Renesas Electronics has announced plans to reopen its Kofu factory located in Kai City, Yamanashi Prefecture as a 300mm wafer fab capable of manufacturing power semiconductors. The facility was closed in October 2014.
Commodity MOSFET chip inventories have been rising, with related suppliers likely to come under pressure to offload their stockpiles starting the fourth quarter of 2022, according to industry sources.
Six-inch IC foundries, such as Mosel Vitelic and Nuvoton Technology, continue to run their fabs at full capacity utilization despite a recent slowdown in orders for LCD driver chips and other consumer ICs, according to industry sources.
Taiwan-based lead frame makers are expected to see business opportunities from China-based vendors' adoption of POB (package-on-board) miniLED backlighting for LCD TVs, according to industry sources.
Taiwan-based power semiconductor suppliers including Actron Technology and Eris Technology are aggressively utilizing manufacturing and supply-chain resources from their affiliated companies, looking to operate on an IDM-like mode to effectively grow their businesses in the automotive, industrial and other high-margin fields, according to industry sources.
Power management IC suppliers, including those engaged mainly in the consumer electronics field, continue to see their supply remain constrained, according to industry sources.
Ofuna Technology has enjoyed a strong pull-in of orders from ABF substrate suppliers looking to carry out their capacity expansion projects, according to the Taiwan-based company specializing in mechanical drilling services and metal cutting equipment.
Japan-based multi-layer ceramic capacitor (MLCC) suppliers are seeing robust demand from emerging industries, such as 5G, AIoT, and future vehicles, according to industry sources.
Re-grown highly-doped GaN epitaxial wafers have large growth potential in application and demand, according to chairman and CEO YC Kao for GaAs- and InP-based epitaxial wafer maker IntelliEPI.
TDK has announced plans to construct a new factory building at its manufacturing site in Kitakami, Japan's Iwate Prefecture, for automotive MLCCs. Construction of the factory is scheduled to begin at the end of the company's fiscal year (March 2023), and will be completed in June 2024.
Taiwan-based uPI Semiconductor, an Asustek Computer affiliate specializing in power management ICs, saw its net profits surge 135% on year to NT$401 million (US$13.4 million) in the first quarter of 2022. EPS for the quarter came to NT$5.20.
Taiwan's MOSFET supplier Force-MOS Technology saw its April revenue hit a record high for the fourth consecutive month, as tight supply of MOSFET chips remains despite a slowdown in demand for consumer devices.
Shortages of industrial-control ICs are causing bottlenecks in the manufacture of automation equipment used for the chipmaking and PCB industries, according to sources at semiconductor equipment companies.
Taiwan-based Eris Technology has reported record-high April revenue thanks to automotive and industrial control applications, and it anticipates continued profit growth in the second quarter.
Samsung Electro-Mechanics (Semco) is poised to step into the server package substrate sector with plans to build new production lines for high-end ABF substrates in South Korea and Southeast Asia to meet growing demand for server applications, according to industry sources.
Worldwide silicon wafer area shipments in the first quarter of 2022 surpassed the previous record high set in the third quarter of 2021, according to SEMI.
Pure-play compound semiconductor wafer foundry Global Communication Semiconductors (GCS) expects to start generating gains from its investment in Unikorn Semiconductor, a compound semiconductor maker spun off from LED epitaxial wafer and chip maker Epistar, in 2023, according to company president and CEO Brian Ann.
Continuing sluggish smartphone sales in China have led to excess inventories of handset-use power amplifiers (PA) and other chip components. This has prompted Win Semiconductor (Win Semi) and other Taiwan-based III-V IC makers to be cautious about their market prospects for the third quarter of 2022.
Tong Hsing Electronic Industries, which supplies ceramic substrates and backend services for CMOS image sensors (CIS) and other niche ICs, has enjoyed strong demand for automotive CIS and other automotive products which will climb further as a proportion of company revenue from the current 45%.
III-V compound epitaxial wafer maker LandMark Optoelectronics (LMOC) began to produce InP-based epitaxial wafers which are used to make photodiodes (PD) for consumer electronics, according to the company. It is also the first time in the industry to use PD for consumer electronics, like smartphones and earphones.
Flexible PCB specialist Flexium Interconnect has turned conservative about its sales prospects for the second quarter and all of 2022, due to concerns about supply-chain disruptions caused by COVID lockdowns and restrictions in the Chinese cities of Kunshan and Shanghai.
Yageo saw its net profits climb 31.8% sequentially in the first quarter of 2022. Market sources expect the passive component vendor to post a single-digit sequential increase in second-quarter revenue, thanks to stable growth in demand for its midrange and high-end products.
Along with IT-OT integration arising from fast development of Industry 4.0-based smart manufacturing, RFID sensors have been widely used in manufacturing processes for real-time tracking of assets, workers, control of processes at production lines and management of supply chains, according to Taiwan sales & operations director Mike Ouyang for Germany-based Balluff.
Taiwan-based ABF substrate suppliers including Unimicron Technology, Nan Ya PCB and Kinsus Interconnect Technology are expected to commercialize additional capacities boosting their revenues and profits over the next three years, according to supply chain sources.
SFA Semicon Philippines, a subsidiary of South Korea-based SFA Semicon, has reported US$12.8 million in after-tax profits for the year of 2021, leaping 133% on year.
