Toshiba's board of directors has approved a JPY2 trillion (US$15.3 billion) offer from a consortium led by Japan Industrial Partners (JIP) to buy the company, according to local media reports in Japan.
The second quarter is expected to be a low point for the NAND flash industry, with growth likely to restart in the third quarter, according to market observers in China.
Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC) will maintain its pace of in-house technological innovation while also cultivating local talent in China, according to Cheng Weihua, COO for the China-based memory chipmaker.
The National Semiconductor Industry Investment Fund of China (commonly known as the Big Fund) has cut its shareholdings in some semiconductor firms, as it is adjusting its investment direction.
Global fab equipment spending for front-end facilities is expected to decline 22% on year to US$76 billion in 2023 from a record high of US$98 billion in 2022 before rising 21% to US$92 billion in 2024 to reclaim lost ground, according to SEMI.
Shipments of next-generation PCIe Gen5 SSDs are unlikely to see a substantial rise until the second half of 2024, according to flash device controller specialist Phison Electronics.
Commenting on Taiwan's possible industrial power price hike, which may rise over 10% in April, the president of DRAM maker Nanya Technology Lee Pei-ing and Winbond president James Chen both expressed their support for the idea.
Despite persistently weak demand for PCs, handsets, and consumer electronics devices, the automotive and industrial sectors continue to see robust momentum, with supplies of certain chips, such as car-use MCUs and MPUs, remaining tight, according to industry sources.
Memory chip prices are expected to bottom out and stop falling soon, with more suppliers optimistic about the market's prospects in the second half of this year, according to industry sources in Taiwan.
Since entering 2023, performance of the memory market has been worse than expected, and the South Korean securities industry has revised the estimated operating losses of both Samsung Electronics' Device Solutions (DS) division and SK Hynix.
NAND flash revenue will continue to decline into the first quarter of 2023 despite lower drops in memory ASPs, according to a recent TrendForce report.
Since PCs and servers are adopting DDR5 memory more slowly than anticipated, related conventional power management IC (PMIC) demand is unlikely to increase with improved visibility until 2024, according to industry sources.
Falling NAND flash chip prices resulted in inventory losses and an approximately 5pp erosion of Phison Electronics' gross margin in the fourth quarter of 2022, according to the memory device controller and module supplier.
GlobalWafers received an all-time high of NT$39.73 billion (US$1.3 billion) in advance payments made by its customers as of the end of 2022, according to the silicon wafer company, which expects another year of revenue growth in 2023.
Industry speculation has begun to circulate in South Korea that SK Hynix is seeking greater control over Solidigm, including product and technology planning, as the South Korean chip vendor faces capex pressure.
Sales generated by companies operating in Taiwan's three primary science industry parks reached NT$4.26 trillion (US$140.58 billion) in 2022, increasing 14.75% from a year earlier, according to data compiled by the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC).
The market penetration of DDR5 memory has been slower than expected and will continue to be so throughout the first half of 2023, as consumer spending power remains constrained, according to sources at memory module makers.
As the United States imposes strict conditions on subsidy applications as a means to curb China's rise in the semiconductor industry, South Korea's semiconductor equipment industry is also facing a crisis in exports.
Chinese NAND flash controller IC suppliers including Goke Microelectronics, Maxio Technology and Yeestor Microelectronics are gaining presence in the China market for SSD controller,s and some have moved to raise funds from the capital market to support further R&D projects on chip products for more niche-type applications, according to market sources.
South Korea has posted a trade deficit for the 12th consecutive month in February 2023 due mainly to poor outbound shipments of its main export products of DRAM and NAND flash chips, whose inventories have hit record-high levels, according to Korean news reports.
The US Department of Commerce (DOC) announced at the end of February the first funding opportunity for its incentives program for the domestic semiconductor industry. Starting from Feb 28, 2023, statements of interest from all potential applicants will be accepted by the CHIPS program office.
Memory module house Apacer Technology has started sampling its consumer-grade PCIe Gen5 SSD series, with volume production slated for the end of the second quarter, according to the company.
Taiwan's OSATs including ASE Technology, TeraPower Technology under Powertech Technology (PTI), and Ardentec have seen clear order visibility for automotive MCUs from IDMs till the end of 2023, but it remains to be seen whether their order momentum for consumer ICs can rebound significantly starting in the third quarter, according to supply chain sources.
Israel-based Weebit Nano and US-based SkyWater Technology have announced the availability of Weebit's resistive RAM (ReRAM) IP in SkyWater's 130nm CMOS (S130) process. SkyWater customers can now easily integrate Weebit's non-volatile memory (NVM) in their system-on-chip (SoC) designs.
