The number of Chinese makers in Apple's top-200 supplier list for 2020 is comparable to that of Taiwanese firms. But industry observers believe Taiwanese suppliers' manufacturing flexibility still give them some advantage in the Apple supply chain over their Chinese competitors. GigaDevice, who in 2020 unseated Taiwan's Winbond Electronics as the sole NOR flash supplier for Apple's AirPods, is eyeing a bigger share in the TWS device market. The annual IT tradeshow Computex has kicked off its 2021 edition - a month-long virtual event.China makers gaining weight on Apple top-200 supplier list: China-based makers have been gaining presence in the Apple's supply chain, with 12 new makers from the country entering the vendor's newly released top-200 supplier list for 2020, compared to six newcomers from Taiwan.GigaDevice eyeing bigger share in TWS earbuds market: NOR flash chipmaker GigaDevice is reportedly ramping up its output at Hua Hong Semiconductor, eyeing a bigger share in the TWS earbuds market segment.Computex 2021 kicks off month-long virtual show: Computex 2021 kicked off on May 31, with firms presenting their latest innovations and products in a month-long virtual tradeshow.

Because of the coronavirus pandemic, investors in Thailand have turned their investment targets to enterprises in the stage of growth, resulting in a reduction in number of loans to startups in 2020 to 30 from 2019's 41, but the overall investment amount still went up from US$109 million in 2019 to US$364 million in 2020, according to a report by Techsauce.Techsauce CEO Oranuch Lerdsuwankij believes Thailand will have its first unicorn startup by the end of 2021 and it may stimulate more entrepreneurs to form startups for Thailand's food/agriculture, health technology and education industries.Thailand's startups have obtained a total of US$845 million in investments since 2012 and the pandemic has caused several startups devoted to developing technologies for tourism to suffer from serious losses.

Rising popularity of electric vehicles (EV) has grabbed global attention. Poised to replace internal combustion engines, EVs are considered the new trend in the era of sustainability. A storm of competition ignited by Tesla, is brewing in the EV market, with traditional US and European automakers are pushing into in-house battery development and manufacturing with an aim to secure bigger cost advantages in the coming decades.Europe-based Volkswagen Group, BMW Group and Porsche as well as US-based Ford Motor and GM all look to gain more control over their in-house battery production capacity and tap the benefits of independent R&D after having experienced the COVID-19's impact on the global chip supply chain. By controlling costs, capacity and technology, they are gearing up for EV market competitions in the coming decades while minimizing potential impact and uncertainties coming from relying solely on third parties for supplies.Ford CEO Jim Farley pointed out that the company is committed to learn from the COVID-19 crisis. The company is taking this opportunity to revamp its supply chain to eliminate vulnerabilities down the road. This is especially relevant not only to semiconductors, but also battery cells.Currently leading in in-house developed and manufactured EV batteries among US and European automakers, Volkswagen held the Power Day event, which shared a similar concept to Tesla's Battery Day, in mid-March for the first time. At the event, the company unveiled its new in-house developed batteries with detailed specs as well as the roadmap for expanding its capacity for the batteries. The Germany-based automaker plans to build six EV battery factories in Europe over the next 10 years either independently or via partnerships. The six factories will together generate a total capacity of 240GWh.Volkswagen aims to gradually reduce battery production costs by 30-50% in a bid to help the company mass produce EVs at lower costs. This will allow Volkswagen to gain a ground to compete against Tesla, which is expected to set its EVs at prices of US$25,000 and lower.Volkswagen is also adding battery production lines at its existing factories. At full capacity, its Braunschweig, Germany plant will be able to assemble up to 500,000 EV batteries a year for models based on Volkswagen's modular electric drive (MEB) architecture and 100,000 EV batteries a year for non-MEB-based models. That is a total annual battery output of 600,000 systems.Volkswagen's subsidiary Porsche will soon start to purchase battery modules from Volkswagen and has a plan to build a battery plant in Germany as well. Porsche CEO Oliver Blume noted battery cells are a core technology for the German car industry, and Porsche wants to play a pioneering role in this.Ford and BMW, on the other hand, are accelerating their own development of solid-state batteries. BMW promises a prototype EV powered by solid-state batteries by 2025. Ford announced in late April its new research and development center – Ford Ion Park – with a goal to improve battery technologies, test-optimized battery manufacturing techniques and vertical-integrated battery into future EV production. Ford is poised to produce its own battery cells by 2025 to power a new generation of longer-range and lower-costing EVs.BMW and Ford both invested in Solid Power, a Colorado-based startup that focuses mainly on producing solid-state batteries, for its US$130 million Series B investment round in late April. The investment is giving Solid Power a push in producing full-scale automotive batteries, increasing associated material output and expanding in-house production capacities. Volkswagen also has a stake in Bill Gates-backed automotive battery startup Quantumscape with a goal to drive forward the joint development of solid-state battery technology.BMW and Ford aim to utilize Solid Power's low-cost, high-energy all solid-state battery technology in forthcoming EVs. Solid Power plans to ship 100Ah cells to BMW and Ford for automotive qualification testing by 2022. Its production lines are now churning out 20Ah all solid-state batteries.GM unveiled its proprietary Ultium battery technology jointly developed with LG Chem in 2020, which is set to drive battery cell costs below US$100/kWh. GM also announced in late April its US$1 billion investment to build new battery production lines at its Ramos Arizpe plant in Mexico, which are scheduled to be up and running in the second half of 2021. The batteries will power EVs that GM will start producing at the same factory complex by 2023.

As electric vehicle (EV) development becomes a global effort, batteries that play a vital role to EVs' cost-performance ratios are a focus to manufacturers with ambitions to expand in the EV market. Both traditional and new automakers have considered battery technology development and production capacity to be importance to their overall planning. Automakers across Europe, America, Japan, Korea and China are actively engaging in battery solution research and production line build-up.Taiwan's ICT foundationTaiwan's battery industry may not be backed by well-known brands and abundant natural resources. Nevertheless, a large part of Taiwan-based battery suppliers have been assembling battery modules for Taiwan's ICT industry. For example, Simplo, Dynapack and Celxpert with a long-term focus on manufacturing battery modules for consumer electronics such as notebook only started to set foot in EV battery solutions in recent years.Aside from battery module assemblers, Taiwan also has upstream suppliers of anode and cathode materials including CoreMax, Mechema, Aleees, E-One Moli and Formosa Lithium Iron Oxide Corporation for supplying anode materials and China Steel Chemical and Chang Chun Group for cathode ones.Although these suppliers may provide materials to customers producing batteries based on different technologies, their materials are mainly used in ternary lithium-ion batteries and lithium iron phosphate batteries that use LFP and LFPO for anode.Tesla's rising popularity has spurred a wave of demand for ternary lithium-ion batteries, while the company's decision to adopt LFP batteries for its EVs for China has also surprised the supply chain. However, these are all "current" developments of the battery industry.Batteries for future EV applications are expected to feature higher energy density, faster charging and discharging time, lighter weight and friendlier costs. Whether lithium-ion batteries and LFP batteries can maintain their leading positions at the moment in the EV market still remains to be seen.The battery of next generationIt has been about 30 years since the world's first lithium-ion battery was commercialized. Based on past experience, the battery industry sees a new generation of core technology about every 30 years. As such, both market newcomers and industry veterans that are eyeing EV opportunities are closely watching the direction of next-generation battery development.Most manufacturers have high hopes for solid-state batteries to replace lithium-ion batteries. Solid-state batteries use solid electrolyte instead of liquid one to significantly reduce the risks of short circuits and accidents. By packing higher-power anode and cathode, solid-state batteries also enable higher energy density, allowing them to outperform ternary lithium-ion batteries in terms of charging time, working temperature and cell longevity.In view of the multiple benefits of solid-state batteries, Toyota, Volkswagen, Nissan and GM are all engaging in the development of solid-state batteries. Foxconn, the initiator of the MIH Open Platform Alliance, reiterated its plans to introduce demo solid-state battery products by year-end 2021 and launch commercialized solid-state batteries by 2024.ProLogium, another Taiwan-based supplier that is pushing development of solid-state batteries, is already working with China-based FAW Group, Enovate Motors, NIO and Aiways.Some manufacturers pointed out that it is rather late for Taiwan that lacks natural resources to invest in lithium-ion battery development at this moment and believe Taiwan should establish its presence in the EV sector via effort toward developing next-generation batteries.It will be difficult to catch up with or compete against international manufacturers that have long been devoted to lithium-ion battery development if Taiwan only now starts to build its own patent portfolio from scratch. Taiwan should also seek joint development opportunities from international manufacturers. By leveraging Taiwan's accumulated experience and technological strength in the ICT sector to help expand the applications for solid-state batteries, Taiwan-based battery suppliers still have a shot at establishing market presence.Comparison of different EV batteriesBattery typeEnergy density (Wh/kg)Power density (W/kg)SafetyLongevity (Cycles)Costs (US$/kWh)Ternary230~260MediumMedium1,000LowLTO80~100HighHigh8,000HighLFP150~170HighHigh2,000LowResin solid state300~320MediumHigh1,500LowLithium-metal350~400LowLow<300MediumSource: ITRI, compiled by Digitimes, April 2021

The car industry, hit hard by chip shortages, has been scrambling for foundry capacity support. UMC's latest US$3.5 billion fab expansion project has already obtained pre-payment commitments from chip vendors, the latest reportedly being NXP. Notebook vendors do not expect demand to weaken much in 2020, with current notebook supply remaining far short of demand amid serious component shortages. For Acer, PC sales are booming, but its non-PC business has seen even stronger growth.NXP is yet another vendor striking long-term deal with UMC: NXP Semiconductors is another chip vendor which has struck a long-term deal with United Microelectronics (UMC) under which the pure-play foundry will have some of its newly-established production capacity reserved for the customer for as long as six years, according to industry sources.Global top-5 notebook brands expect 2022 shipments to remain stable: Global top-5 notebook brands, not including Apple, expect demand for notebooks to stay robust in the second half of 2021 and believe notebook shipments are unlikely to experience a major drop in 2022, according to sources from the related upstream supply chain.Acer non-PC business booming: Acer has seen its non-PC business grow significantly recently along with its booming PC sales, according to company chairman Jason Chen

Though neuromorphic computing is still in the early stage, it promises a new way to make AI devices smarter, smaller, and more efficient by incorporating design elements from the study of how human brainswork.Based on the research results from Dr Chris Eliasmith's Theoretical Neuroscience Lab at the University of Waterloo's Systems Engineering Department, Canadian AI startup, Applied Brain Research Inc (ABR), has developed the Nengo platform, which is well known for its ability to program and visually debug neural network models on a variety of computer chip architectures, including the most powerful emerging neuromorphic chips, such as the Intel Loihi and SpiNNaker research chips. Nengo's has a number of unique abilities, such as its ability to translate AI models to run on any of Nengo's supported platforms, from CPUs, GPUs, micro-controllers, FPGAs and super computers, to neuromorphic chips.Peter Suma, co-CEO of ABR, said that Nengo is the easiest to use and most powerful neuromorphic AI development studio for real-time, multi-platform AI system development. "Nengo allows developers to develop an AI model once for all platforms and then with the flip of a switch, run the algorithm on a neuromorphic chip and then benchmark all deployments easily to compare power, speed and accuracy."While commercial neuromorphic chips are not available yet, many organizations are working with pre-release, research versions of the chips from the labs at various companies including Intel and IBM.Suma explained that, compared with using CPUs or GPUs to run AI algorithms, neuromorphic chips have advantages to make a set of AI networks run far more efficiently, such as signal processing AI (voice, video, sensor, control), optimization and certain search problems. For certain applications, the relative gains can exceed 1,000,000 times better performance for power and/or speed.He emphasized that neuromorphics applied to real-time vision could be a game changer for edge vision. Within the next few years several new neuromorphic chips are expected to be announced, quickening the pace of development."One area where the next advancement is likely to emerge could be in vision where millions of neurons are needed to make vision chips that are more efficient than GPUs. We are likely only one or two generations away from that point," he said. "With all these hardware innovations coming, being able to capture the new hardware advantages while not having to redevelop all your AI networks is really important, this is one area where Nengo shines."In light of this, ABR's Nengo is ready to serve developers to take advantage of these exciting new hardware platforms by extending their AI network assets into neuromorphics through its legendary multi-platform support.ABR has patented a series of algorithms discovered from years of studying brain computation and is using them to increase the efficiency of AI processing in devices to serve makers of devices by making their devices smarter (running more AI in the device than before) and/or by making their existing AI more efficient to increase responsiveness. As an example, ABR developed a mathematical method for processing signals, such as speech or sensor data, in an AI network that their scientists formally, mathematically, proved is the optimal way to do it. Using this discovery, which ABR added to Nengo, ABR set a world record for the lowest power and smallest AI network for speech command word recognition. Devices that respond to voice commands (such as wearables, phones and cars) can do no better for longer battery life and for the fastest, most accurate voice command recognition implementation, than using ABR's networks."By using our brain-inspired AI methods and Nengo, we can make existing AI systems much smaller, much lower-power, and very often more accurate, thereby reducing the size and cost of the chip and memory needed to process the AI on the device," Suma said.With these advantages, ABR is now seeking device maker customers, in a bid to help them make their devices smarter and as efficient at processing as is mathematically possible.Peter Suma, co-CEO of ABR

The COVID-19 pandemic has undersocred the world's over-reliance on China's manufacturing capacity, and accelerated the diversification of the global supply chain, with many firms seeking to building or already building more manufacturing plants in South East Asia. Such a "China+" production diversification strategy presents the nultinational corporations (MNC) with plenty of new opportunities and challenges - in terms of operation, compliance and environment.The China+ strategy has already been implemented by many manufacturers in order to counter increasing labor costs in China and the problems surfacing during the US-China trade war. Now the pandemic bodes a new era for manufacturing, where China and ASEAN will integrate more to a certain extent, accelerating recovery of the regional supply chain.The ACFTA signed between ASEAN and China effectively reduces the costs of accessing Chinese suppliers from ASEAN and improves efficiency in production. Manufacturers in the ASEAN region can import raw materials and components needed without paying extra tariffs or going through unnecessary external obstacles.The cooperation between China and ASEAN is significant because ASEAN is a main supplier of semi-finished goods that are shipped to China for final processing for exports to the Western countries. In the other way around, China provides raw material and components to ASEAN manufacturers. It's natural to that many companies, such as those from Japan, are diversifying investment risks in Asia by investing in both China and ASEAN.China and ASEAN are now more interdependent than ever. Without trade with ASEAN and its supply chain, it's almost impossible for the Chinese economy to fully recover from the pandemic. The regional value chain connecting both sides is also on track to recovery.ASEAN, with its geographical proximity, has been deepening its relation with China over the past two decades, and became China's biggest trade partner in 2020, with the total trade value hitting CNY4.74 trillion (US$ 731.9 billion) and growing 7% on year. China, for 12 consecutive years, has been ASEAN's biggest trade partner, too. Despite the pandemic, the great potential and resilience between the two trading partners has sent out quite a positive message to the world regarding global trade.The Southeast Asian economy revolving around China has long been the epicenter of manufacturing and providing huge economic momentum for the global economy.As for now, it's not easy for businesses to leave China. There's still a lack of skilled labor, supplier network, and logistics infrastructure in the ASEAN countries, which will take years to catch up. However, businesses embracing the "China+ASEAN" strategy can better accommodate themselves in the face of rising labor costs and the tension between the US and China.Relocating the supply chain will incur some direct costs. There are also pros and cons over setting up operation in destination countries, and the production ecosystem is only getting more and more complex. The pandemic has led businesses to develop more localized production, but localization could diminish competence of business, bring up consumer prices, and render business more vulnerable to regional shocks like natural disasters or socio-political upheavals.

Demand for ABF substrates from chip vendors has been strong, wiht new orders placed now unlikely to be delivered until 2023. Some chip vendors have offered higher prices trying to jump the queue, but ABF substrate suppliers have had to turn them down because of their tight capacity. Chipmakers are also striving to secure supply for aQFN leadframe, with the segment's order visibility already extending to February 2022. Memory prices are poised to rise in third-quarter 2021, with NAND flash pricing to climb faster than DRAM.ABF substrate suppliers see clear order visibility through 2023: Taiwan ABF substrate makers have been running their production lines at full capacity, with new orders unlikely to be fulfilled until 2023, according to industry sources.Chipmakers striving to obtain stable aQFN leadframe supply: Chipmakers including MediaTek, Qualcomm and Realtek Semiconductor are striving to secure stable supply of leadframes for use in aQFN packaging, with related leadframe suppliers already seeing order visibility extended to February 2022, according to industry sources.NAND flash prices to rise faster than DRAM in 3Q21: Contract market prices for NAND flash memory are poised to rise faster than those for DRAM chips in the third quarter of 2021, according to industry sources.

In today's world of computer vision AI, there is a significant challenge of running AI models on the limited compute power of edge device chipsets, as they are typically too large, process heavy and consume significant power. Furthermore, there is the rising costs of IT infrastructure (e.g. cloud) to support AI models, which is not green-tech friendly, as well as the costly process of spending months to manually optimizing AI models, while trying to maintain accuracy.To break down these barriers, Deeplite created its unique software platform called Deeplite Neutrino, which is an intelligent optimization engine for Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) that can be deployed on constrained edge-based products and more efficiently within cloud servers. Deeplite Neutrino helps AI experts automatically optimize high-performance DNN models to satisfy target computation constraints. The engine inputs large, trained DNN models to produce smaller, highly-efficient models while preserving the accuracy. This brings significant value to manufacturing sectors which typically have a variety of edge devices, such as cameras for automated optical inspection and robotics arms for rapid product sorting and packaging, that are powered by different processors (e.g. CPU, MCU and RISC-V). In order to run the AI with improved inference and operational efficiency, the DNN models need to be optimized, with enhanced throughput, while maintaining accuracy.Deeplite Neutrino provides user-friendly software to generate compact and efficient AI modelsDeeplite, the Canadian start-up, provides a software-based AI-Driven Optimizer to make DNNs faster, smaller and energy-efficient to run on edge device and more cost effectively in a cloud environment. Today, there is a significant challenge of running machine vision and perception AI applications on the limited compute power of edge devices and their associated chipsets.The company's software product named Deeplite Neutrino provides a unique on-premise tool for AI engineering and data science teams, which accelerates their respective machine learning operations workflow for deep learning models such as image classification, object detection and segmentation. With an easy-to-use optimization solution, OEMs and chip manufacturers can leverage Deeplite Neutrino to rapidly produce highly compact, high performance models to deploy in production on a multitude of hardware platforms. The automated functionality of Deeplite Neutrino can be as simple as the following workflow:*Input the pretrained model, associated dataset and specific performance KPIs, e.g. desired model accuracy and size. *Press start and watch Neutrino output a highly optimized model with acceptable accuracy. *Deploy your optimized model to your target hardware devices via the associated compiler and inference engine.Showcasing of automatic optical inspection and robotic fast-time-to-classifying systemsThe current popular Industrial 4.0 use cases powered by Deeplite Neutrino are computer vision-based for a variety of edge devices such as cameras, robotics and drones. One of the most popular AI applications is automatic optical inspection which will accelerate quality control inspection during the manufacturing process. The need to have faster inference at the camera to identify faults in the production line will save significant operational costs, increase customer orders and enhance customer satisfaction. Customers will utilize Deeplite Neutrino to drive efficiencies for compressing and deploying object detection and segmentation AI models for the quality control application on low power devices e.g. cameras. The same applies to fast-time-to-classifying images via robots for rapid identification of sorting packages on a manufacturing conveyor belt.Deeplite is currently working with customers in North America, Taiwan, Japan and select countries in Europe. Thanks to the close collaboration with the Canadian Trade Office in Taipei, Deeplite is focused on engaging with Taiwan customers. As a world leader in hardware manufacturing and a strong foundation for intelligent technology development, particularly in ICT and semiconductors, Taiwan is a great fit for Deeplite's market focus. Furthermore, Taiwan is seeking to develop a world-leading AI on Device solution, which incorporates both hardware and software collaboration. This aligns extremely well with Deeplite's Neutrino software value to chip manufacturers, edge device manufacturers (OEMs) and within manufacturing processes. Deeplite looks forward to building a strong market presence in Taiwan.Charles Marsh, CCO of Deeplite

Chinese handset vendors are turning pessimistic about shipment prospects amid tumbling demand in India where COVID cases have been soaring. Chinese handset vendors have now further cut their overall shipment goals for 2021. In China, LCD panel makers are increasing capacity at their existing 8.6G and 10.5G lines, rasing concerns about oversupply. In Taiwan, Micron is set soon to ramp up production at a new fab for DRAM built using 1-alpha-nm node.Xiaomi, Oppo and Realme cut shipment goals further: China-based handset brands, including Xiaomi, Oppo, Realme and Honor, reportedly have slashed their shipment goals further for 2021, having already lowered their targets earlier in May, according to industry sources.China LCD panel makers to ramp up output from existing 8.6G and 10.5G fabs: China-based LCD panel makers have continued to ramp up capacities from their existing 8.6G and 10.5G fabs although most of them have said they would not establish new LCD panel lines.Micron to scale up 1αnm chip output: Micron Technology will soon open its new fab dubbed A3 in Taichung, central Taiwan, with the additional capacity set to boost the output of its DRAM chips built using a newer 1-alpha-nm node, according to industry sources.