Wi-Fi SoC demand for consumer applications has experienced a slowdown since September and is expected to continue shrinking in the fourth quarter, which in turn is driving chip vendors such as MediaTek and Realtek Semiconductor to reduce order placements with their backend partners, according to industry sources.
The sources said Taiwan's OSATs such as ASE Technology and Powertech Technology (PTI) continue to land substantial backend orders from Broadcom, whose delivery lead times for its Wi-Fi core chips are still longer than those of its competitors due to robust demand from clients.
MediaTek and Realtek still enjoy stable Wi-Fi chip demand for 5G infrastructure and enterprise networking applications, but their shipments for mainstream consumer applications like PCs and handsets have declined significantly, affecting their overall fourth-quarter order momentum for backend partners including testing houses King Yuan Electronics, Sigurd Microelectronics and test interface specialists Keystone Microtech, WinWay Technology and MPI, the sources said.
Growing infrastructure applications in China can more or less bolster shipments of Taiwan networking chips suppliers and their backend partners through at least the first half of 2023, the sources said, adding that their further growth momentum will hinge on whether they can boost market shares for high-end networking, datacenter, industrial and automotive applications.
Japan's IDMs also pointed out that clients in Europe have shown particularly strong demand for infrastructure-use networking chips since the third quarter, but it will take 2-3 quarters to digest inventories for consumer applications.
Article translated by Willis Ke
