Intel Corporation today announced it has invested a further US $475 million in Intel Products Vietnam (IPV). This new investment is in addition to Intel's US$1 billion investment to build a state-of-the-art chip assembly and test manufacturing facility in Saigon Hi-Tech Park (SHTP), first announced in 2006. This takes Intel's total investment in its Vietnam facility to US $1.5 billion.

"As of the end of 2020, Intel Products Vietnam has shipped more than 2 billion units to customers worldwide. We're very proud of this milestone, which shows both how important IPV is to helping Intel meet the needs of its customers all around the world, and why we continue to invest in our facilities and team here in Vietnam," said Kim Huat Ooi, vice president of Manufacturing and Operations and general manager of Intel Products Vietnam Co. Ltd.

In the latest report by DigiTimes, it is said that TSMC has placed an order on 13 Extreme Ultra-Violet (EUV) machines from the Dutch company ASML. Thanks to the rapid increase in demand for its silicon, TSMC has developed plans for expansion across the next few years to satisfy the existing and upcoming customers. Usually, the company knows and can predict its demand for a future period. That is why TSMC is expanding its capacities with 13 additional ASML Twinscan NXE EUV scanners. These machines are set to be delivered by the course of 2021. It is unknown exactly when these machines are going to be delivered and installed at TSMC's facilities, however, it is fascinating that the demand for the company's capacities is ever-expanding. The price of single EUV machinery is as much as $175.75 million, so it is estimated that the expansion of capacity will cost TSMC a whopping $2.284,75 million. Despite the high pricing, the Return on Investment (ROI) is very high for TSMC.

China's upcoming 14th five-year plan (2021-2025) will continue to highlight technology and capacity upgrades as the core of its semiconductor self-sufficiency strategy, with foundry capacity projected to expand 40% from the preceding plan and fabrication process expected to advance to 7 nm, according to Digitimes Research.

Bolstered by national policies in the 13th five-year plan, China's IC manufacturing industry is expected to see combined revenues double to CNY240 billion (US$34.28 million) in 2020 from 2016, and may also move 12 nm to production by the end of the year after having volume produced 14 nm process.

Today we are in for an interesting rumor. According to industry sources of Coreteks, Samsung is rumored to be preparing investment in GlobalFoundries manufacturing facilities. In the latest ave of Asian foundries getting away from China and getting close to EU and US soils, Samsung is the latest one to join the list. First, let's explain the situation. The Trump administration has been pushing TSMC to drop all orders from Huawei, and TSMC did it. That way, Huawei Technologies has lost a major chip supplier which enabled the company a competitive edge. Now, the company must turn to Chinese manufacturers and it can't use any US-made product.

Given that GlobalFoundries is a company headquartered in the US (Santa Clara, California), the company is an American corporation, which has fabs in the US, as well as in Europe. It is truly a global foundry system. Samsung, a Korean semiconductor manufacturer, has been rumored to invest in GlobalFoundries Dresden fab, located in Germany. The company will help GlobalFoundries expand its power supply capacity from 63 MegaWatts to 100 MegaWatts. The proposed expansion of GlobalFoundries Dresden fab would be funded exclusively by Samsung. So why is Samsung doing this? The answer to this question is pretty simple - to get closer to western markets. Even if GlobalFoundries has foundries all over the world, it is a US company at its core. So Samsung hopes that from this investment, it can get closer to US soil and gain some new customers in the future. After all, Samsung plans to become the world's biggest semiconductor manufacturer by 2030, the position currently held by its rival TSMC. Below you can check out the expansion plan illustrated by Coreteks:

Intel Capital, Intel Corporation's global investment organization, announced today new investments totaling $132 million in 11 technology startups. These companies bring to market breakthrough innovations in artificial intelligence (AI), autonomous computing and chip design. The companies joining Intel Capital's portfolio are Anodot, Astera Labs, Axonne, Hypersonix, KFBIO, Lilt, MemVerge, ProPlus Electronics, Retrace, Spectrum Materials and Xsight Labs.

"Intel Capital identifies and invests in disruptive startups that are working to improve the way we work and live. Each of our recent investments is pushing the boundaries in areas such as AI, data analytics, autonomous systems and semiconductor innovation. Intel Capital is excited to work with these companies as we jointly navigate the current world challenges and as we together drive sustainable, long-term growth," said Wendell Brooks, Intel senior vice president and president of Intel Capital.

Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC), a Chinese state-backed semiconductor company founded in 2016 as part of the Chinese Government's tech-independence push, has commenced mass-production of 64-layer 3D NAND flash memory chips, at a rate of 100,000 to 150,000 wafers per month leading into 2020. The 64-layer 3D NAND chips are based on YMTC's "in-house" Xtracking architecture. The company is already developing a 128-layer 3D NAND flash chip, and is skipping 96-layer along the way.

YMTC's capacity will be augmented by a new fab being built by its parent company, Tsinghua Unigroup. Tsinghua is a state-owned company which holds a controlling 51 percent stake in YMTC, and is a beneficiary of China's National Semiconductor Industry Investment Fund. When it goes online in 2021-22, the new Tsinghua fab, located in Chengdu, will augment YMTC's capacity by an additional 100,000 12-inch wafers per month. Its existing fab in Nanjing will also receive a capacity expansion.

With a combination of tax-sops and State support, Intel loosened its purse-strings for a massive investment in Israel, where the company already has substantial investments in manufacturing and R&D. The investment consists of a 40 billion Shekel (~USD $11 billion) semiconductor foundry. "Intel's global management has informed us about its decision to invest another 40 billion shekels in Israel, an unprecedented decision that is expected to bring thousands of jobs to the south (of Israel)," said the country's Minister of Finance, Moshe Kahlon.

This $11 billion investment closely follows news of Intel committing $5 billion last year toward expanding its existing facility in Kiryat Gat. Expansion of this plant in the southern part of the country, is expected to complete by 2020. As part of that agreement, Intel will spend $3 billion on sourcing materials, labor, and services from local Israeli businesses. The new factory is slated to come up in the same city, although it's not known if the site is contiguous with the existing factory. Intel is one of the largest multinational employers in Israel.

TSMC's Board of Directors convened yesterday with the intention of defining the company's strategy for future developments and investment. The result was a commitment of $4.5B to investments ranging from construction of fab facilities; installation, expansion, and upgrade of advanced technology capacity; conversion of logic capacity to specialty technology capacity; conversion of mature technology capacity to specialty technology capacity; expansion and upgrade of specialty technology capacity; expansion of advanced packaging technology capacity; and fourth quarter 2018 R&D capital investments and sustaining capital expenditures. These values pale in comparison to Samsung's usual investment applications, of course; but let's not forget is an industry behemoth with more product lines and investment opportunities that TSMC's comparably "specific" domain of the market.

Samsung is reportedly looking to increase its investment in the NAND space with a $2.6 billion increase to its annual NAND budget. The increase, which will bring the company's investment up to $9 billion, aims to increase production volume in what is building up to be the actual technology of choice for key players in the storage market.

Remember that for all the investment in increasing density and declining price per GB of competing mechanical solutions, we've just had notice of an HDD fabrication plant that's shutting down. Most of the funding will reportedly go into increasing production volume of 3D NAND memory. Should demand stay relatively stable, the (eventual) additional influx of memory chips to the market should help drive costs even lower - provided there's no funny business in price setting, of course.

US President Donald Trump blocked the potentially-$117 billion Broadcom-Qualcomm merger through an executive order. The White House considered damning observations by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which had been studying potential national security implications of this merger. "There is credible evidence that leads me to believe that Broadcom Ltd. [by acquiring Qualcomm] might take action that threatens to impair the national security of the United States," wrote President Trump in the order.

Broadcom expressed shock and disbelief over the order. The company, in a statement, said that it "strongly disagrees that its proposed acquisition of Qualcomm raises any national security concerns." Qualcomm, meanwhile, battened down the hatches for any press comments. The American chipmaker had been wrestling an increasingly Broadcom-slanted board that was all but ready to sell the company to Broadcom at an undervalued price. According to data compiled by Bloomberg, the Trump administration has shot down ten similar deals since it came to power, in which foreign companies - overwhelmingly Chinese in national origin - had attempted buy out American high-technology firms. Californian Intel is still in the foray to swallow Broadcom, as CFIUS doesn't concern itself with American companies buying out foreign firms.

The United States Government is closely examining national security implications of a potential Broadcom-Qualcomm merger. Broadcom is a Singapore-based company, while Qualcomm is American. An empowered national security panel called the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which has the legal power to stop mergers between American and foreign companies, and acquisitions of American companies by foreign entities; is said to be examining specifics of Qualcomm's high-technology and intellectual property falling into the hands of Broadcom, as the two companies close in on a crucial Qualcomm board meet scheduled for March, in which Broadcom has exercised its shareholding to plant 6 favorable board members among the 11-member Qualcomm board, which all but guarantees a vote in favor of the merger - a classic hostile takeover.

"Not so fast," believes Senator John Cornyn, the No. 2 Republican in the US Senate, who urged Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to have the CFIUS examine the Broadcom-Qualcomm deal. In its unprecedented pre-deal discussions within the otherwise opaque committee, a consensus emerged that Broadcom's decision to relocate its headquarters to the US was insufficient to circumvent a CFIUS review. "I urge CFIUS to promptly review Broadcom's proposed acquisition of control of Qualcomm's board, and to act prior to the March 6 Qualcomm meeting to address any national security concerns that may be identified," Senator Cornyn wrote to Secretary Mnuchin. It looks like Broadcom's decision to tamper with Qualcomm's board is set to spectacularly backfire.

Toshiba Corporation (TOKYO:6502) today announced that its board of directors has approved a further investment by Toshiba Memory Corporation (TMC), a wholly-owned subsidiary that manufactures Flash memory, in manufacturing equipment for the Fab 6 clean room under construction at Yokkaichi Operations. TMC will invest approximately 110 billion yen as a second investment in Fab 6 for the installation of additional manufacturing equipment in the Phase-1 clean room.

Production at Fab 6 will be entirely devoted to BiCS FLASH, Toshiba's innovative 3D Flash memory. As Toshiba announced in its August 3, 2017 release "Update on Toshiba Memory Corporation's Investment in Production Equipment for Fab 6 at Yokkaichi Operations", TMC has previously invested approximately 195 billion yen in Fab 6 as its first investment covering the installation of manufacturing equipment in the Phase-1 clean room and the construction of the Phase-2 clean room.

Demand for TMC's next generation 3D Flash memory devices is expected to increase significantly due to growing demand for enterprise SSDs in datacenters, SSDs for PCs, and memory for smartphones; TMC expects this strong market growth to continue in 2018. TMC's investment timing will position it to capture this growth and expand its business.

Taiwan-based Foxconn, one of Apple's main suppliers, is looking to expand its operations in the US to the tune of $10 billion. The company is still deciding which state will get the greatest solo investment, in the form of a $7 billion display factory (worth mentioning here is that Foxconn's display manufacturing has seen a recent buff by the acquisition of Sharp.) Reportedly, investments are being considered in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, and/or Texas. There was no given timeframe for the construction's start or finish, but a final decision should be made public in July. Foxconn's CEO Terry Gou also vowed to press on with a bid for Toshiba Corp.'s semiconductor business, although the Japanese company has already selected a preferred buyer in the form of a Japanese and US joint venture. Such a deal could cost $27 billion and introduce Foxconn (and, likely but indirectly, China) into the memory chip business.