill their potential and passion, we also hope to build a deeper and broader talent pool in the next 5-10 years, and use technology to significantly improve the quality of technology talent search.Q: Are you in an A-round or seed round of fundraising?Shao: We should be somewhere in between. We've had revenues from our first year of existence, so there's less need to raise money from outside sources as often as other startups.Chiu: They are currently not short of money, but they are willing to find strategic investors who can drive business growth with them.Shao: I think a strategic investor like that would be a company that would want to use us to give the portfolio companies they invest in a competitive advantage. Many of our satisfied customers are actually startups and keep coming back to us. Therefore, it would be good to talk to their investors, such as venture capital firms, to offer the services of their affiliates and portfolio companies. Sequoia Ventures in the US has its own dedicated recruiting manager to help companies in the portfolio as they expand their teams. We would love to discuss strategic investments with interested companies, or what strategies could be adopted to enable such an ecosystem to grow more rapidly.Q: The next question is for Chiu. Do you have any latest results or plans from SparkLabs to share with our readers?Chiu: Yes, we're pleased to have invested in 18 startups in the last year and three months, and nine of them have been lead investors. T1 is a great example, Edwin has already started his own business, sold his company and started a second time, and still chose to join the global network of SparkLabs accelerators to expand his business.We hope to create a new innovation ecosystem with the companies in our portfolio. We have more than 100 experienced entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley, the UK, Japan, South Korea and Singapore to serve as advisors, with the hope that these new ventures will be successful not only in Taiwan, but also in Asia and the world.T1 CEO Edwin Shao (left) and SparkLabs Taipei co-founder Edgar Chiu (right)Photo: Shihmin Fu, Digitimes, April 2020
