Despite recent whispers of TSMC losing a key 4 nm node process customer, industry analysts reckon that Taiwan's premier foundry business will remain in a comfortable leading position for the foreseeable future. "Optimistic" expert opinion points to "revenue growth for supply chain players," driven by the rapid progress of the firm's 2 nm manufacturing prowess. Naturally, their cutting-edge manufacturing capabilities—supposedly bolstered by GAAFET—are being tracked with keen interest. According to a fairly fresh Ctee Taiwan news piece, the usual big players are reportedly queued up and present within factory order books. The likes of Apple, NVIDIA, AMD, Qualcomm, MediaTek and Broadcom are mentioned. Mid-way through last month, Team Red officially announced a big collaborative milestone: "(our) next-generation AMD EPYC processor—codenamed "Venice"—is the first HPC product in the industry to be taped out and brought up on the TSMC advanced 2 nm (N2) process technology."

Ctee's report cites recent statements by C. C. Wei. Apparently, the TSMC CEO has stressed (on multiple occasions) that there is "unprecedented" demand for his company's 2 nm production pipelines—far exceeding previous levels for 3 nm. In addition, TSMC reps—who are currently touring the States; hosting technology symposiums—have revealed 2 nm (N2) defect density trends. Ctee outlined these intriguing details: "(N2's) defect density (D0) performance is comparable to that of the 5 nm family, and even surpasses the 7 nm and 3 nm processes of the same period, making it one of the most technologically mature advanced nodes." Wei's foundry team seems to be well ahead of main competition; insiders reckon that alleged equipment upgrades signal a push into 1.4 nm territories. Crucially, mass production of 2 nm (N2) wafers is expected to begin later this year—a cross-facility push was uttered by industry moles.

NVIDIA's supply of Chinese market-exclusive H20 AI GPU faces an uncertain future, due to recently introduced energy-efficiency guidelines. As covered over a year ago, Team Green readied a regional alternative to its "full fat" H800 "Hopper" AI GPU—designed and/or neutered to comply with US sanctions. Despite being less performant than Western siblings, the H20 model proved to be highly popular by mid-2024—industry analysis projected "$12 billion in take-home revenue" for NVIDIA. According to a fresh Reuters news piece, demand for cut-down "Hopper" hardware has surged throughout early 2025. The report cites "a rush to adopt Chinese AI startup DeepSeek's cost-effective AI models" as the main cause behind an increased snap up rate of H20 chips; with the nation's "big three" AI players—Tencent, Alibaba and ByteDance—driving the majority of sales.

The supply of H20 AI GPUs seems to be under threat on several fronts; Reuters points out that "U.S. officials were considering curbs on sales of H20 chips to China" back in January. Returning to the present day, their report sources "unofficial" statements from H3C—one of China's largest server equipment manufacturers and a key OEM partner for NVIDIA. An anonymous company insider outlined a murky outlook: "H20's international supply chain faces significant uncertainties...We were told the chips would be available, but when it came time to actually purchase them, we were informed they had already been sold at higher prices." More (rumored) bad news has arrived in the shape of alleged Chinese government intervention—the Financial Times posits that local regulators have privately advised that Tencent, Alibaba and ByteDance not purchase NVIDIA H20 chips.

In industrial environments, equipment runs 24/7, handling frequent and intensive write operations. To support these demanding workloads, storage solutions must offer high endurance to extend lifespan, minimize downtime, and lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). Designed to meet these demands, the Cervoz T455 Series, M.2 2280 NVMe SSD delivers 35% greater endurance through a refined firmware architecture and proven storage technologies. Ideal for industrial automation, edge computing, and high-performance computing (HPC), it ensures reliable performance under heavy workloads.

Enhanced Endurance for Demanding Industrial Applications—Over-Provisioning Technology: Endurance SSD Performance and Longevity
Cervoz's Over-Provisioning technology optimizes SSD performance by reserving extra storage space, boosting efficiency, and extending lifespan. How SSD Over-Provisioning Delivers Benefits:

• Extended Lifespan: Efficiently reserves additional storage space, enhancing NAND durability at least 35%.
• Consistent Performance: Maintains steady performance levels even under high-intensity workloads.
• Optimized Resource Management: Reserved space allocation for optimal write efficiency.

TrendForce reveals that the combined revenue of the world's top 10 IC design houses reached approximately US$249.8 billion in 2024, marking a 49% YoY increase. The booming AI industry has fueled growth across the semiconductor sector, with NVIDIA leading the charge, posting an astonishing 125% revenue growth, widening its lead over competitors, and solidifying its dominance in the IC industry.

Looking ahead to 2025, advancements in semiconductor manufacturing will further enhance AI computing power, with LLMs continuing to emerge. Open-source models like DeepSeek could lower AI adoption costs, accelerating AI penetration from servers to personal devices. This shift positions edge AI devices as the next major growth driver for the semiconductor industry.

TrendForce's latest findings reveal that the NAND Flash market continues to be plagued by oversupply in the first quarter of 2025, leading to sustained price declines and financial strain for suppliers. However, TrendForce anticipates a significant improvement in the market's supply-demand balance in the second half of the year.

Key factors contributing to this shift include proactive production cuts by manufacturers, inventory reductions in the smartphone sector, and growing demand driven by AI and DeepSeek applications. These elements are expected to alleviate oversupply and support a price rebound for NAND Flash.

AMD and Nutanix have jointly developed virtualization/HCI solutions since 2019, working with major OEMs including Dell, HP and Lenovo, systems integrators and other resellers and partners. You can learn more about AMD-Nutanix solutions here.

AMD EPYC Processors
The EPYC 9004 family of high performance processors provide up to 128 cores per processor to help meet the demands of a wide range of workloads and use cases. High density core counts allow you to reduce the number of servers you need by as much as a five to one ratio when looking at retiring older, inefficient servers and replacing with a new one. Systems based on AMD processors can also be more energy efficient than many competitive processor based systems. For example, running 2000 VMs on 11 2P AMD EPYC 9654 processor-powered servers will use up to 29% less power annually than the 17 2P Intel Xeon Platinum 8490H processor-based servers required to deliver the same performance, while helping reduce CAPEX up to 46%.

TrendForce's latest research report highlights that the NAND Flash industry will continue to face dual pressure from weak demand and oversupply in 2025. In response, manufacturers including Micron, Kioxia/SanDisk, Samsung, and SK hynix/Solidigm have similar plans to cut production—a move that could accelerate industry consolidation in the long term.

TrendForce reports that NAND Flash manufacturers are primarily implementing production cuts by lowering utilization rates and delaying process upgrades. These actions are driven by three major factors:

TrendForce's latest investigations reveal that the DRAM market is expected to face downward pricing pressure in 1Q25 as seasonal weakness aligns with sluggish consumer demand for products like smartphones. Additionally, early stockpiling by notebook manufacturers—over potential import tariffs under the Trump administration—has further exacerbated the pricing decline.

Conventional DRAM prices are projected to drop by 8% to 13%. However, if HBM products are included, the anticipated price decline will range from 0% to 5%.

TrendForce's latest investigations found that the enterprise SSD market experienced significant growth in 3Q24, driven by robust demand from AI-related applications. Prices surged as suppliers struggled to keep pace with market needs, pushing overall industry revenue up by an impressive 28.6% QoQ. Demand for high-capacity models was especially strong, fueled by the arrival of NVIDIA's H-series products and sustained orders for AI training servers. As a result, the total procurement volume for enterprise SSDs rose 15% compared to the previous quarter.

Looking ahead to 4Q24, TrendForce forecasts a slowdown in enterprise SSD revenue as procurement demand begins to cool. Total procurement volume is expected to dip, with the peak buying period behind and server OEM orders being slightly revised downward. As shipment volume declines, overall industry revenue is also projected to decrease in the fourth quarter.

TrendForce reports that the global notebook market in 2024 is projected to recover at a moderate pace, hindered by high interest rates and geopolitical uncertainties. Annual shipments are forecast to reach 174 million units, marking a 3.9% YoY increase. Looking ahead to 2025, reduced political uncertainty following the U.S. presidential election and the Federal Reserve's rate cuts in September 2024 are expected to stimulate capital flow. Combined with the end-of-service for Windows 10 and demand for commercial device upgrades, global notebook shipments are predicted to grow by 4.9% to 183 million units in 2025.

TrendForce notes that notebooks remain primarily productivity tools, with shipment growth driven largely by deferred replacement demand. The impact of AI-integrated notebooks on the overall market remains limited for now. However, AI features are expected to naturally integrate into notebook specifications as brands gradually incorporate them, resulting in a steady rise in the penetration rates of AI notebooks.

TrendForce's latest findings reveal that NAND Flash products have been impacted by weaker-than-expected seasonal demand in the second half of 2024, leading to a decline in wafer contract prices in Q3. This downward trend is projected to deepen, with prices expected to drop by more than 10% in Q4.

Enterprise SSDs are the only segment likely to see modest price growth—supported by stable order momentum—with contract prices forecast to rise by 0-5% in Q4. However, PC SSDs and UFS will see more cautious procurement strategies from buyers, as weaker-than-expected sales of end products drive buyers to adopt a conservative approach. As a result, TrendForce projects overall NAND Flash contract prices will decline by 3-8% in Q4.

TSMC announced that its revenue for September 2024 reached NT$251.87 billion (US$7.80 billion), representing a 39% increase compared to the same month last year. The cumulative revenue for the first three quarters of 2024 climbed to NT$2,025.85 billion (US$62.72 billion), showing a 32% year-over-year growth. The company's third-quarter revenue amounted to NT$759.7 billion (US$23.52 billion), exceeding TSMC's own guidance of NT$706.6 billion to NT$731.5 billion (US$22.4 billion to US$23.2 billion). TSMC will report full third-quarter earnings on Oct. 17.

A report from Data Center Dynamics quotes sources saying that, due to increasing demand from NVIDIA and others, TSMC has been forced to change its CoWoS capacity expansion plan several times. In response, TSMC is building two more fabs, named P4 and P5, in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, raising the company's total number of facilities in the region to five. Four months ago, the company announced that it would build a third 2 nm fab at Nanzih Technology Industrial Park in Kaohsiung. The company's P1 fab, which started in August 2022, is expected to begin mass production next year, while P2 and P3 are still in the construction phase. TSMC's CoWoS monthly capacity is expected to reach more than 40,000 wafers by the end of 2024, 65,000 wafers in 2025, and at least 80,000 wafers in 2026.

TrendForce's latest findings reveal that weaker consumer demand has persisted through 3Q24, leaving AI servers as the primary driver of memory demand. This dynamic, combined with HBM production displacing conventional DRAM capacity, has led suppliers to maintain a firm stance on contract price hikes.

Smartphone brands continue to remain cautious despite some server OEMs continuing to show purchasing momentum. Consequently, TrendForce forecasts that Q4 memory prices will see a significant slowdown in growth, with conventional DRAM expected to increase by only 0-5%. However, benefiting from the rising share of HBM, the average price of overall DRAM is projected to rise 8-13%—a marked deceleration compared to the previous quarter.

Even though the global economy shows signs of recovery, worldwide shipments of traditional PCs dipped 2.4% year-over-year (YoY) to 68.8 million units, during the third quarter of 2024 (3Q24), according to preliminary results from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker. Factors including rising costs and inventory replenishment led to a surge in shipments in the previous quarter, resulting in a slightly slower sales cycle.

"Demand, without a doubt, has returned for PCs amongst consumers and commercial buyers," said Jitesh Ubrani, research manager with IDC's Worldwide Mobile Device Trackers. "However, much of the demand was still concentrated at the entry-level thanks to a recovering economy and the back-to-school season in North America. That said, newer AI PCs such as Copilot+ PCs from Qualcomm along with Intel and AMD's equivalent chips as well as Apple's expected M4-based Macs are expected to drive the premium segment in coming months."

A new forecast from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker shows shipments of personal computing devices are expected to grow 2.6% year over year in 2024 to 398.9 million units. The traditional PC market will remain flat in 2024 with 261 million units shipped while the tablet market is forecast to grow 7.2% year over year as a refresh cycle and project investments are expected to drive the market.

For traditional PCs, the global market excluding China is expected to grow 2.8% in 2024 as China continues to suffer through a confluence of macroeconomic challenges, including high youth employment, deflation, and a tumultuous real estate market. However, China's economic concerns have largely impacted just the PC market as tablet demand has proven to be more resilient thanks to Huawei's efforts.

The demand for AI accelerators is going strong, and the world's largest semiconductor manufacturer, TSMC, has just confirmed that with its July 2024 revenue report. According to its latest July 2024 data, TSMC has reported a consolidated revenue of NT$256.95 billion, or about $7.94 billion at the time of writing. This represents a massive 23.6% jump from June 2024 and a 44.7% from July 2023, when revenue came in at NT$207.869 billion and NT$177.616 billion, respectively. For revenue throughout the year, measured from January to July, TSMC booked NT$1.523 trillion, or about $47 billion at the current rate. For this 7-month period, TSMC's revenue has increased by 30.5% Year-on-Year (YoY), showing great demand and an uptick in the company's production capabilities.

Of course, this is possible thanks to the massive demand driving AI chip sales from various startups and established giants like NVIDIA and AMD. Another vital customer for TSMC is Apple, which produces smartphone and Mac chips at Taiwanese facilities. The solid financial results from TSMC suggest that other fabless chip designers in its ecosystem may also experience positive outcomes in their earnings. It's worth noting that the semiconductor supply chain operates on a long-term planning basis, with arrangements made months in advance. As such, we can expect advanced silicon solutions to reach new customers in the coming months, further driving growth in the sector.

In a conversation with Intel's CEO Pat Gelsinger, industry analyst Patrick Moorhead revealed that Intel's Meteor Lake CPU platform suffers from some production issues. More specifically, Intel has been facing some yield and/or back-end production issues with its Meteor Lake platform, resulting in a negative impact on Intel's margins when producing the chip. The market is showing great demand for these chips, and Intel has been forced to run productions of "hot lots"-- batch production of silicon with the highest priority that gets moved to the front of the production line so they can get packaged as fast as possible. While this is a good sign that the demand is there, running hot lots increases production costs overall as some other wafers have to go back so Meteor Lake can pass.

The yield issues associated with Meteor Lake could be stemming from the only tile made by Intel in the MTL package: the compute tile made on the Intel 4 process. Intel 4 process is specific to Meteor Lake. No other Intel product uses it, not even the Xeon 6, which uses Intel 3, or any of the upcoming CPUs like Arrow Lake, which uses the Intel 20A node. So, Intel is doing multiple nodes for multiple generations of processors, further driving up costs as typical high-volume production with a single node for multiple processors yields lower costs. Additionally, the company is left with lots of "wafers to burn" with Intel 4 node, so even with Meteor Lake having yield issues, the production is ultimately fine, while the operating costs and margins take a hit.

Samsung Electronics today reported financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2024. The Company posted KRW 74.07 trillion in consolidated revenue and operating profit of KRW 10.44 trillion as favorable memory market conditions drove higher average sales price (ASP), while robust sales of OLED panels also contributed to the results.

Memory Market Continues To Recover; Solid Second Half Outlook Centered on Server Demand
The DS Division posted KRW 28.56 trillion in consolidated revenue and KRW 6.45 trillion in operating profit for the second quarter. Driven by strong demand for HBM as well as conventional DRAM and server SSDs, the memory market as a whole continued its recovery. This increased demand is a result of the continued AI investments by cloud service providers and growing demand for AI from businesses for their on-premise servers.

With the growing demand for high-speed computing, more effective cooling solutions for AI servers are gaining significant attention. TrendForce's latest report on AI servers reveals that NVIDIA is set to launch its next-generation Blackwell platform by the end of 2024. Major CSPs are expected to start building AI server data centers based on this new platform, potentially driving the penetration rate of liquid cooling solutions to 10%.

Air and liquid cooling systems to meet higher cooling demands
TrendForce reports that the NVIDIA Blackwell platform will officially launch in 2025, replacing the current Hopper platform and becoming the dominant solution for NVIDIA's high-end GPUs, accounting for nearly 83% of all high-end products. High-performance AI server models like the B200 and GB200 are designed for maximum efficiency, with individual GPUs consuming over 1,000 W. HGX models will house 8 GPUs each, while NVL models will support 36 or 72 GPUs per rack, significantly boosting the growth of the liquid cooling supply chain for AI servers.

TrendForce's latest industry report on AI servers reveals that high demand for advanced AI servers from major CSPs and brand clients is expected to continue in 2024. Meanwhile, TSMC, SK hynix, Samsung, and Micron's gradual production expansion has significantly eased shortages in 2Q24. Consequently, the lead time for NVIDIA's flagship H100 solution has decreased from the previous 40-50 weeks to less than 16 weeks.

TrendForce estimates that AI server shipments in the second quarter will increase by nearly 20% QoQ, and has revised the annual shipment forecast up to 1.67 million units—marking a 41.5% YoY growth.

In 2016, TSMC developed and named its InFO FOWLP technology, and applied it to the A10 processor used in the iPhone 7. TrendForce points out that since then, OSAT providers have been striving to develop FOWLP and FOPLP technologies to offer more cost-effective packaging solutions.

Starting in the second quarter, chip companies like AMD have actively engaged with TSMC and OSAT providers to explore the use of FOPLP technology for chip packaging and helping drive industry interest in FOPLP. TrendForce observes that there are three main models for introducing FOPLP packaging technology: Firstly, OSAT providers transitioning from traditional methods of consumer IC packaging to FOPLP. Secondly, foundries and OSAT providers packaging AI GPUs that are transitioning 2.5D packaging from wafer level to panel level. Thirdly, panel makers who are packaging consumer ICs.

TrendForce reports that while the enterprise sector continues to invest in server infrastructure—especially with the rising adoption of AI driving demand for enterprise SSDs—the consumer electronics market remains lackluster. This, combined with NAND suppliers aggressively ramping up production in the second half of the year, is expected to push the NAND Flash sufficiency ratio up to 2.3% in the third quarter, curbing the blended price hike to a modest 5-10%.

This year, NAND Flash prices saw a robust rebound as manufacturers kept production in check during the first half, helping them regain profitability. However, with a noticeable ramp-up in production and sluggish retail demand, wafer spot prices have dropped significantly. Some wafer prices are now over 20% below contract prices, casting doubts on the sustainability of future price hikes.

Corsair Gaming, Inc. (Nasdaq: CRSR) ("Corsair" or the "Company"), a leading global provider and innovator of high-performance products for gamers, streamers, content-creators, and gaming PC builders, today announced financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2024.

First Quarter 2024 Select Financial Metrics

• Net revenue was $337.3 million compared to $417.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2023 and $354.0 million in the first quarter of 2023. Gaming Components and Systems segment net revenue was $230.3 million compared to $280.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2023 and $265.0 million in the first quarter of 2023, while Gamer and Creator Peripherals segment net revenue was $107.0 million compared to $136.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2023 and $88.9 million in the first quarter of 2023.
• Net loss attributable to common shareholders was $12.5 million, or net loss of $0.12 per diluted share, compared to net income of $6.2 million, or net income of $0.06 per diluted share, in the fourth quarter of 2023 and a net loss of $1.1 million, or a net loss of $0.01 per diluted share, in the first quarter of 2023.
• Adjusted net income was $9.5 million, or net income of $0.09 per diluted share, compared to adjusted net income of $23.2 million, or net income of $0.22 per diluted share in the fourth quarter of 2023 and adjusted net income of $11.9 million, or net income of $0.11 per diluted share, in the first quarter of 2023.
• Adjusted EBITDA was $18.0 million, compared to $33.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2023, and $20.6 million in the first quarter of 2023.
• Cash and restricted cash was $130.2 million as of March 31, 2024.

North American customers are increasing their orders for storage products as energy efficiency becomes a key priority for AI inference servers. This, in turn, is driving up demand for QLC enterprise SSDs. Currently, only Solidigm and Samsung have certified QLC products, with Solidigm actively promoting its QLC products and standing to benefit the most from this surge in demand. TrendForce predicts shipments of QLC enterprise SSD bits to reach 30 exabytes in 2024—increasing fourfold in volume from 2023.

TrendForce identifies two main reasons for the increasing use of QLC SSDs in AI applications: the products' fast read speeds and TCO advantages. AI inference servers primarily perform read operations, which occur less frequently than the data writing required by AI training servers. In comparison to HDDs, QLC enterprise SSDs offer superior read speeds and have capacities that have expanded up to 64 TB.

NVIDIA's next-gen Blackwell platform, which includes B-series GPUs and integrates NVIDIA's own Grace Arm CPU in models such as the GB200, represents a significant development. TrendForce points out that the GB200 and its predecessor, the GH200, both feature a combined CPU+GPU solution, primarily equipped with the NVIDIA Grace CPU and H200 GPU. However, the GH200 accounted for only approximately 5% of NVIDIA's high-end GPU shipments. The supply chain has high expectations for the GB200, with projections suggesting that its shipments could exceed millions of units by 2025, potentially making up nearly 40 to 50% of NVIDIA's high-end GPU market.

Although NVIDIA plans to launch products such as the GB200 and B100 in the second half of this year, upstream wafer packaging will need to adopt more complex and high-precision CoWoS-L technology, making the validation and testing process time-consuming. Additionally, more time will be required to optimize the B-series for AI server systems in aspects such as network communication and cooling performance. It is anticipated that the GB200 and B100 products will not see significant production volumes until 4Q24 or 1Q25.