The expansion of the only computer memory factory in Europe is underway. The factory in question produces Goodram branded memory and is located in Łaziska Górne. In the south of Poland, there is a unique technological company that stands out in Europe. The said company is Wilk Elektronik SA, which is the manufacturer of the well-known in Europe Goodram computer memory brand as well as the IRDM gaming line. Nine months after the symbolic groundbreaking, the scale of this private investment is already visible. The impressive 14-meter high structure of the building is not accidental. The extended part of the company is going to have a high storage warehouse and a new production hall. Thus, the company surface will be expanded from the current 3000 m² by 1140 m² in the warehousing and logistics section and 1200 m² in the production area.

In a surprising outcome, Taiwanese GlobalWafers purchase of German Siltronic has failed, due to the German Ministry for Economic Affairs having failed to approve the deal. The €4.35 billion deal had been approved by all other regulators globally, but the German Ministry for Economic Affairs claims that they didn't have enough time to go over the review process locally by the deadline that was set. It appears that they're blaming their counterparts in the PRC for having been too slow in their approval process, as the Germans wanted to go over the Chinese approval, before committing to their own approval.

The deal might not be dead in the water though, but it looks like GlobalWafers is going to have to make a new offer and start the entire process over again. Had the deal gone through, GlobalWafers would've become the world's second largest 300 mm silicon wafer producer, behind Japanese Shin-Etsu, overtaking Sumco, which is also based out of Japan. GlobalWafers already owns a majority stake in Siltronic, but the question now is if GlobalWafers will maintain that share, or look to invest elsewhere. One option on the table for GlobalWafers is apparently the US, but at the same time, the majority shareholder of Siltronic wants to sell, ideally to GlobalWafers. Although it's only speculation at this point, it has been suggested that the German government wanted to retain Siltronic as a local company, especially due to growing interest by the EU to expand foundry type businesses in Europe. GlobalWafers is said to make an announcement by the end of this week as to whether they will continue with the Siltronic purchase or not.

Tachyum today announced that it was selected by the Slovak Republic to participate in the latest submission for the Important Projects of Common European Interest (IPCEI), to develop Prodigy 2 for HPC/AI. Prodigy 2 for HPC/AI will enable 1 AI Zettaflop and more than 10 DP Exaflops computers to support superhuman brain-scale computing by 2024 for under €1B. As part of this selection, Tachyum could receive a 49 million Euro grant to accelerate a second-generation of its Tachyum Prodigy processor for HPC/AI in a 3-nanometer process.

The IPCEI program can make a very important contribution to sustainable economic growth, jobs, competitiveness and resilience for industry and the economy in the European Union. IPCEI will strengthen the EU's open strategic autonomy by enabling breakthrough innovation and infrastructure projects through cross-border cooperation and with positive spill-over effects on the internal market and society as a whole.

NVIDIA's RTX 3090 Ti is hot on the presses, and while actual product availability is anyone's guess, the card has already been made available for order (in extremely limited quantities, as one might expect). That said, the lack of a clear pricing messaging from NVIDIA seems to have left the door open for truly egregious pricing practices, which are likely added to at every step of the supply chain from the green team's AIB (add-in-board) partners and their custom RTX 3090 Ti graphics cards. Case in point: European, Swiss retailer Top Preise has started listing the latest NVIDIA halo card at a cool, not at all jaw-dropping average of €3,600 ($4,000). This is easily the highest-ever-pricing practiced on a consumer-level graphics card, so if anything, 2022 seems to have at least brought us that particular record-setting. Of course, pricing of a single retailer doesn't prove a pricing trend; but the fact that the cards are priced at untidy values does seem to indicate these aren't placeholder values.

This is much the case as has happened with NVIDIA's recent launch of the RTX 3080 12 GB - that card too didn't receive public MSRP guidance from NVIDIA, leaving its board partners - and retailers - to carve whatever pricing philosophy they deem adequate, considering the current state of the market, expected demand for NVIDIA's latest and greatest, and, of course, additional profits. Considering how the RTX 3080 12 GB has been found in store shelves for around $1,700 (remember the original MSRP for the RTX 3080 8 GB was set at $699), an upgrade to the RTX 3090 Ti would be a very expensive, $2,300 proposition for a relatively small performance improvement.

Due to the pandemic, laptops shipments reached a record high of 240 million units in 2021, according to TrendForce's investigations. However, the market has been abuzz recently and, as the global population of the fully vaccinated has exceeded 50%, relevant demand driven by the pandemic is expected to gradually weaken. Shipment volume will decrease by 3.3% year-on-year, revised down slightly to 238 million units. Chromebooks will account for approximately 12.3% of shipment volume, though it accounted for approximately 15.2% in 2021. The momentum of shipments has slowed down significantly which indicates that demand derived from the economic effect of remote working and teaching has subsided.

Although Intel has already announced that it won't be making any decision with regards to its investments in Europe this year, new rumours courtesy of Reuters are now suggesting that Intel is eyeing Italy for an investment of €4 to €8 billion for a new, advanced semiconductor chip packaging plant. This largely leaves Germany and France as the options for Intel's so called "megafab" that the company is planning to build in Europe over the next few years.

Intel has already said it would invest around US$7 billion for a similar chip packaging plan in Penang, Malaysia, a location where Intel already has a chip packaging facility. When contacted by Reuters, Intel said "We are encouraged by the many possibilities to support the EU's digital agenda and 2030 semiconductor ambitions. While current negotiations are ongoing and confidential, we plan to make an announcement as soon as possible." The Italian government is also said to have some concerns with regards to how many jobs the plant will actually create, as well as what the energy costs will be, which could throw a spanner in the works if Intel doesn't provide the right answers.

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.

A fight over who can announce the most new chip related investments seem to have broken out between Intel and TSMC, which both companies said to be eyeing Germany for their new foundry expansions. This is despite both companies having said that Europe isn't a particularly interesting market for new foundries, but it appears that the upcoming European Chips Act has changed their minds, despite there being no official word on how much the EU will invest.

Intel has already pledged investments in Europe of up to €80 billion, for as many as eight new foundries. It's not clear if this includes its current investments in Ireland or now, where Intel has already invested over €6 billion over the past couple of years. TSMC on the other hand hasn't promised anything as yet, but the company is in early talks with the German government according to news out of Taiwan. Time will tell if anything comes from this, but Intel is said to be making an announcement soon, possibly before the holiday season on where it's planning on building its next Fab in Europe, with Italy and France also being on the table.

The two leading companies in the quantum computing industry have combined to create Quantinuum, thereby accelerating the development of quantum computing and innovation of quantum technologies in a platform agnostic manner to deliver real-world quantum-enabled solutions for some of the most intractable problems that classical computers have not been able to solve.

Cambridge Quantum, the pioneer in quantum software, operating systems, and cybersecurity, and Honeywell Quantum Solutions, which has built the highest-performing quantum hardware, based on trapped-ion technologies, today announced they have satisfied all of the conditions required to close the business combination and formed the new company, now called Quantinuum.

According to Margrethe Vestager—the European Commissioner for Competition—the EU is hoping to be able to produce up to 20 percent of leading edge chips within the EU by 2030. Today that number is around 10 percent, down from some 40 percent back in the 1990's.

However, it seems like the EU has understood that it can not be self-reliant on semiconductor parts, no matter how many companies it can entice to build foundries within the EU. However, the EU is very much looking at getting more chip production happening inside the union, especially for the automotive industry. At the same time, the EU understands that it has to work with global suppliers of chips, especially what is being referred to as legacy technology in the interview with CNBC.

Wish has become something of a phenomenon, in the sense that it has become Europe's go-to place for cheap gadgets, toys, clothing and more, most of which are delivered straight from the PRC to your front door. However, a lot of the products sold on Wish doesn't meet European safety regulations and now France's DGCCRF (direction générale de la concurrence, de la consommation et de la répression des fraudes) or in English, the General Directorate for Competition Policy, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control, are going after Wish for selling substandard and even outright dangerous goods to French consumers.

There is clearly legit reasoning behind it all, as the DGCCRF ordered some 140 different products from Wish - of which most arrived directly from the PRC - and then proceeded to test them to see if they met European safety standards. Out of the 140 products, 45 percent were deemed outright dangerous, although when it came to electronic products, 90 percent were deemed dangerous and 95 percent were not certified for use in Europe. It's not clear how many of the products were electronic products though, which makes it a bit hard to judge how bad the situation really is.

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.

The 58th annual edition of the TOP500 saw little change in the Top10. The Microsoft Azure system called Voyager-EUS2 was the only machine to shake up the top spots, claiming No. 10. Based on an AMD EPYC processor with 48 cores and 2.45GHz working together with an NVIDIA A100 GPU and 80 GB of memory, Voyager-EUS2 also utilizes a Mellanox HDR Infiniband for data transfer.

While there were no other changes to the positions of the systems in the Top10, Perlmutter at NERSC improved its performance to 70.9 Pflop/s. Housed at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Perlmutter's increased performance couldn't move it from its previously held No. 5 spot.

SiPearl, the designer of the high computing power and low consumption microprocessor that will be the heart of European supercomputers, has entered into a partnership with Intel in order to offer a common offer dedicated to the first exascale supercomputers in Europe. This partnership will offer their European customers the possibility of combining Rhea, the high computing power and low consumption microprocessor developed by SiPearl, with Intel's Ponte Vecchio accelerator, thus creating a high performance computing node that will promote the deployment of the exascale supercomputing in Europe.

To enable this powerful combination, SiPearl plans to use and optimize for its Rhea microprocessor the open and unified programming interface, oneAPI, created by Intel. Using this single solution across the entire heterogeneous compute node, consisting of Rhea and Ponte Vecchio, will increase developer productivity and application performance.

The Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) traditional PC market, (desktops, notebooks, and workstations) grew 12.7% YoY in 2021Q3, for a total of 24.4 million units, according to International Data Corporation (IDC). A strong commercial performance throughout the region is the main driver of this growth, offsetting a slowdown in consumer, which could not keep up with the unfavorable growth rates seen in 2020Q3.

The Western European PC market enjoyed solid growth (15.8% YoY). Desktops continued their upward trend and increased 21.8% YoY—outgrowing notebooks (+13.1%) for the first time in six quarters. Desktop growth can be attributed to strength on the commercial side, as employers look to equip and refresh their increasingly populated offices. Notebooks also saw solid commercial shipments but were stifled by component shortages, primarily in IC boards and panels.

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.

In an interview with the BBC, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger said that the company is no longer considering the UK as a site for a chip fab, due to Brexit, something the company had apparently done prior to Brexit. Now the company is looking for a location in another EU country for a US$95 billion investment for a new semiconductor plant, as well as upgrades to its current plants in Ireland.

Although Intel had not made any firm decisions on a site location prior to Brexit, Gelsinger is quoted as saying "I have no idea whether we would have had a superior site from the UK, but we now have about 70 proposals for sites across Europe from maybe 10 different countries." He continues "We're hopeful that we'll get to agreement on a site, as well as support from the EU... before the end of this year."

It looks like NVIDIA's acquisition of Arm Holdings Plc from Japan's SoftBank, has hit its biggest regulatory hurdle, with the European Commission, the apex executive body of the European Union, deliberating on whether the deal requires a thorough investigation lasting 4 months. Reuters reports that NVIDIA offered the Commission certain "concessions," which may affect the way Arm operates under NVIDIA. The Commission did not disclose these concessions, but mentioned that it will take until October 27 to decide whether or not they merit further investigation.

NVIDIA's Arm acquisition has split the Arm licensee industry along the median. The likes of Apple, Qualcomm, and Samsung, have voiced serious concerns over the deal. They fear that as a high-performance SoC designer itself, NVIDIA will withhold the most advanced bits of the Arm IP to itself, giving it a competitive edge over licensees. Not all companies see it this way, with Broadcom, MediaTek, and Marvell openly endorsing the deal. It's interesting to note here, that Apple, Samsung, and Qualcomm, make faster smartphone SoCs than MediaTek, Broadcom, and Marvell (and their subsidiaries) do.

As growing vaccination rates worldwide starting in July lead to a gradual easing of lockdowns, the overall demand for notebook computers has also experienced a corresponding slowdown, with Chromebook demand dropping by as much as 50%, according to TrendForce's latest investigations. However, factors such as a wave of replacement demand for commercial notebooks in Europe and North America due to the return to physical workplaces, as well as brands' aggressive efforts to rush out their 4Q21 shipments ahead of time due to global port congestions, became the primary drivers of notebook demand in 3Q21. Hence, annual notebook shipment for 2021 will likely reach 240 million units, a 16.4% YoY increase.

TrendForce further indicates that 4Q21 will welcome both the gradual release of new models equipped with Intel's next-gen CPUs and a wave of replacement demand for notebooks featuring Windows 11. Even so, overall notebook shipment in 4Q21 will depend on the status of the COVID-19 pandemic and the demand for commercial notebooks. As vaccinations become even more widespread in 2022, pandemic-related spending is expected to decline as a result. TrendForce therefore expects global notebook shipment to decline by 7-8% YoY next year and reach approximately 220 million units, although this still represents a growth of 60 million units over the shipment volume for 2019, prior to the emergence of the pandemic.

The European Processor Initiative (EPI) https://www.european-processor-initiative.eu/, a project with 28 partners from 10 European countries, with the goal of making EU achieve independence in HPC chip technologies and HPC infrastructure, is proud to announce that EPAC 1.0 RISC-V Test Chip samples were delivered to EPI and initial tests of their operation were successful.

One key segment of EPI activities is to develop and demonstrate fully European-grown processor IPs based on the RISC-V Instruction Set Architecture, providing power-efficient and high-throughput accelerator cores named EPAC (European Processor Accelerators).

Following the peak period of production in 3Q21, the supply of DRAM will likely begin to outpace demand in 4Q21, according to TrendForce's latest investigations (the surplus of DRAM supply is henceforth referred to as "sufficiency ratio", expressed as a percentage). In addition, while DRAM suppliers are generally carrying a healthy level of inventory, most of their clients in the end-product markets are carrying a higher level of DRAM inventory than what is considered healthy, meaning these clients will be less willing to procure additional DRAM going forward. TrendForce therefore forecasts a downward trajectory for DRAM ASP in 4Q21. More specifically, DRAM products that are currently in oversupply may experience price drops of more than 5% QoQ, and the overall DRAM ASP will likely decline by about 3-8% QoQ in 4Q21.

Although WFH and distance learning applications previously generated high demand for notebook computers, increasingly widespread vaccinations in Europe and North America have now weakened this demand, particularly for Chromebooks. As a result, global production of notebooks is expected to decline in 4Q21, in turn propelling the sufficiency ratio of PC DRAM to 1.38%, which indicates that PC DRAM will no longer be in short supply in 4Q21. However, PC DRAM accounts for a relatively low share of DRAM manufacturers' DRAM supply bits, since these suppliers have allocated more production capacities to server DRAM, which is in relatively high demand. Hence, there will unlikely be a severe surplus of PC DRAM in 4Q21. It should also be pointed out that, on average, the current spot prices of PC DRAM modules are far lower than their contract prices for 3Q21. TrendForce therefore expects an imminent 5-10% QoQ decline in PC DRAM contract prices for 4Q21, with potential for declines that are even greater than 10% for certain transactions, as PC OEMs anticipate further price drops in PC DRAM prices in the future.

The Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) market for gaming PCs posted another quarter of solid growth in 2021Q2, growing 10.8% YoY and recording 2.5 million units shipped, according to International Data Corporation (IDC). Approaching the end of 2021, growth is expected to continue, albeit at a lower rate than in recent quarters. 2021Q3 is predicted to grow at 6.1% YoY, while 2021Q4 has an anticipated rise of 4.8% YoY. While the momentum is stabilizing, long-term growth is still expected. In 2025, the PC gaming market is forecast to rise to 11.4 million units, with a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 2.5%.

In Western Europe, 2021H1 saw demand in the market driven by consumers working from home, despite the loosening of lockdowns. With upcoming game releases in 2021H2 expected to increase graphical requirements, more gamers will be looking to refresh their PCs to game at the highest level. Therefore, acceleration of new/returning gamers is expected to continue in 2021. However, with component supply and logistics problems continuing, gaming PC production will be impacted too.

Growth rates remained strong in the enterprise segment of the wireless local area networking (WLAN) market in the second quarter of 2021 (2Q21) as the market increased 22.4% on a year-over-year basis to $1.7 billion, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Wireless LAN Tracker. In the consumer segment of the WLAN market, revenues declined 5.7% in the quarter to $2.3 billion, giving the combined enterprise and consumer WLAN markets year-over-year growth of 4.6% in 2Q21.

The growth in the enterprise-class segment of the market builds on a strong first quarter of 2021 when revenues increased 24.6% year over year. For the first half of 2021, the market increased 23.5% compared to first two quarters of 2020. Compared to the second quarter of 2019, 2Q21 revenues increased 10.8%, indicating that demand in the enterprise WLAN is strong.

[Editor's note: We have published the review of HYTE Revolt 3 Case here.]

HYTE, the new PC components and lifestyle brand of iBUYPOWER, a leading manufacturer of high-performance custom gaming PCs, today released its premier product, the Revolt 3 Mini-ITX PC case. Previously announced during CES 2021 as the Revolt 3 MK3, the Revolt 3 was designed with careful consideration for DIY PC enthusiasts, gamers, and creators alike.

"iBUYPOWER is excited to introduce its new sub-brand, HYTE, to our community with its very first product, the Revolt 3" said Darren Su, Executive Vice President of iBUYPOWER. "With over 20 years of experience as a systems integrator we felt like we had a unique perspective to bring to the table when developing PC Components. We approached the Revolt 3 with the goal of designing a case with the freedom and flexibility that would allow the use of a wide range of components without imposing performance restrictions based on the size of the case."

Now that most negotiations over contract prices of PC DRAM for 3Q21 have concluded, DRAM suppliers' low inventories and the arrival of the peak season for DRAM procurement have resulted in a 3-8% QoQ increase in PC DRAM contract prices for 3Q21, although this is a relatively muted growth compared to the 25% increase experienced in 2Q21, according to TrendForce's latest investigations. However, demand for PC DRAM in the spot market began to show signs of bearish movement in early July ahead of time, as DRAM suppliers continued to lower prices in order to adjust their DRAM inventories. Regarding the contract market, PC OEMs currently carry relatively high levels of DRAM inventory because they substantially stocked up on PC DRAM beforehand in anticipation of an upcoming shortage. Not only has PC OEMs' high DRAM inventory put downward pressure on possible price hikes for PC DRAM, but the gradual lifting of COVID-related restrictions in Europe and the US will also likely lower the overall demand for notebook computers, thereby pulling down the overall demand for PC DRAM. TrendForce therefore forecasts a 0-5% QoQ decline in PC DRAM contract prices for 4Q21.