Sony Group Corporation is reported to be considering a partial spinoff and listing of its financial services division, in order to raise capital for further investments in its entertainment arm and next generation image sensor technologies. Reuters has published details from a corporate strategy meeting that took place last week (on May 18) - executives at the Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation are contemplating the future of Sony Financial Group. This arm of the business is comprised of several subdivisions including a bank and an insurance firm. Sony Corporation managed to gain full control of these finance organizations three years ago, according to Reuters.

Sony is seeking to retain a stake of just below 20%, and posits that its financial businesses will gain the ability (following the suggested partial spinoff and listing) to raise cash independently for sustainable growth. The company hopes to provide extra funds for its entertainment and semiconductor operations that "need an unprecedented amount of investment." The PlayStation group is aiming to ramp up production of its PS5 console - supply chain problems have caused delays and unit shortages in the past, and Sony is keen to build on the gaming platform's success, without restrictions going forward. The company is keen to advance its camera parts division - in order to meet increasing market demand for smartphone and vehicle sensor components. Hiroki Totoki (President of Sony Group Corp) emphasized that greater investments in these sectors will allow the company to stay competitive large global rivals.

Applied Materials, Inc. today announced a landmark investment to build the world's largest and most advanced facility for collaborative semiconductor process technology and manufacturing equipment research and development (R&D). The new Equipment and Process Innovation and Commercialization (EPIC) Center is planned as the heart of a high-velocity innovation platform designed to accelerate development and commercialization of the foundational technologies needed by the global semiconductor and computing industries.

To be located at an Applied campus in Silicon Valley, the multibillion-dollar facility is designed to provide a breadth and scale of capabilities that is unique in the industry, including more than 180,000 square feet - more than three American football fields - of state-of-the-art cleanroom for collaborative innovation with chipmakers, universities and ecosystem partners. Designed from the ground up to accelerate the pace of introducing new manufacturing innovations, the new EPIC Center is expected to reduce the time it takes the industry to bring a technology from concept to commercialization by several years, while simultaneously increasing the commercial success rate of new innovations and the return on R&D investments for the entire semiconductor ecosystem.

Ethernovia, Inc., a Silicon Valley-based startup, today announced that it has completed its A-round financing of $64 million. The funding round consists of multiple investors, including Porsche Automobile Holding SE (Porsche SE), Qualcomm Ventures, VentureTech Alliance, AMD Ventures, Western Digital Capital, Fall Line Capital, Taiwania Capital, ENEA Capital and others.

As vehicle architectures evolve from domain-centric controllers, networking solutions must concurrently evolve to support higher data rates of advanced vehicle applications while meeting demand for improved reliability and security. Such advanced applications include Advanced Driver-Assisted Systems (ADAS), autonomous driving (AD) and a rich ecosystem of customer software delivered Over the Air (OTA).

LG is reported to be making substantial investments into improving and upgrading its OLED manufacturing facilities in South Korea - last month we found out about a similar effort underway at Samsung (courtesy of Reuters). Nikkei Asia has today published an article that explores this situation plus a wider context - their findings reaffirm existing claims that Samsung Display has spent $3+ billion on the sprucing up of its Tangjeong factory. LG's modernization bill is smaller at a mere $2.5 billion - this will be spent on creating additional production lines at the company's mainline Paju plant. LG is aiming to increase factory output of medium-sized OLED panels using sixth generation technology.

According to last month's report, industry insiders have suggested that Samsung was ramping up its high end OLED production lines in order to secure substantial component orders from a key client, Apple, with premium display panels destined for fitting on next generation iPad and MacBook products. Reuters posited that LG was not able to fulfil any new requests from Apple at the time - due to its display factories being fully booked and operating at maximum capacity. It seems that LG is now addressing this problem by making necessary and essential upgrades at its Paju P10 OLED facility. A domestic rivalry is only part of the problem, both giant South Korean electronics firms are also keeping a collective eye on other rival manufacturers (operating out of nearby nations).

According to Business Insider, Twitter has made a substantial investment into hardware upgrades at its North American datacenter operation. The company has purchased somewhere in the region of 10,000 GPUs - destined for the social media giant's two remaining datacenter locations. Insider sources claim that Elon Musk has committed to a large language model (LLM) project, in an effort to rival OpenAI's ChatGPT system. The GPUs will not provide much computational value in the current/normal day-to-day tasks at Twitter - the source reckons that the extra processing power will be utilized for deep learning purposes.

Twitter has not revealed any concrete plans for its relatively new in-house artificial intelligence project but something was afoot when, earlier this year, Musk recruited several research personnel from Alphabet's DeepMind division. It was theorized that he was incubating a resident AI research lab at the time, following personal criticisms levelled at his former colleagues at OpenAI, ergo their very popular and much adopted chatbot.

Sony Semiconductor Solutions Corporation ("SSS") and Raspberry Pi Ltd. ("RPL") today announced the agreement by SSS to make a strategic investment in RPL. The minority investment cements the relationship between the two companies, to provide a development platform for SSS's edge AI devices to the worldwide community of Raspberry Pi users.

"Our goal is to provide new value to a variety of industries and support them in solving issues using our innovative edge AI sensing technology built around image sensors," said Terushi Shimizu, President and CEO of Sony Semiconductor Solutions Corporation. "We are very pleased to be partnering with Raspberry Pi Ltd. to bring our AITRIOS platform -- which supports the development of unique and diverse solutions utilizing our edge AI devices -- to the Raspberry Pi user and developer community, and provide a unique development experience."

Samsung Electronics has announced that its sub-division, Samsung Display, is planning to invest $3.1 billion until 2026 in Asan, South Korea to manufacture advanced organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display panels. The country's ministry stated that Samsung's next generation of OLED display panels will be integrated into tablets and laptops. There are already rumors swirling that Apple has contracted with Samsung Display to produce parts for a refresh of the MacBook Pro range that is set to debut at some point before 2026.

Industry insiders are claiming that the substantial investment into the company's Asan, South Chungcheong factory will help fulfil orders placed by Apple for iPad and MacBook OLED displays - the North American company has not officially confirmed an adoption of that type of screen technology for these product ranges. Samsung is likely trying to secure a long term relationship with the Silicon Valley behemoth, and at the same time outmaneuver its competitors in South Korea as well as those in neighboring nations. It has been reported that domestic rival LG is currently unable to take on new orders, as its display factories are functioning at maximum production capacities.

Reykjavík, Iceland - 21 March 2023 - CCP Games, creators of sci-fi spacefaring MMO EVE Online, announced today that $40M in financing has been secured from external partners. This financing will allow CCP Games to build upon the discoveries of its research & development team to enable the full-scale development of a new AAA title utilizing blockchain technology, set within the EVE Universe.

"Since its inception, CCP Games' vision has been to create virtual worlds more meaningful than real life. Now, with advancements made within blockchain, we can forge a new universe deeply imbued with our expertise in player agency and autonomy, empowering players to engage in new ways. This financing has marked an exciting frontier in our studio history as we begin our third decade of virtual world operations. We are humbled by the confidence from our partners in the development of this new title," said CCP Games CEO, Hilmar V. Pétursson.

Global fab equipment spending for front-end facilities is expected to decrease 22% year-over-year (YoY) to US$76 billion in 2023 from a record high of US$98 billion in 2022 before rising 21% YoY to US$92 billion in 2024 to reclaim lost ground, SEMI announced today in its latest quarterly World Fab Forecast report. The 2023 decline will stem from weakening chip demand and higher inventory of consumer and mobile devices.

Next year's fab equipment spending recovery will be driven in part by the end of the semiconductor inventory correction in 2023 and strengthening demand for semiconductors in the high-performance computing (HPC) and automotive segments. "This quarter's SEMI World Fab Forecast update offers our first look ahead to 2024, highlighting the steady global expansion of fab capacity to support future semiconductor industry growth driven by the automotive and computing segments and a host of emerging applications," said Ajit Manocha, SEMI president and CEO. "The report points to a healthy 21% uptick in equipment investment next year."

The UK Treasury has set aside a budget of £900 million to invest in the development of a supercomputer that would be powerful enough to chew through more than one billion billion simple calculations a second. A new exascale computer would fit the bill, for utilization by newly established advanced AI research bodies. It is speculated that one key goal is to establish a "BritGPT" system. The British government has been keeping tabs on recent breakthroughs in large language models, the most notable example being OpenAI's ChatGPT. Ambitions to match such efforts were revealed in a statement, with the emphasis: "to advance UK sovereign capability in foundation models, including large language models."

The current roster of United Kingdom-based supercomputers looks to be unfit for the task of training complex AI models. In light of being outpaced by drives in other countries to ramp up supercomputer budgets, the UK Government outlined its own future investments: "Because AI needs computing horsepower, I today commit around £900 million of funding, for an exascale supercomputer," said the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt. The government has declared that quantum technologies will receive an investment of £2.5 billion over the next decade. Proponents of the technology have declared that it will supercharge machine learning.

Intel Corporation today announced that its board of directors has reset its dividend policy, reducing the quarterly dividend to $0.125 per share (or $0.50 annually) on the company's common stock. The dividend will be payable on June 1, 2023, to stockholders of record on May 7, 2023. Intel also reaffirmed its first-quarter 2023 business outlook provided at its most recent earnings call, including revenue of between $10.5 billion and $11.5 billion; gross margin of 34.1% on a GAAP basis and 39% on a non-GAAP basis; tax rate of (84%) on a GAAP basis and 13% on a non-GAAP basis; and earnings per share of $(0.80) on a GAAP basis and $(0.15) on a non-GAAP basis.

The decision to decrease the quarterly dividend reflects the board's deliberate approach to capital allocation and is designed to best position the company to create long-term value. The improved financial flexibility will support the critical investments needed to execute Intel's transformation during this period of macroeconomic uncertainty. Since first initiated in 1992, Intel's dividend has delivered more than $80 billion in cash returns to the company's stockholders, and the board is committed to maintaining a competitive dividend.

To date, Intel has been promised almost €6.8 billion in subsidies from the federal German government, but apparently this isn't enough for Intel, as the company is now asking for an additional €3.2 billion, for a total of €10 billion is subsidies for its Magdeburg fab. The total investment in the fab in Magdeburg—which was announced back in March 2022—is said to be around €33 billion. In other words, Intel is asking Germany to pitch in almost a third of the cost for its shiny new fab. According to an Intel spokesperson quoted by the Register, Intel is worried about the current geopolitical situation and that the demand for semiconductors has declined, plus the fact that inflation has made everything much more expensive. Intel's Arizona fabs ended up costing an extra US$5 billion, which is about a third extra compared to the original cost estimate, so it's not hard to see why Intel is asking for more money here.

At the same time, the Vietnamese government jumped the gun and announced that Intel is looking at investing US$3.3 billion in the country, as part of an announcement of investments of a total of US$7.4 billion in Ho Chi Minh, by foreign companies. The additional US$4.1 billion investments apparently hinges on Intel's investment in the country, more specifically in the Saigon Hi-Tech Park. The official stance from Intel is that "Vietnam is an important part of our global manufacturing network, but we have not announced any new investments." It's unclear what the exact plans are, but Intel is said to have met up with government officials in Vietnam, according to Bloomberg. It's likely that it would be some kind of chip packaging facility, much like what Intel and AMD already has in Malaysia and China, among other places.

Samsung Electronics, a world leader in advanced semiconductor technology, announced today a strengthened business strategy for its Foundry Business with the introduction of cutting-edge technologies at its annual Samsung Foundry Forum event. With significant market growth in high-performance computing (HPC), artificial intelligence (AI), 5/6G connectivity and automotive applications, demand for advanced semiconductors has increased dramatically, making innovation in semiconductor process technology critical to the business success of foundry customers. To that end, Samsung highlighted its commitment to bringing its most advanced process technology, 1.4-nanometer (nm), for mass production in 2027.

During the event, Samsung also outlined steps its Foundry Business is taking in order to meet customers' needs, including: foundry process technology innovation, process technology optimization for each specific applications, stable production capabilities, and customized services for customers. "The technology development goal down to 1.4 nm and foundry platforms specialized for each application, together with stable supply through consistent investment are all part of Samsung's strategies to secure customers' trust and support their success," said Dr. Si-young Choi, president and head of Foundry Business at Samsung Electronics. "Realizing every customer's innovations with our partners has been at the core of our foundry service."

onsemi, a leader in intelligent power and sensing technologies, today celebrated the inauguration of its expanded silicon carbide (SiC) fab in Roznov, Czech Republic. Multiple guests of honor attended the ribbon cutting ceremony led by Ministry of Industry and Trade Section Chief Zbyněk Pokorný, Governor of the Zlín Region Radim Holiš and City Mayor Jiří Pavlica as well as other local governmental dignitaries, signifying the importance of this event and manufacturing of semiconductors in the Czech Republic.

Starting in 2019, onsemi added SiC polished wafer and SiC epitaxy (EPI) wafer production to its existing silicon polished and epitaxy wafer and die manufacturing in Roznov. Having outgrown the original site, reconstruction of a new building began last year to further expand wafer and SiC EPI manufacturing. Over the next two years, this expansion will increase the site's SiC production capabilities by 16 times and create 200 jobs by the end of 2024. So far onsemi has invested more than $150 million in the Roznov site and plans to spend an additional $300 million through 2023. onsemi was recently awarded the Association for Foreign Investments (AFI) Prize for Significant Contribution in the Field of Investment for its SiC investments in the Czech Republic.

Today, leading global fabless chipmaker MediaTek Inc., [joined by Indiana Governor Eric J. Holcomb, Deputy Secretary of Commerce Don Graves, Indiana Secretary of Commerce Bradley B. Chambers, and Purdue College of Engineering's Dr. Mung Chiang] announced their commitment to accept a state transition assistance package from the Indiana Economic Development Commission (IEDC) to support its very first Midwest semiconductor chip design center in West Lafayette, Indiana. MediaTek also shared its intention to create a new research partnership with Purdue to collaborate on engineering talent development and new research on next-generation computing and communications chip design. The news was shared with senior leaders, other international investors and policymakers assembled in National Harbor, Maryland for the 2022 SelectUSA Investment Summit.

This novel partnership in Indiana represents a new U.S. growth model for MediaTek USA; outside the traditional centers of gravity for chip design. "We believe strongly that being in Indiana means we'll have access to some of the best engineering talent in the world," said Dr. Kou-Hung Lawrence Loh, Corporate Senior Vice President of MediaTek Inc. and President of MediaTek USA, Inc. "Not just at Purdue, but West Lafayette is only four hours away from nearly a dozen of the top engineering schools in the country. In the post pandemic world, top candidates tell us they want to be closer to home, near family and they want to have a real house and great schools. Indiana offers all that and more."

Lenovo has today officially opened the doors to its first in-house manufacturing facility in Europe. Based in Ullo, Hungary, the factory focuses primarily on building server infrastructure, storage systems and high-end PC workstations used by customers throughout the Europe, Middle East, and Africa region. Extending Lenovo's international manufacturing operations, the investment represents significant economic potential for both the private and public sectors in Hungary, with increased production capacity, greater potential for collaboration with local vendors, and the creation of new job openings. The site already employs over 1,000 full-time staff in a variety of engineering, management & operational roles, with numbers continuing to increase as the facility moves towards full capacity.

Strong infrastructure, skilled labor and a location at the center of Europe made Hungary the natural location for Lenovo's first European in-house manufacturing facility. In addition, part of Lenovo's investment has been supported with local government incentives through the Hungarian Investment Promotion Agency (HIPA). Francois Bornibus, Senior Vice President and EMEA President, at Lenovo, commented: "With our manufacturing facility in Hungary officially open, we've reached a profound milestone in our global manufacturing network optimization and evolution. Hungary's well-connected location puts us much closer to our European customers so that we can fulfil and sustain their needs while remaining at the forefront of innovation. As our business continues to grow around the world, this incredible new facility will play a key role in our plans to ensure future success and bring smarter technology for all to Europe more sustainably, quickly and efficiently."

Ayar Labs, the leader in chip-to-chip optical connectivity, today announced that the company has secured $130 million in additional financing led by Boardman Bay Capital Management to drive the commercialization of its breakthrough optical I/O solution. Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and NVIDIA entered this investment round, joining existing strategic investors Applied Ventures LLC, GlobalFoundries, Intel Capital, and Lockheed Martin Ventures. Other new strategic and financial investors participating in the round include Agave SPV, Atreides Capital, Berkeley Frontier Fund, IAG Capital Partners, Infinitum Capital, Nautilus Venture Partners, and Tyche Partners. They join existing investors such as BlueSky Capital, Founders Fund, Playground Global, and TechU Venture Partners.

"As a successful technology-focused crossover fund operating for over a decade, Ayar Labs represents our largest private investment to date," said Will Graves, Chief Investment Officer at Boardman Bay Capital Management. "We believe that silicon photonics-based optical interconnects in the data center and telecommunications markets represent a massive new opportunity and that Ayar Labs is the leader in this emerging space with proven technology, a fantastic team, and the right ecosystem partners and strategy."

We already know that Intel will be visiting TSMC in Taiwan and that the team from Intel would also be heading over to Malaysia for what was as yet an unknown reason, but new reports are coming in that Intel is planning to announce an investment of US$7 billion which will be used to build a new chip packaging plant in Penang. The announcement is said to take place in Kuala Lumpur, together with Malaysian Minister of International Trade and Industry Azmin Ali and Malaysian Investment Development Authority chief executive Arham Abdul Rahman.

Intel already has multiple locations on the island of Penang, alongside many other technology companies, such as ASE, Bosch, Osram and Western Digital to name a few. While the trip to Malaysia seems to at least involve a meet and greet, as well as a press conference with representatives for the Malaysian government, it seems like Gelsinger's time in Taiwan will not involved any meetings with government members, as Taiwan's Minister of Economic Affairs Wang Mei-hua has said that Gelsinger is in Taiwan strictly for business and won't be meeting with her. However, Taiwan will at least not force Gelsinger to waste two weeks in quarantine, as he'll get the special treatment that some foreign enterprises are given for short business trips to Taiwan.

NZXT, a leader in PC gaming hardware and services, today announced it has secured a strategic investment of approximately $100 million led by Francisco Partners, a leading global investment firm that specializes in partnering with technology businesses. This investment will allow NZXT to bring on more senior talent, expand its product offering to include new hardware categories, expand its direct-to-consumer offering in new global markets, invest more in the community, and focus on continuing to build the NZXT brand.

NZXT will remain focused on creating seamless experiences for PC gamers with products that include top quality PC cases, coolers, fans, and accessories including the newly released Capsule microphone. The Company will continue to offer PC gaming enthusiasts the opportunity to purchase customized ideal set-ups or pre-built systems, including the NZXT BLD Kit for the first-time builder.

The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic led to severe delays in manufacturing and logistics. In particular, governments worldwide began implementing border restrictions in 2Q20 to combat the ongoing health crisis, leading to a sudden decline in order volumes for channel-market SSDs, according to TrendForce's latest investigations. Annual shipment of SSDs to the channel (retail) market reached 111.5 million units in 2020, a 15% YoY decrease. In terms of market share by shipment, Kingston, ADATA, and Kimtigo once again occupied the top three spots, respectively.

Looking at the channel market for SSDs as a whole, NAND Flash suppliers (among which Samsung possessed the largest market share) accounted for around 35% of the total shipments in 2020, while SSD module makers accounted for the other 65%. The top 10 module makers accounted for 71% of channel-market SSD shipments from all SSD module makers. Taken together, these figures show that the market remained relatively oligopolistic in 2020. However, it should be noted that TrendForce's ranking of SSD module makers for 2020 takes account of only products bound for the channel market and under brands owned by the module makers themselves; NAND Flash suppliers were therefore excluded from the top 10 ranking.

Micron Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: MU), the only U.S.-based manufacturer of memory and one of the world's largest semiconductor manufacturers, today announced that it intends to invest more than $150 billion globally over the next decade in leading-edge memory manufacturing and research and development (R&D), including potential U.S. fab expansion. Micron's investment will address increasing demand for memory that is essential to all computing.

Memory and storage are a growing portion of the global semiconductor industry, and today represent approximately 30% of the semiconductor market. Secular growth drivers like 5G and AI will expand usage of memory and storage across the data center and the intelligent edge, and in areas like automotive and a diversity of user devices.

Epic Games Store, one of the many products of the Epic Games company, is the current number one contender of Steam game store, which used to be Valve's monopoly in the gaming market. Having another contender is nice and competition is always welcome, however, it doesn't seem like running a games store is a cheap venture. In the recent legal dispute between Apple and Epic in California state, we have discovered some interesting details about Epic Games Store (EGS) and its financial background. According to the documents appearing in the court, EGS is not considered profitable until 2027, at least.

Apple has told the court that "Epic lost around $181 million on EGS in 2019. Epic is projected to lose around $273 million on EGS in 2020. Indeed, Epic committed $444 million in minimum guarantees for 2020 alone, while projecting, even with 'significant' growth, only $401 million in revenue for that year. Epic acknowledges that trend will continue in the immediate future: Epic projects to lose around $139 million in 2021." This information shows that Epic has sunk a lot of cash in the store, however, the company expects EGS to become profitable at some point, where the original investment will be returned.

Samsung Electronics today reported financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2021. Total consolidated revenue was KRW 63.67 trillion, a 20% increase from the previous year and a record for the second quarter. Operating profit increased 34% from the previous quarter to KRW 12.57 trillion as market conditions improved in the memory market, operations normalized at the Austin foundry fab, and as effective global supply chain management (SCM) helped maintain solid profitability for the finished product businesses.

The Semiconductor business saw a significant improvement in earnings as memory shipments exceeded previous guidance and price increases were higher than expected, while the Company strengthened its cost competitiveness. For the Display Panel Business, a one-off gain and an increase in overall prices boosted profits.

Micron Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: MU), today announced the successful closing of nearly $3.7 billion inaugural sustainability-linked credit facilities. The facilities, which create additional long-term value for Micron's stakeholders, reinforce the company's commitment to sustainability and 2030 environmental goals.

These facilities comprise a five-year $2.5 billion sustainability-linked revolving credit facility, which matures in May 2026, and a nearly $1.2 billion sustainability-linked term loan A, which matures in October 2024. The credit facility agreements refinance Micron's existing revolving credit and term loan A facilities with no impact to cash or debt balances while reducing future interest expense. Both the revolving credit facility and term loan A feature pricing adjustment mechanisms linking Micron's financial pricing to meeting the environmental targets the company has set for greenhouse gas (GHG) emission intensity, waste diversion from landfills and Responsible Business Alliance (RBA) score metrics. Crédit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank (CIB) served as the sole sustainability structuring agent on both credit facilities.

This transaction reflects Micron's leadership in sustainable financing and positions the company as a top-five corporate sustainability-linked credit facility issuer in the U.S. while reaffirming Crédit Agricole CIB's role as a strategic investment bank and partner to global companies for sustainability.

The South Korean government, along with 153 Korean companies, has unveiled an ambitious plan to invest USD $450 billion over the next decade, to make its semiconductor manufacturing industry globally competitive, as China and the U.S. are executing similar national plans of their own, which threaten to blunt South Korea's competitiveness in the industry. Leading the effort will be Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix.

Samsung will be spending over $151 billion through 2030 in expanding its manufacturing facilities, while SK Hynix will spend $97 billion to expand its existing facilities; in addition to $106 billion planned to build four new fabs in the Yongin. Both Samsung and SK Hynix are predominantly memory companies, manufacturing DRAM and NAND flash products. This means that while Korea is globally competitive in semiconductor manufacturing overall, it is relying mainly on memory dies, and not logic dies (chips such as ASICs, CPUs, GPUs, SoCs, FPGAs, etc). The two could put in efforts to change this, so their foundry capacity attracts fabless logic IC companies away from Taiwan's TSMC, which specializes in logic over memory.