Sony's CIS orders may have failed to materialize, but strong demand from other major clients have quickly filled the gap that would have been occupied by the Japanese vendor at TSMC. Persistently tight supply in the semiconductor sector has sent IC substrate suppliers looking to expand capacity. But some major Taiwanese suppliers are asking AMD to fund new lines that would cater to the client alone. In the notebook market, global shipments are expected to exceed 62 million units in second-quarter 2021, driven by gaming and education devices. TSMC ramping 28nm chip output despite cutback in orders from Sony: Despite weakened orders from Sony, TSMC still has been ramping up its 28nm chip output with plans to build additional production capacity at its Nanjing fab in China, according to industry sources.Taiwan IC substrate suppliers negotiating new deals with AMD: Major Taiwan-based IC substrate suppliers Unimicron Technology, Nan Ya PCB and Kinsus Interconnect Technology are negotiating with AMD a new form of supply deals under which the suppliers would build production lines dedicated to serving the US client, according to industry sources.Global notebook shipments to surpass 62 million units in 2Q21: Global notebook shipments not including devices with detachable keyboards went down only 8.7% sequentially in the first quarter of 2021 as demand for education and gaming models remained robust and previously unfulfilled orders were delivered, according to Digitimes Research.

Chromebook shipments worldwide remained at above 10 million units in the first quarter of 2021, despite an around 9% sequential decrease, according to Digitimes Research's figures.The volume went up more than 280% on year, though.Notebook shipments to the education procurement segment in 2020 were significantly driven up by the stay-at-home economy with Chromebooks, which accounted for over 60% of the volumes, seeing shipments surpass 30 million units in the year.Among major Chromebook brands, Hewlett-Packard (HP), Samsung Electronics and Asustek Computer all achieved new quarterly shipment records for the education devices in the first quarter, while shipments of models powered by MediaTek's Arm-based solutions also hit more than 1.5 million units in the quarter.Digitimes Research's latest figures from its Notebook Tracker show global notebook shipments arrived at 57.51 million units in the first quarter of 2021, down 8.7% sequentially, much better than the average sequential decline of 15% experienced in the past years.The significant performance in the first quarter of 2021 was driven primarily by gaming and education notebooks as well as Apple's MacBooks.Asustek and Micro-Star International (MSI) both saw increased gaming notebook shipments in the first quarter of 2021, while GPUs and high-end mobile CPUs used in these devices were in serious shortage with pricing rising.TN panels in 11.6-inch size and SD resolution, the most adopted screens among education notebooks, are currently experiencing the worst short supply and having the highest price hikes compared to other panels. Related timing controller (TCON), display driver IC (DDIC) and power management ICs (PMIC) are also in tight supply at the moment.Apple shipped more than five million MacBooks in the first quarter of 2021, up 150% on year, while over 50% of the volumes were models adopting the in-house developed M1 processor, Digitimes Research's data shows.Although component shortages are likely to worsen, strong demand from the education procurement segment and low inventory levels at US and Europeean retail channels will prompt brand vendors to increase their order pull-ins in the second quarter of 2021 and reach 63 million units, up 10% sequentially.

Global notebook shipments not including devices with detachable keyboards went down only 8.7% sequentially in the first quarter of 2021 as demand for education and gaming models remained robust and previously unfulfilled orders were delivered, according to Digitimes Research.With second-quarter 2021 being the traditional peak season for the education procurement segment and demand from the enterprise and consumer segments expected to rise, overall shipments in the quarter will grow sequentially.Although component shortages will remain serious, brand vendors will continue pushing their shipments to more than 62 million units in the second quarter of 2021 , up around 10% from a quarter ago, Digitimes Research's numbers show.The top-6 brands will all see sequential shipment increases in the second quarter. Hewlett-Packard's (HP) Chromebook shipments will continue breaking its record in the quarter, while Lenovo's shipments will underperform its competitors due to Japan's GIGA School project reaching an end.Dell will see brisk shipment growth in the second quarter as it steps up efforts for North America's education and enterprise segments.Apple is focusing mainly on shipments of its iPad Pros and iMacs in the second quarter, resulting in weaker notebook shipments than most of its competitors. Asustek Computer with its gaming notebooks and Acer with its Chromebooks are expected to see double-digit sequential shipment growths in the second quarter.Samsung Electronics will also experience a major on-quarter shipment increase in the second quarter as the Korean vendor now treats notebooks as one of its major business directions.Among Taiwanese ODMs, Wistron and Pegatron will see shipment shares increases from US and Taiwanese clients, respectively in the second quarter, compared to the first.

Global server shipments are expected to slip by only 1.6% sequentially in the first quarter of 2021 despite the quarter being a traditional slow season, according to Digitimes Research's latest figures from its Server Tracker.After experiencing a slowdown in server order pull-ins in the second half of 2020, demand from several datacenter operators began to resume in the first quarter of 2021, as shortages of ICs and components remained fierce.Server shipments are expected to grow around 14% sequentially in the second quarter of 2021 thanks to increasing orders from cloud computing service providers, e-commerce platforms and enterprises, as well as the replacement trend stimulated by the releases of Intel's new-generation server CPUs, Digitimes Research's numbers show.In the second quarter, Amazon and Google will both need to install more servers to satisfy their e-commence and cloud computing services, while Dell and HP Enterprise (HPE) are seeing increasing server orders from traditional enterprises.Supermicro's shipments will pick up in the second quarter as it has obtained server system projects from its US-based datacenter clients.Because of concerns over IC and component shortages and possible prolonged delivery schedules, datacenter operators and server brands have advanced some of their orders with their manufacturing partners.Global server shipments are expected to reach 8.09 million units in the first half of 2021, remaining flat from the same period a year ago.

Price of passive component may further increase in the third quarter of 2021 as shortages remain fierce, while visibility of orders from 5G handset, notebook, networking and automotive applications stays strong. Meanwhile, Apacer is planning to keep its chip inventory at high levels since its order visibility is still clear through May. Win Semiconductors also expects strong demand for power amplifier from 5G and Wi-Fi 6E applications with the orders to boost its revenues in the second half of 2021.Taiwan passive component makers mull further price hikes in 3Q21: Taiwan-based passive component suppliers will be considering a new round of price hikes in third-quarter 2021, given that their order visibility has extended through the second half of the year thanks to strong demand for 5G handset, notebook, networking and automotive applications, according to industry sources.Apacer continues to stockpile chips: Memory module house Apacer Technology intends to maintain chip inventories at high levels, judging from clear order visibility through May, according to company president CK Chang.Win Semi gearing up for robust PA demand for 5G, Wi-Fi 6E devices: GaAs foundry Win Semiconductors expects robust power amplifier (PA) demand for 5G and Wi-Fi 6E applications to drive its revenue growth in the second half of 2021.

China-based smartphone vendors saw their combined first-quarter 2021 shipments decline 9.7% sequentially to 191 million units, which, however, represented a sharp on-year increase of 73.8%, with the on-quarter fall also improving significantly from corresponding shrinkages of over 20% seen in pre-pandemic years, according to Digitimes Research.The narrowing sequential fall mainly resulted from Chinese handset vendors Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi aggressively snatching domestic market shares left behind by Huawei facing tough US trade sanctions.The three vendors together shipped 129 million smartphones in the first quarter, accounting for 67.5% of total shipments by Chinese suppliers, up from 58.7% registered a quarter earlier. Huawei's first-quarter shipments shrank 53.6% sequentially, Digitimes Research statistics show.Among other vendors, Honor, a spin-off from Huawei, sustained flat shipment performance in the first quarter as its sales remained focused on old models, and Transsion saw its first-quarter sales only slightly decline sequentially thanks to its smartphones with high price-performance ratios becoming increasingly popular with consumers in emerging markets now transitioning to smartphones from feature handsets.Digitimes Research also estimates the combined second-quarter shipments from China's handset vendors will drop 7.2% sequentially on seasonality and continued shortages of components. But the quarter's shipments are expected to grow on year thanks to lower comparison base for 2020.

AppWorks, the largest venture capital (VC) firm in Taiwan and Southeast Asia, manages three VC funds with a total asset of US$212 million after 10 years of efforts. Not only has the firm reached profitability, but it has also incubated an accumulated total of 56 startups, including four successful IPOs, one centicorn (worth over US$100 billion), one decacorn (worth over US$10 billion), one unicorn and six centaurs (worth over US$100 million). The entire ecosystem is made up of 400 active startups reaching an estimated total worth exceeding US$10 billion, employing 17,000 professionals and generating annual revenue of US$8 billion.During a recent the interview by Digitimes, AppWorks founder, chairman and partner Jamie Lin shed light on the firm's goal for the next decade and shared his view on future trends.Q: Will AppWorks engage in more collaborations with corporate venture capital (CVC)?A: When starting Fund 1, we received investments from four leading corporations. Fund 2 had investments from nine corporations. The number went up to about 12 or 13 for Fund 3. We have been working with CVC every step of the way. It's just that every CVC may have different objectives when they fund our projects. Some are purely after financial returns while the others have strategic considerations. AppWorks has always made it clear to our CVC partners that we bring double values. First and foremost, we create financial returns. Our net annualized rate of return has maintained around 26% since Fund 2, which is in the upper 10% among global VC firms. Fund 3, of which the fundraising concluded at the end of March, received overwhelming response, reaching a final close of US$150 million, far exceeding the target of US$100 million.Fund 3 has exceeded Fund 2 by a wide margin while standing a good chance of being among the world's largest 10% VC funds. We benefit our shareholders with ROI that outperforms funds with a similar focus. More than that, we operate a large ecosystem with a wealth of promising startups. Our shareholders can choose to invest in our startups that align with their strategic goals. I would like to emphasize that we run a two-way platform, serving both CVC and startups. Our startups need to build partnerships with corporations. AppWorks creates a win-win situation through our VC operations and looks to broaden and strengthen the business model going forward.Q: You have mentioned that your next 10-year goal is to create more AppWorks and grow the VC ecosystem. How do you expect to achieve the goal?A: For the upcoming decade, first of all, we expect to ramp up the number of active startups in our ecosystem to 1,000. Then, we look forward to growing their total estimated worth to US$100 billion and their total employees to 50,000. That is, we will be creating that many jobs. Furthermore, we hope to foster 5,000 graduates from AppWorks School (the number now stands at 300). Another goal is to grow Taiwan's VC ecosystem and expediate its growth.AppWorks has completed fundraising for Fund 3. Fund 2 and Fund 3 have performed brilliantly, generating handsome returns for investors while enabling startup teams to enjoy good income. We also provide our employees with big bonuses. The entire ecosystem has created plenty of job opportunities and shots at success for young people and entrepreneurs in Taiwan. We even started a free school with our surplus funds, which has helped many people learn new skills and successfully transition to new jobs. We have accomplished so much and brought tremendous values to society without any use of social capital. All the stakeholders in the ecosystem are able to reap the benefits of the multi-win-win situation. If there's not just one AppWorks in Taiwan but 10, the energy they'll be able to create will considerably fuel Taiwan's growth.AppWorks focuses on "ABS": AI, blockchain and Southeast Asia. Going into the next decade, we hope to build more firms like AppWorks targeting other fields. Of course, we need to speed up our own growth as well. When we are able to successfully grow more new ecosystems, we will be able to multiply the positive result, so we need to also expand horizontally.Q: What fields do you think are worth investing in?A: For example, Foodland Ventures is one of our incubators in the food technology VC category. It was founded by Agnes Wang, an AppWorks alumnus, and a partner in the food sector. We invest in some VC firms in Southeast Asia. Foodland Ventures is our first project in Taiwan. We look forward to making more VC investments in Taiwan.We are also helping Cornerstone Ventures without making financial investment. The VC was jointly established by Chunghwa Telecom (CHT) and PCHome. Hung-Tze Jan, PCHome founder and chairman, asked us to recommend fund managers, so we gave Cornerstone two of AppWorks' seasoned managers - Tzu-pu Lin and Min-Jun Jiang. The two high-caliber professionals have made great success operating Cornerstone. AppWorks was considering making investment into Cornerstone but decided against it because some Cornerstone shareholders had concerns over my role as Taiwan Mobile's president.We hope to see 10 or even 20 premium-quality VC funds in Taiwan over the next 10 years. This will help reinvigorate the VC sector and expediate growth.Q: AppWorks focuses on ABS with plenty of success stories. Could you share your views on the future trends of blockchain?A: I started to watch blockchain development in 2013 and examine the potential effect of cryptocurrencies and decentralized finance platforms on the human society. Cryptocurrencies at that time were fungible tokens, meaning the coins were identical and worth the same. The concept of non-fungible tokens (NFT) began to emerge in the world of blockchain in 2017 with an aim to reflect the fact that not every token is of the same value in the society.For example, limited edition collectible coins of unique serial numbers may have special value and meaning to collectors. In fact, there are many types of assets that may take the same shape or form but still have slight differences. If we are to digitize these NFTs or their ownership, existing fungible tokens like Bitcoin and Ether will not serve the purpose. CryptoKitties is the pioneering NFT application in gaming. We think the NFT concept captures a large portion of how the human society operates so we are very optimistic about its development.Dapper Labs, the developer of CryptoKitties, wanted to focus on NFT but later found the Ethereum blockchain could not handle massive NFT transactions occurring instantly, so it began to develop its own Flowchain. We came into contact with Dapper Labs in 2017, when Bitcoin experienced a surge followed by a crash by the end of the year. No one really wanted to invest in blockchain at the time. We, on the contrary, have always had high hopes for blockchain and saw the potential of Dapper Labs, whose CTO was the one that published the NFT white paper on Ethereum. In view of CryptoKitties being the first killer NFT application and the development of Flowchain, we made two rounds of investment into Dapper Labs, totaling US$2.5 million.I experienced the dot-com bubble first-hand. Soon after I started my own business in 1999, the first bubble burst. Then in 2007-2008, I saw the second market crash. A lot of companies didn't survive the two bubble bursts. In contrast, those providing fundamental applications and services that get to the root of people's problems enjoy growing adoption. This has never changed and will never change. The same is true for blockchain. Even though asset prices fluctuate, applications and use scenarios have been expanding since 2008. Blockchain is increasingly used to solve more and more problems. This trend will continue going forward.Q: Looking ahead, what emerging opportunities do you envision? What efforts does Taiwan need to make and what partnerships should Taiwan engage in to capture such opportunities?A: Established five years ago, AppWorks School may seem like a side project but we put our heart into it because it offers development opportunities for young people. Changes in school education lag behind rapid advances in today's world. Traditional school systems can no longer keep up with current needs. AppWorks School is aimed at bringing the gap closer by allowing young people to learn practical skills for free and enabling them to make positive contributions and realize their dreams.Looking ahead, I see Taiwan's aging and shrinking population being a major concern. Despite the nationwide effort to encourage childbearing, it is not a real solution but a slow remedy. Children born today will not be able to work until they are about 20 years old. Immigration is the answer. The US is strong because it takes in first-rate talent from all over the world. At least before Donald Trump was elected president, the US did not turn away foreign talent.Taiwan may not be able to compete with the US for global talent but if we narrow the scope to Greater Southeast Asia, whch includes Taiwan, then Taiwan is in a good position to attract talent in this region. Taiwan is a leader of the pack in this region, and it offers good education. Many people would prefer living in Taiwan.If we are willing to recruit students from countries in Southeast Asia to attend college or graduate school, we can attract outstanding talent. Some of them may stay after completing their study. A top priority for Taiwan now is to turn our cost-effective higher education system into an attraction that wins over premium talent in ASEAN countries and an engine that drives future economic growth.ASEAN countries face a rising China together. If Taiwan can form an alliance with them and build up connections, Taiwan can have more leverage. By establishing closer ties with Southeast Asia, Taiwan has a way to mitigate the impact of population aging and decline on productivity and the threat to regional peace. This should be a goal that Taiwan needs to make effort toward for the upcoming decade. The next 10 years will be a window of opportunity that Taiwan must seize. There will be no second chance if we let it pass.This is also the reason why I set up the NTU-Jamie Lin-Southeast Asia Bursary. I hope more people will join this effort and build up the energy. From AppWorks' experience, we have learned that if we do the right thing and work toward the goal one step at a time, over time we'll start a positive cycle. What we have accomplished through our years of efforts is a perfect example.AppWorks founder, chairman and partner Jamie LinPhoto: Liu Kuo-tung, special to Digitimes, April 2021

Both UMC and VIS have just announced their respective foundry capacity expansions plans. UMC, with support from some of its major clients, will invest NT$100 billion to expand its 12-inch fab site in southen Taiwan. And VIS will take up an AUO LCD line in Taiwan for NT$905 million and convert it into an 8-inch wafer fab. In the semiconductor backend sector, ASE Technology Holding is raising its capex budget for 2021 to fund capacity expansion. UMC to expand factory site in southern Taiwan: Pure-play foundry United Microelectronics (UMC) has announced plans to invest a total of NT$100 billion (US$3.58 billion) in the expansion of its 12-inch factory site in southern Taiwan.VIS to buy AUO fab for NT$905 million: Specialty IC foundry Vanguard International Semiconductor (VIS) has announced plans to take over the L3B plant of LCD panel maker AU Optronics (AUO), and related equipment and facilities, for NT$905 million (US$32.4 million).ASE raises capex projection for 2021: Taiwan's leading OSAT firm ASE Technology Holding will raise its capex budget by 10-15% to up to US$2 billion for 2021, from the previous estimation of US$1.7 billion, according to Tien Wu, the firm's chief operating officer.

Massive demand for rapid, secure, and stable transmission of data and information in the age of Internet of Things (IoT) and Industry 4.0 is attracting solution providers to seek opportunities in the manufacturing space. Solace, a middleware solution provider founded in 2001 in Ottawa, Canada, also has its eyes set on the manufacturing sector in Taiwan, and is expanding its business in the market.Solace is well established as a leader in event-streaming technology, with partners in a wide variety of industries including the London Stock Exchange, SAP, Airtel, NASA and more. Its services can also help power the smart manufacturing processes of "event-driven" enterprises, according to the company, which is seeking to expand its presence in Taiwan with assistance from the Canadian Trade Office in Taipei (CTOC).Mathew Tam, Solace's VP of Taiwan and China region, explained to Digitimes that an "event" can be anything that happens within and to an enterprise, be it customer requests, inventory updates or sensor readings. An event broker, such as Solace's PubSub+ platform, facilitates the flow of real-time data between applications, microservices, and connected devices by pushing information to where it needs to go.But the company's approach differs from competitors'. "Cisco built the hardware of transmission to disrupt the way that engineers build routers on software and how they send information from one system to another," Tam explained. "We want to raise the standard in event streaming, with the aim of enabling people to connect more easily and to exchange information over the application level."Solace's PubSub+ platform can help modernize the manufacturing sector by integrating IT and OT across plants, data centers, clouds and geographies. This sets the foundation for real-time data flow between devices, buildings, assembly lines, fleets, containers and more. PubSub+ can also help transportation and logistics service providers monitor and manage assets on the move, weathering through the unpredictability of traffic and weather.PubSub+ enables event-driven architectures, which is a way of building enterprise IT systems that lets loosely coupled applications and microservices produce and consume events.Solace's solution can also be used to create an "event mesh," which is an architecture layer composed of a network of event brokers that allows events from one application to be dynamically routed and received by another application, no matter where the applications are deployed. It helps to liberate data trapped in legacy applications and enable IT teams to innovate using best-of-breed technology."Solace can connect with almost any kind of device, be it a computer, a machine deployed in the public or private cloud in any part of the world, even in extra-terrestrial space. Situational awareness, real-time responsiveness, and informed decision-making are the key benefits that companies will stand to gain by partnering with Solace. They can also look to integrate suppliers, business partners, and customers in real-time," Tam said.He stressed that, regardless of the industry, Solace's PubSub+ platform enables real-time data flow between connected devices, IoT gateways and applications running in various clouds and data centers. "It can maintain continuous connections with millions of devices, intelligently filtering and routing information so that it is only sent to the applications and devices that need it to enable instant communication and interoperability," Tam said. "The scalability and flexibility of Solace's solution makes it the ideal messaging backbone for any IoT implementation use cases."Despite the fact there are various IoT standards, Tam emphasized that Solace supports almost all standards available in the market for the convenience of their customers.Data from the company's website claims it has a reliability of 99.999% for PubSub+ appliance pair services. It also says it serves 450 million connected citizens in India and delivers 28.4 million point-to-point messages per second with fan-out.Although Solace has been working with several banks and government agencies in Taiwan for years, it is eager to add customers from the semiconductor and electric vehicle (EV) industries to their portfolio. "We are well placed to work with Taiwanese partners to offer best-in-breed solutions for businesses in smart manufacturing, supply chain and logistics."As 5G facilitates high-speed data transmission in real time, cyber security would be essential for companies. "Solace helps customers send their data from one point to another. Think of us as a highway of sorts. The security side of things, relating to how information is encrypted, is decided by customers. We are happy to support our customers in their messaging goals regardless of which solution they use to comply with regulatory requirements," Tam said.Mathew Tam, Solace's VP of Taiwan and China regionPhoto: Company

The ICT supply chain continues to be influenced by serious component shortages and UMC is now looking to have its major clients to enter into 3-year supply agreement. Meanwhile, LCD panel supply is expected to grow worse as some key component suppliers such as Corning and AUO are set to perform annual maintenance in the near future. Kinsus' capacity is expected to increase by 30% in 2021 to satisfy growing orders from clients.UMC eyeing long-term contracts with major clients: Pure-play foundry United Microelectronics (UMC) is striving to get its major clients including Samsung Electronics, MediaTek and Qualcomm to enter into 3-year supply agreements, according to industry sources.LCD panels supply worsening: With Corning and AU Optronics (AUO) planning to undertake annual maintenance for their fabs shortly, the current tight supply of glass substrates and LCD panels is likely to worsen in the near term, according to industry sources.Kinsus to raise ABF substrate capacity by 30% in 2021: IC substrate maker Kinsus Interconnect Technology expects ABF substrate shipments to grow to 35% in terms of revenue contribution ratio in 2021, when at least a 30% additional production capacity will come online.