Razer, the leading global lifestyle brand for gamers (Hong Kong Stock Code: 1337), is kicking off 2022 with new Razer Blade gaming laptop models including the Razer Blade 14, Razer Blade 15, and Razer Blade 17. The world's fastest laptops for gamers and creators are equipped with the recently announced NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Series Laptop GPUs, up to an RTX 3080 Ti, making the new Blades better than ever, now shipping with Windows 11. All new Razer Blade gaming laptops now also include groundbreaking DDR5 memory, providing blistering clock speeds up to 4800 MHz, an increase in frequency by up to 50% compared to the previous generation.

"The Razer Blade series continues to be the best gaming laptop by providing desktop-class performance on-the-go," says Travis Furst, Senior Director of Razer's Systems business unit. "Additionally, we've enabled creators to work anywhere with gorgeous displays, available NVIDIA Studio drivers, and up to 14-Core CPUs. Users will have the ability to choose any model or configuration that best fits their gaming or creating needs, while getting the latest and greatest in graphics, memory and processing technology."

Due to the growth of confirmed Omicron cases in the United States, the global leading gaming brand, MSI, officially announced that its on-site CES physical presence in Las Vegas will be canceled for the safety of all employees, customers and fans. The new products for 2022 will be showcased through online events virtually.

"Since December, the rapidly spreading Omicron variant has brought the USA a surge of COVID-19 cases. The health and well-being of our employees, customers and fans are our top priority. Hence, we have decided not to participate in-person at CES 2022 and will join the show virtually with our online product launch," said Sam Chern, MSI Marketing Vice President.

As the year ends, one of the biggest consumer trade shows, CES, is on the horizon, and manufacturers are ready to present the work that will become real throughout the year. AMD will offer a keynote at the CES 2022 press conference, and we expect to hear more about the upcoming Zen3 processors with 3D V-cache stacked in them. However, what is interesting is that we may listen to more details about Zen4 core. In an exclusive interview conducted by Antony Leather, Forbes contributor and the person behind CrazyTechLab, AMD CTO Mark Papermaster started the hype machine by sharing that AMD will announce some Zen4 core details at the CES 2022 conference.

AMD CTO Mark PapermasterWith regards to the upcoming generation - I point to CES in January. We're excited to be revealing some additional details on our new product launches that will deliver phenomenal experiences and as we've said, later in the year as it progresses we'll share more detail on Zen 4 with some mentioned at CES and more announcements on it over the course of 2022. It will be a very exciting year for AMD.

The new normal ushered in by the pandemic will not only become the driving force of digital transformation but will also continue to drive the server market in 2022, according to TrendForce's investigations. It is worth noting that potential unmet demand in 2021 and the risk of future server component shortages will become medium and long-term variables that influence the market. Analyzing the shipment volume of completed servers, a growth rate of approximately 4-5% in completed server shipments is expected next year with primary shipment dynamics remaining concentrated in North American data centers with an annual growth rate of approximately 13-14%. From the supply chain perspective, the ODM Direct business model has gradually replaced the business model of the traditional server market, giving cloud service providers the ability to respond quickly to market changes. However, based on the unpredictability of the market, TrendForce assumes two forecasts for server growth trends. One, the supply situation of key components is effectively improved. Two, the supply situation of key components is exacerbated.

Intel was expected to announce the location of its next fabs before the end of the year, but the company has decided to delay the announcements until sometime in "early 2022". This is not just related to its European expansion, but also its US expansion and it's possible that this has something to do with the so-called CHIPS acts that both the EU and the US government are expected to announce.

It's also possible that Intel is still negotiating with multiple parties, to see where the company can get the best deal, as well as making sure that the right partners are willing to set up their supporting infrastructure within a reasonable distance from Intel's new fabs. As Intel is looking at investing upwards of US$100 billion per site over multiple years, it's not hard to see why they want to make sure they're making the right, long term decision. A few extra months might make a big difference a few years down the line, least not to make sure Intel can hire qualified staff to run its fabs, outside of everything else that goes into planning something like this.

Demand for NAND Flash products will undergo a noticeable and cyclical downward correction in 1Q22 as major smartphone brands wind down their procurement activities for the peak season and ODMs prepare for the New Year holidays, according to TrendForce's latest investigations. As such, the NAND Flash market will remain in an oversupply situation, with prices continuing to undergo downward corrections accordingly. However, PC OEMs have been reinstating certain orders for client SSDs since early November in response to improvements in the supply of upstream semiconductor materials. By fulfilling these orders, suppliers are able to keep their inventory level relatively low, meaning they are not under as much pressure as previously expected to reduce inventory by lowering prices. Taking these factors into account, TrendForce expects NAND Flash ASP to undergo a 10-15% QoQ decline in 1Q22, during which NAND Flash prices will experience the most noticeable declines compared to the other quarters in 2022.

Regarding the price trend of NAND Flash products across the whole 2021, TrendForce further indicates that suppliers have actively transitioned their output to higher-layer technologies, resulting in a bit supply growth that noticeably outpaces demand, though the tight supply of components such as controller ICs and PMICs has constrained the production of NAND Flash end-products. Hence, the decline in contract prices of NAND Flash products has not been as severe as previously expected. Moving ahead to 2022, however, the supply of relevant components is expected to gradually improve, so the market for various NAND Flash products will also likely shift towards a noticeable oversupply. As a result, prices of NAND Flash products will steadily decline before the arrival of the peak season in 3Q22.

Historically, AMD was working with two semiconductor manufacturing companies: TSMC and GlobalFoundries. According to the latest report coming from Gokul Hariharan, an analyst at J.P. Morgan, AMD could soon tap another semiconductor manufacturer to produce the company's growing list of processors. As the report indicates, AMD could start working with the South Korean giant Samsung and utilize the firm's 4LPP process that represents a second generation of the low-power 4 nm silicon node. This specific node is allegedly the choice for AMD APUs designed to fit inside Google's Chromebook devices, which require low-power designs to achieve excellent battery life.

AMD could realize this move in late 2022, as Samsung's 4LPP node goes into mass production at that point. It means that we could see the first Samsung-made AMD APUs in late 2022 or the beginning of 2023. And apparently, the two company's collaboration could be much more significant as AMD is evaluating Samsung's 3 nm nodes for other products spanning more segments in 2023/2024. There are no official, definitive agreements between the two, so we have to wait for more information and official responses from these parties. Anyways, if AMD decides to produce a part of its lineup at Samsung, the remaining TSMC capacity would ensure that the supply of every incoming chip remains sufficient.

Due to material shortages caused by insufficient semiconductor supply, to date, power management IC (PMIC) prices remain on an upward trend, according to TrendForce's latest investigations. Average selling price (ASP) for 1H22 is forecast to increase by nearly 10%, reaching a record six year high.

In terms of the global supply chain, in addition to the production capacity of major IDM manufacturers including TI, Infineon, ADI, STMicroelectronics, NXP, ON Semiconductor, Renesas, Microchip, ROHM (Maxim has been acquired by ADI and Dialog by Renesas), IC design houses such as Qualcomm and MediaTek (MTK) have obtained a certain level of production capacity from foundries. Of these, TI is in a leadership position and the aforementioned companies possess a combined market share of over 80%.

Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon has claimed that the global chip shortage is easing with the situation expected to improve further in 2022. The availability of chips in 2022 should be significantly improved compared to 2020 Cristiano Amon told reporters in South Korea on Thursday. Qualcomm has struggled to meet the demand for its smartphone processors which has resulted in reduced smartphone production. The next-generation Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor recently announced by the company will be manufactured on Samsung Foundry's 4 nm node with the yield rate ultimately determining Qualcomm's ability to meet demand in 2022. This prediction is slightly more optimistic than other companies including Intel and IBM who don't expect the shortage to be resolved until 2023.

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has selected Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) to build its third-generation, high performance computing (HPC) system, called Kestrel. Named for a falcon with keen eyesight and intelligence, Kestrel's moniker is apropos for its mission—to rapidly advance the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) energy research and development (R&D) efforts to deliver transformative energy solutions to the entire United States.

Installation of the new system will begin in the fall of 2022 in NREL's Energy Systems Integration Facility (ESIF) data center. Kestrel will complement the laboratory's current supercomputer, Eagle, during the transition. When completed—in early 2023—Kestrel will accelerate energy efficiency and renewable energy research at a pace and scale more than five times greater than Eagle, with approximately 44 petaflops of computing power.

Razer's CEO, Min-Liang Tan, has said in a Tweet that the company's flagship laptop model will receive a price increase due to increased component costs. According to previous reports, the whole supply chain is seeing an increasing amount of pressure in the form of demand and supply's inability to satisfy it. Manufacturing costs have also risen, resulting in more expensive products that consumers end up buying. For a while now, graphics cards have been very hard to obtain, and their selling price is way higher than their launch MSRP target.

According to the Razer CEO, as they reviewed the company lineup of laptops, it appears that their Razer Blade model for 2022 will receive a significant price bump. This is the result of "significant increases in component costs etc.," which means that the end product will absorb those increases. We are left to wonder if all high-performance laptop makers like MSI, ASUS, GIGABYTE, etc., will follow Razer and their decision to increase the price point.

Rumours are starting to circulate about LG and Samsung's OLED plans for 2022 and we might get a first preview come CES in January. For those hoping to get an OLED computer screen at a reasonable price it seems like you might have to wait a bit longer, unless you'd be ok with using a TV as your computer display.

LG is said to be launching a 42-inch version of its C series of OLED TVs and it should retain or improve on the features of its current C series. The model name should be OLED42C2xxx and it's expected to retail for less than the current 48-inch CX and C1 TVs. There will obviously be larger sizes available too, including the current 48-inch size, which is also said to be available in the lower cost and lower spec A2 series. As for the exact spec, we'll have to wait until CES to find out, but HDMI 2.1, HDMI-VRR and possibly either or both of AMD's FreeSync Premium Pro and Nvidia's G-Sync compatible might be part of the package.Samsung is on the other hand said to be working on a 34-inch QD-OLED computer monitor, alongside 55 and 65-inch QD-OLED TVs. Even less is known about these products, but all the products have apparently already gone into mass production and are expected to be on display at CES. Note that QD-OLED is not the same as QLED, although both display types are using Quantum Dot technology.

As the global vaccination rate rose, and border restrictions in Europe and North America eased, social activities also began to enter a period of recovery, with the consumer electronics market seemingly ready for the arrival of the traditional peak season in 2H21, according to TrendForce's latest investigations. At the same time, however, the global supply chain was affected by delays in maritime transport, skyrocketing shipping costs, and component shortages, in addition to already-prohibitive price hikes for certain components in 1H21. Given the parallel rise in both material and manufacturing costs, the market for end products has not undergone the expected cyclical upturn in 2H21. Even so, the overall demand for and shipment of smartphones, notebook computers, and monitors experienced QoQ increases in 3Q21, thereby driving up businesses for major OSAT (outsourced semiconductor assembly and test) companies. For 3Q21, the revenues of the top 10 OSAT companies reached US$8.89 billion, a 31.6% YoY increase.

During Samsung's Tech Day 2021, the company presented some interesting insights about the future of system memory technologies and how it plans to execute its production. Starting with the latest DDR5 standard, the company intends to follow JEDEC documents and offer some overclocking modules that surpass the specification advised by JEDEC. While the DDR5 standard specifies memory modules with 6,400 MT/s, Samsung will develop modules capable of overclocking up to 8,400 MT/s. These are not yet confirmed as they are still in the development phase. However, we can expect to see them in the later life of DDR5 memory.

The company also talked about the DDR6 standard, which is supposedly twice as fast as DDR5. The new DDR6 standard is still in early development, and all we know so far is that the number of memory channels per module is seeing a twofold increase over DDR5 to four channels. The number of memory banks also increases to 64. In addition to DDR6 for desktop and server use cases, the company is also working on Low Power DDR6 (LPDDR6) for mobile applications. While the company's LPDDR5 memory goes into volume production using the 1a-nm process at the beginning of 2022, the LPDDR6 is still in early development. The base speed for DDR6 modules will allegedly arrive at 12,800 MT/s, while overclocking modules will join the party at up to 17,000 MT/s. Mobile-oriented LPDDR6 version is also supposed to come with up to 17,000 MT/s speeds.

The India traditional PC market (inclusive of desktops, notebooks, and workstations) continued its growth momentum despite ongoing supply and logistical challenges. The traditional PC shipments witnessed a 30% year-over-year (YoY) growth in 3Q21 (Jul-Sep), marking the fifth consecutive quarter of growth in India, according to new data from the International Data Corporation 's (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker. A total of 4.5 million PCs were shipped during the quarter, making it India's biggest-ever single quarter. To put this in perspective, it is bigger than the total yearly consumer shipments in 2019, a year before the pandemic hit us. As a result, many brands also reported their biggest quarter of PC shipments.

Notebook PCs continue to dominate the overall category with more than 80% share. Enterprise and consumer demand helped the Notebook category to reach over 3 million units for the first time, and the desktop category also continued its upward momentum as it grew by 30.5% YoY in 3Q21.

Apple today announced Self Service Repair, which will allow customers who are comfortable with completing their own repairs access to Apple genuine parts and tools. Available first for the iPhone 12 and iPhone 13 lineups, and soon to be followed by Mac computers featuring M1 chips, Self Service Repair will be available early next year in the US and expand to additional countries throughout 2022. Customers join more than 5,000 Apple Authorized Service Providers (AASPs) and 2,800 Independent Repair Providers who have access to these parts, tools, and manuals.

The initial phase of the program will focus on the most commonly serviced modules, such as the iPhone display, battery, and camera. The ability for additional repairs will be available later next year.

Qualcomm has been in the game of creating SoCs for the PC market with the company's Snapdragon lineup. These processors mainly were beefed-up versions of their mobile designs and were based on the Arm instruction set architecture (ISA). Microsoft has backed this effort by creation Windows-on-Arm (WoA) project that enables the Windows OS to operate on Arm processors. However, up until now, Qualcomm's designs were not very powerful as they represented a relatively moderate approach to the problem and almost made no sense of purchase compared to the standard laptops equipped with x86 processors from AMD and Intel. This is about to change.

According to the news from Investor Day yesterday, Qualcomm is preparing high-performance Arm SoCs for the PC market. The company has recently acquired Nuvia Inc., a startup focused on creating novel IPs based on Arm ISA. And this is what Qualcomm will use in building its next-generation PC processors. As the company plans, in August of 2022, it should start sampling OEM partners with these new chips, and we will be seeing them in consumers' hands in early 2023. If everything goes as planned, this should represent direct competition to AMD, Intel, and now Apple in the high-end SoC market. After PCs, the company plans to tackle datacenter, mobile, and automotive market.

Despite the forecasted 18.6% YoY growth in total DRAM bit supply next year, the global DRAM market is still expected to shift from a shortage situation to an oversupply, according to TrendForce's latest investigations. This shift can primarily be attributed to the fact that, not only are most buyers now carrying a relatively high level of DRAM inventory, but DRAM bit demand is also expected to increase by only 17.1% YoY in 2022. On the price front, the oversupply situation will result in a drop in DRAM ASP in 2022 but not a major decline in annual DRAM revenue, thanks to the oligopolistic nature of the DRAM industry. Annual DRAM revenue for 2022 is expected to reach US$91.54 billion, which represents a slight YoY increase of 0.3%.

Based on an analysis of DRAM sufficiency ratio (which refers to the surplus of supply in comparison with demand) for each quarter in 2022, TrendForce forecasts a 15% YoY decrease in DRAM ASP for 2022, with prices undergoing the more noticeable declines during the first half of the year. Heading into 2H22, however, owing to the rise in DDR5 penetration rate, as well as the arrival of peak seasonal demand, the decline in DRAM ASP will likely narrow. TrendForce does not rule out the possibility that DRAM ASP may even hold flat or undergo an increase in 2H22.

While the global electronics supply chain experienced a chip shortage, the corresponding shortage of foundry capacities also led various foundries to raise their quotes, resulting in an over 20% YoY increase in the total annual revenues of the top 10 foundries for both 2020 and 2021, according to TrendForce's latest investigations. The top 10 foundries' annual revenue for 2021 is now expected to surpass US$100 billion. As TSMC leads yet another round of price hikes across the industry, annual foundry revenue for 2022 will likely reach US$117.69 billion, a 13.3% YoY increase.

TrendForce indicates that the combined CAPEX of the top 10 foundries surpassed US$50 billion in 2021, a 43% YoY increase. As new fab constructions and equipment move-ins gradually conclude next year, their combined CAPEX for 2022 is expected to undergo a 15% YoY increase and fall within the US$50-60 billion range. In addition, now that TSMC has officially announced the establishment of a new fab in Japan, total foundry CAPEX will likely increase further next year. TrendForce expects the foundry industry's total 8-inch and 12-inch wafer capacities to increase by 6% YoY and 14% YoY next year, respectively.

Santa Monica Studio, a video game developer, seated in Los Angeles and owned by PlayStation Studios, is the creator of the highly successful game God of War. Today, the company announced that they would be releasing a God of War port for PC owners, entering a whole new market. The PC port of the game will allow thousands of players to enjoy the story of Kratos and his adventures with a considerable boost to graphics. According to a company announcement, the PC port will allow fine-tuning of graphics settings, including a range of new technologies to back it.

Some essential upgrades over the console port include native 4K rendering and an unlimited frame rate. The company stated that the ambient occlusion pipeline had been upgraded with GTAO and SSDO tech, creating unique visuals. In addition to that, the game will feature support for NVIDIA's Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) and Reflex low-latency technology. For controllers, the game will feature support for Sony's DualSense and DualShock4 controllers. And last but not least, ultrawide gamers are in luck as well, as the game will support a 21:9 aspect ratio. The game is going to be available on January 14, 2022, on the Steam storefront.

For some PC visuals, check out the images and the video below.

Contract prices of NAND Flash products are expected to undergo a marginal drop of 0-5% QoQ in 4Q21 as demand slows, according to TrendForce's latest investigations. Hence, the current cyclical upturn in NAND Flash prices will have lasted for only two consecutive quarters. Looking ahead, NAND Flash suppliers' capacity expansion plans will be affected by the outlook on future trends and the supply of other non-memory components. At the same time, attention will have to be paid to the demand projection. At the moment, NAND Flash suppliers appear likely to downsize their capacity expansion activities for 2022, resulting in a 31.8% YoY increase in NAND Flash bit supply next year. Annual bit demand, on the other hand, is projected to increase by 30.8% YoY. With demand being outpaced by supply and competition intensifying among suppliers for higher-layer products, the NAND Flash market will likely experience a cyclical downturn in prices in 2022.

Remember that rumour from last week about TSMC potentially building a fab in Japan and partnering up with Sony? Well, the deal is on and the fab is set to start construction in 2022, with production expected to start sometime in 2024. However, as mentioned, the fab isn't going to be using any cutting edge technology when it comes to the process node, since it's intended for imaging sensors and EV components.

The new fab is said to focus on 28 and 22 nm nodes, according to Tim Culpan, who writes for Bloomberg and who has been reporting on TSMC for at least the last decade. This is backed up by the Nikkei that reports that the US$7 billion fab will make chips in the 20-nm range, without going into further details beyond mentioning these nodes are over a decade old. That said, there are still plenty of products made on older nodes than that, as not everything has to be built on a cutting edge node and many components wouldn't benefit from a smaller node. Regardless, this fab won't help with the current shortage of components, but will hopefully lead to better availability of certain components in the future.

DRAM contract prices are likely to exit a bullish period that lasted three quarters and be on the downswing in 4Q21 at a QoQ decline of 3-8%, according to TrendForce's latest investigations. This decline can be attributed to not only the declining procurement activities of DRAM buyers going forward, but also the drop in DRAM spot prices ahead of contract prices. While the buying and selling sides attempt to gain the advantage in future transactions, the DRAM market's movement in 2022 will primarily be determined by suppliers' capacity expansion strategies in conjunction with potential growths in demand. The capacity expansion plans of the three largest DRAM suppliers (Samsung, SK hynix, and Micron) for 2022 are expected to remain conservative, resulting in a 17.9% growth in total DRAM bit supply next year. On the demand side, inventory levels at the moment are relatively high. Hence, DRAM bit demand is expected to grow by 16.3% next year and lag behind bit supply growth. TrendForce therefore forecasts a shift in the DRAM market next year from shortage to surplus.

COMPUTEX 2022 is set to kick off from May 24 to 27 in the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center Hall 1 & 2, featuring Innovative Computing, Accelerating Intelligence, Digital Resilience, Connected X-Experience, Innovations and Startups, and Sustainability. This annual tech event will continue to lead in the discovery of the latest technology trends. Due to the pandemic, the annual physical show was cancelled for two years, but COMPUTEX 2022 is back, and it is open for international exhibitor registration starting from October 6. In addition, the global warm-up tour, #COMPUTEXisEverywhere, will begin on November 18.

As a co-organizer of COMPUTEX, TAITRA indicated that technology has demonstrated its importance in enabling business resilience in the past year, as society experienced challenges and witnessed accelerated digital transformation in various industries. As a leading ICT trade show, COMPUTEX has embraced digital transformation and will return anew to bring better exhibition experience to attendees.

Razer, the leading global lifestyle brand for gamers (Hong Kong Stock Code: 1337), today announced the launch of new Razer Book and Razer Blade 15 Advanced models, pre-loaded with Windows 11. Additionally, compatibility with Windows 11 will extend across all Razer laptop product lines with free upgrades offered to current Razer laptop owners when available. Rollout of Windows 11 upgrades will begin on October 5th, and will continue throughout 20221.

"Razer laptops like the Razer Book are built to use the highest quality tools available, so that any user can accomplish their tasks efficiently without hardware or software limitations," says Brad Wildes, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Razer's Systems Business Unit. "Windows 11 helps us do exactly that as we quickly adapt to a more powerful operating system for work and gaming."