As major countries, particularly the United States, escalate their substantial subsidies for domestic semiconductor production, South Korea's industry is increasingly concerned about its lagging policies and lack of local manufacturing incentives. Reports suggest that the South Korean presidential office is crafting a subsidy plan aimed at fostering and attracting Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) from both home and abroad.
Samsung Electronics has appointed company vice chairman Young Hyun Jun as the new leader of its Device Solutions (DS) division. Jun will be responsible for overseeing the company's semiconductor business and enhancing its competitive position in the face of an unpredictable global business climate.
China- and Taiwan-based memory module houses have been actively stockpiling in anticipation of a sustained increase in chip prices, according to industry sources. The majority of them had inventory turnover days of six to eight months at the end of the first quarter.
Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix reported a surprising increase in semiconductor inventories in the first quarter, even as the memory market improved. The companies attributed the rise to accounting adjustments that reflected higher memory prices and reduced provisions in their income statements.
Moore's Law is not advancing as fast as it used to be under 2nm and even into the Angstrom level, and competitors are trying to catch up. Can ASML, the Dutch semiconductor equipment maker, continue its monopolistic leadership in the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography equipment market?
Recent data indicates an uptick in semiconductor industry inventories, particularly among top chip companies capitalizing on the AI trend. While China has witnessed a rise in listed semiconductor firms, it continues to face challenges, particularly in the memory business sector.
Industry sources predict that niche market memory prices will increase only marginally in 2024. However, by the second half of 2025, prices are expected to revert to pre-epidemic levels as supply and demand in the market realign.
Major memory vendors Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and Micron Technology are fiercely competing to win orders for next-generation High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM) chips from Nvidia and other potential clients, including Broadcom, which has reportedly commenced testing their 8-layer HBM3E products.
Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix recently disclosed the orders and development of their High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM) products and have released optimistic comments for standard DRAM and HBM prices.
With the rise of AI, SK Hynix has successfully developed a new mobile NAND Flash solution called ZUFS (Zoned UFS) 4.0, targeting on-device AI applications.
With the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI), the NAND flash market is experiencing significant growth. This has reignited the competition between Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix for dominance in the 3D NAND market, and their rivalry in stacking more than 400 layers of 3D NAND is expected to intensify further in 2025.
Wuhan Xinxin Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (XMC) has begun the IPO process. However, the pure-play foundry faces a challenging journey as it seeks to differentiate itself in a fiercely competitive market dominated by numerous players engaged in mature node manufacturing in China.
Memory manufacturer Micron Technology expects memory prices will continue climbing throughout 2024 and that pricing will increase significantly in the coming quarters.
Suppliers of Power Management ICs (PMICs) may encounter challenges in bolstering their sales momentum for DDR5 PMICs in the coming years, due mainly to the market penetration of DDR5 being constrained by the rapid rise of High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), according to Global Mixed-mode Technology (GMT), a PMIC specialist based in Taiwan.
Micron Technology announced to invest in engineering and operation centers in Mexico on May 10 that it will hire at least 100 workers by the end of 2024.
Introspect Technology, a Canadian private company, introduced its M5512 GDDR7 Memory Test System, which is designed for testing GDDR7 memory controllers, GDDR7 physical layers, and GDDR7 SGRAM chips, less than one month after the graphics memory specification was announced in March 2024.
The US will triple its domestic semiconductor manufacturing capacity from 2022—when the CHIPS and Science Act (CHIPS) was enacted—to 2032. The projected 203% growth is the largest projected percent increase in the world over that time, according to a recent SIA report.
Micron Technology has announced the availability of the Crucial series LPCAMM2, an innovative form factor for next-generation notebook memory that incorporates LPDDR5X mobile memory to enhance the performance of notebooks intended for professionals and creators.
