Based on details posted by the Commercial Times in Taiwan, it would appear that Samsung Foundry is working on ways to win over customers from TSMC. The backstory is that fabless chip makers have had to change foundries over time, due to the fact that from a foundry side, it's expensive to be on the cutting edge and many foundries have stepped out of the race. This has left the fabless chip makers with fewer options and with TSMC as the de facto industry leader today. That said, as we've seen, NVIDIA and Qualcomm picked Samsung Foundry for some of their latest chips, but based on industry rumours, the yields aren't great.

Samsung Foundry has been trying to win over customers by offering attractive pricing compared to TSMC, but far from everyone has been interested. Some companies, like Apple, have tried to work with Samsung, but abandoned them in the end in favour of TSMC. Samsung is said to be courting both AMD and NVIDIA, as well as others, although only time will tell if we'll see any future product from either company being manufactured by Samsung Foundry. The fact that there are investigations into the yields at Samsung Foundry should be a concern for any future customer and isn't a good sign of where the company is heading.

Today, during Mobile World Congress 2022, Qualcomm Incorporated President and Chief Executive Officer, Cristiano Amon highlighted how Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. is continuing to bring best-in-case experiences to enterprise PCs and drive the convergence of the PC and mobile to increase productivity, connectivity, and security from anywhere. During last month's Consumer Electronics Show, the Company announced that over 200 enterprise customers were testing or deploying Windows 11 on Snapdragon laptops and 2-in-1 devices. Today, Amon outlined how strategic relationships with Microsoft, Lenovo, and many other ecosystem leaders are helping deliver the next generation of enterprise-ready PCs, powered by Snapdragon. Utilizing its global relationships, Qualcomm Technologies continues to lead the PC industry's inevitable transition to innovative and modern solutions from the portfolio of Snapdragon compute platforms.Quotes from key collaborators that Qualcomm Technologies is working with to drive innovation for always on, always connected enterprise PCs through Snapdragon Compute Platforms can be found here.

Although nothing has been officially confirmed by Qualcomm, it looks like the company will be moving away from Samsung for its 3 nm based chips, in favour of TSMC. The Elec also mentions that Qualcomm has moved some of its Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 production to TSMC, something that has already been hitting the rumour mill. The first batch of 4 nm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chips are said to already have entered the early stages of production. The main reason for the move is said to be poor yields by Samsung Foundry on its 4 nm node.

The yield rates are said to be a measly 35 percent for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, with Samsung's Exynos 2200 having even lower yields. This also helps explain why Samsung's mobile division has decided to limit the availability of its Exynos 2200 based phones to only a few regions. Apparently Qualcomm had to send staff over to Korea to help get the yields up to their current rate, but it's not hard to see why the company is shifting back to TSMC, as a 35 percent yield rate is simply not acceptable. Samsung is said to be auditing Samsung Foundry to find out what has gone wrong, as anything below 80-90 percent in terms of yield rate is simply not acceptable for mass production. Qualcomm will apparently continue to use Samsung Foundry for its 7 nm RF chips, where the yields must be within industry norms.

The Exynos 2200 SoC powering the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra in some regions such as the EU, posts some less-than-stellar graphics performance numbers, for all the hype around its AMD-sourced RDNA2 graphics solution, according to an investigative report by Erdi Özüağ, aka "FX57." Samsung brands this RDNA2-based GPU as the Samsung Xclipse 920. Further, Özüağ's testing found that the Exynos 2200 is considerably slower than the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 powering the S22 Ultra in certain other regions, including the US and India. He has access to both kinds of the S22 Ultra.

In the UL Benchmarks 3DMark Wildlife test, the Exynos 2200 posted a score of 6684 points, compared to 9548 points by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 (a difference of 42 percent). What's even more interesting, is that the Exynos 2200 is barely 7 percent faster than the previous-gen Exynos 2100 (Arm Mali GPU) powering the S21 Ultra, which scored 6256 points. The story repeats with the GFXBench "Manhattan" off-screen render benchmark. Here, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is 30 percent faster than the Exynos 2200, which performs on-par with the Exynos 2100. Find a plethora of other results in the complete review comparing the two flavors of the S22 Ultra.

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. today announced the company has opened Extended Reality (XR) Labs in Europe. Europe already has a thriving augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) community and Qualcomm Technologies is committed to making XR the future of mobile computing. The XR Labs will focus activities on XR R&D, engineering and key technology development areas such as advanced hand tracking and gesture control, 3D Mapping and SLAM/Localization services, multi-user experiences, and image recognition. Also, XR SDKs providing access to foundational XR technology including object and geo-tracking.

The new labs in Europe build on Qualcomm Technologies' commitment to make XR accessible to the masses and will be located across six cities in Europe initially, with the intention to add more in the future. The goal is to help design lightweight, sleek headworn glasses and make innovative technology available for developers through Snapdragon Spaces XR Developer Platform to build experiences that will transform everyday consumer, retail, industrial, enterprise, education and healthcare. Qualcomm Technologies is pushing the boundaries and charting its course to everyday use through continued R&D advancements.

From 2020 to 2025, the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12-inch equivalent wafer capacity at the world's top ten foundries will be approximately 10% with the majority of these companies focusing on 12-inch capacity expansion, which will see a CAGR of approximately 13.2%, according to TrendForce's research. In terms of 8-inch wafers, due to factors such as difficult to obtain equipment and whether capacity expansion is cost-effective, most fabs can only expand production slightly by means of capacity optimization, equating to a CAGR of only 3.3%. In terms of demand, the products primarily derived from 8-inch wafers, PMIC and Power Discrete, are driven by demand for electric vehicles, 5G smartphones, and servers. Stocking momentum has not fallen off, resulting in a serious shortage of 8-inch wafer production capacity that has festered since 2H19. Therefore, in order to mitigate competition for 8-inch capacity, a trend of shifting certain products to 12-inch production has gradually emerged. However, if shortages in overall 8-inch capacity is to be effectively alleviated, it is still necessary to wait for a large number of mainstream products to migrate to 12-inch production. The timeframe for this migration is estimated to be close to 2H23 into 2024.

Meta has recently confirmed during their latest earnings call that Quest store content sales had surpassed $1 billion in sales since its launch in 2019. This represents tremendous growth for the platform with average monthly revenue quadrupling from $12.4 million in mid-2020 to $51.3 million currently. The total number of Quest 2 headsets sold is likely near 10 million units as estimated by Qualcomm but never officially confirmed. Meta is likely selling the Quest 2 headset at a loss to gain market share and at least according to these figures they appear to be succeeding.

Exponential demand growth for remote and unmanned terminals in smart home, logistics, manufacturing and other end-user applications has driven iterative updates in Wi-Fi technology. Among the current generations of technologies, Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) is mainstream while Wi-Fi 6 and 6E (802.11ax) are at promotional stages, according to TrendForce's investigations. In order to meet the connection requirements of industry concepts such as the Metaverse, many major manufacturers have trained their focus on the faster and more stable next generation 802.11be Wi-Fi standard amendment, commonly known as Wi-Fi 7. Considering technical characteristics, maturity, and product certification status, Wi-Fi 6 and 6E are expected to surpass Wi-Fi 5 to become mainstream technology in 2022, with global market share expected to reach 58%.

The upcoming Samsung Exynos 2200 mobile processor that is set to feature in the S22 series of phones features an RDNA2 Xclipse 920 GPU designed in collaboration with AMD. This new GPU has surfaced in various Geekbench scores where it handily outperforms the Adreno 730 found in the flagship Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. The Exynos 2200 achieved an OpenCL Geekbench score of 9,143 points which is 50.7% higher than the OnePlus 10 Pro sporting a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. The processor also performed impressively in the Vulkan benchmarks scoring an average of 8,556 points which places it between 17 - 25% faster. These synthetic benchmarks aren't always entirely reflective of actual performance and we have yet to see power and heat figures so we will need to wait until Samsung officially releases the S22 lineup on February 9th to determine if this will be the new mobile champion.

Worldwide semiconductor revenue increased 25.1% in 2021 to total $583.5 billion, crossing the $500 billion threshold for the first time, according to preliminary results by Gartner, Inc.

"As the global economy bounced back in 2021, shortages appeared throughout the semiconductor supply chain, particularly in the automotive industry," said Andrew Norwood, research vice president at Gartner. "The resulting combination of strong demand as well as logistics and raw material price increases drove semiconductors' average selling price higher (ASP), contributing to overall revenue growth in 2021.

Although not much is known about MSI's upcoming router, the company was teasing the RadiX AXE6600 during its virtual CES event. It's said to be a WiFi 6E router based on an unspecified 1.8 GHz Qualcomm SoC. The AXE6600 in the model name should break down to 600 Mbps in the 2.4 GHz band, 1200 Mbps in the 5 GHz band and 4800 MHz in the 6 GHz band, if routers with the same speed rating are anything to go by. In fact, the specs seem to be similar to the Linksys Hydra Pro 6E, as it seems to be based on the same or at least a similar SoC from Qualcomm.

The one thing that is obvious, especially from MSI's teaser on Twitter, is that the router will have plenty of RGB bling built into the antennas. The MSI dragon logo on the router, is a button according to Tom's hardware, that is said to cycle through various "AI" QoS presets. How useful or practical this will be in reality, is up for debate. The router is still a good few months out, with an expected launch sometime in the second half of this year. And if you're wondering, yes, MSI have made routers before, but it was quite some time ago and they weren't particularly popular.

Razer, the leading global lifestyle brand for gamers (Hong Kong Stock Code: 1337), announced its collaboration with leading watch manufacturer, Fossil, to launch a limited-edition smartwatch: the Razer X Fossil Gen 6 Smartwatch. The co-branded wearable leverages Fossil's most innovative smartwatch platform to date, the highly anticipated Fossil Gen 6. It also features three exclusive Razer watch faces including Analog, Text, and Chroma, as well as two stylish interchangeable straps. The Razer X Fossil Gen 6 will be launching globally this month for $329 USD in a limited quantity of just 1,337 units.

The Gen 6 is the first smartwatch powered by the Snapdragon Wear 4100+ Platform—providing users upgrades in speed and performance, including faster application load time, highly responsive user experiences, and more efficient power consumption. With an overall 30% increased performance* and running Wear OS by Google, the smartwatch does way more, way faster to give gamers a fashionable cutting edge. The Razer X Fossil Gen 6 Smartwatch also boasts top wellness features as a nod to both brands' commitments to wellness and comes only a few months after the launch of Razer's dedicated wellness initiative for gamers, Champions Start From Within.

Linksys, a global leader in home and business WiFi solutions, today announces the availability of its latest and more affordable WiFi 6 product, the Hydra Pro 6. "Our mission at Linksys is to connect everyone securely, whether it's someone working from home who needs reliable WiFi or a student intently taking notes during their online class. The Hydra Pro 6 is our latest router in a suite of products that offer next-level streaming, are easy to set up and equipped with advanced security and parental controls," said Harry Dewhirst, CEO, Linksys. "People shouldn't worry about a dropped video chat or connections that aren't secure. WiFi is meant to make life easier not create unnecessary problems in an already difficult world. We are committed to delivering fast, reliable, and secure connectivity to the hybrid work era and beyond, and the Hydra Pro 6 is just the start."

The Linksys Hydra Pro 6 delivers the ultimate WiFi 6 experience to 30+ devices (per node) across 2700 sq. ft. of coverage and wireless speeds up to 5.4 Gbps. Powered by the Qualcomm Immersive Home 216 Platform plus access to 160 MHz channel, the Hydra Pro 6 unleashes the true power of WiFi 6 with reliable, incredibly fast connectivity and improved network efficiency for seamless video streaming, faster downloading and more. Intelligent Mesh technology offers whole home mesh WiFi coverage that's easily expandable by adding nodes.

The semicondustor market in 3Q21 is red hot with total revenue of the global top 10 IC design (fabless) companies reaching US$33.7 billion or 45% growth YoY, according to TrendForce's latest investigations. In addition to the Taiwanese companies MediaTek, Novatek, and Realtek already on the list, Himax comes in at number ten, bringing the total number of Taiwanese companies on the top 10 list to 4.

Qualcomm has been buoyed by continuing robust demand for 5G mobile phones form major mobile phone manufacturers with further revenue growth from its processor and radio frequency front end (RFFE) departments. Qualcomm's IoT department benefited from strong demand in the consumer electronics, edge networking, and industrial sectors, posting revenue growth of 66% YoY, highest among Qualcomm departments. In turn, this drove Qualcomm's total 3Q21 revenue to US$7.7 billion, 56% growth YoY, and ranking first in the world.

Cleer Audio, an industry-leading headphone and smart speaker manufacturer, is pleased to announce the introduction of its next generation wireless Intelligent Bluetooth Adaptive Active Noise Cancelling Headphones, the award-winning ALPHA. ALPHA is like no other headphone with its immersive theater-like sound performance with Dirac Virtuo spatial audio technology. ALPHA is a game changer. The new Cleer ALPHA was recently awarded a prestigious 2022 CES Innovations Honoree Award, honoring its outstanding design and engineering in consumer technology products, by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA).

The ALPHA wireless intelligent noise-cancelling headphone revolutionizes music pleasure on the go with spatial audio, and industry-leading Adaptive Active Noise Cancellation. With Cleer's patented award-winning 40 mm Ironless Driver, Bluetooth 5.1 connection, Qualcomm's cVc 2-mic solution, and 35-hours of playback in ANC mode, ALPHA delivers the best wireless audio quality, immersive sound, and audio performance. On the daily outing, ALPHA's adaptive noise cancellation function and upgraded earpads with a cooling feature significantly improve the users' wearing comfort. The ALPHA is an advanced personalized lifestyle product, more than just a headphone.

Unlike Intel and Qualcomm, Samsung seems to be far more pessimistic about the current chip supply issues, as the company isn't expecting the chip shortage to be resolved next year. Admittedly this information comes via a meeting of its mobile divisions top brass, but considering that the mobile division is using a significant amount of various chips for its products, it would seem that the information is reliable.

The two biggest shortages for Samsung's mobile division will continue to be application processors (also known as SoCs) and radio frequency (RF) components. Considering that these are key components of any modern smartphone, it's not hard to see why Samsung would be concerned. What we don't know is how much of an advantage Samsung's various business units have when they work with Samsung's foundries and we might have reached a point where the highest bidder wins the allocation.

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

When it comes to routers, Synology might not be the first brand that springs to mind, but the company has produced some interesting routers, especially when you take into account its custom OS, the Synology Router Manager, or SRM for short. The company has teased a new addition to its small family of routers, which should launch at some point in the first quarter of next year, that brings with it a few interesting features.

The RT6600ax as it's called, will be one of the first routers to support the UNII-4 WiFi band, also known as the 5.9 GHz band. This is an extension of the 802.11ax/WiFi 6 band and it's not related to WiFi 6E which uses the 6 GHz band. UNII-4 only adds a total of four 20 MHz WiFi channels, but the key here is that it allows for a third 160 MHz wide channel, something that could be handy in congested locations. For now, UNII-4 is only going to be usable in the US, although more countries are likely to be considering opening up the extra frequencies for WiFi usage. That said, it's unlikely that Europe and Japan will allow it, since neither region supports the UNII-3 frequency band.

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. announces the Snapdragon G3x Gen 1 Gaming Platform, a purpose-built platform that allows gamers the best place to play their favorite games. The platform delivers cutting-edge performance to run all Android games, play content from cloud gaming libraries, stream games from your home console or PC, and enjoy entertainment from your favorite Android apps. Amassing the entire arsenal of Snapdragon Elite Gaming technologies together to create a premium category of dedicated consumer gaming products, the platform is designed to power incredible experiences for gamers on-the-go.

To showcase the platform, Qualcomm Technologies partnered with Razer to build the first Snapdragon G3x Handheld Gaming Developer Kit, which is available exclusively for developers starting today. Razer is a global leader in gaming hardware and has already constructed one of the world's largest gamer-focused ecosystems of hardware, software, and services.

During the annual Snapdragon Tech Summit, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. expanded the portfolio of solutions for Always On, Always Connected PCs with the introduction of the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 compute platform, designed to deliver the performance and exceptional experiences users deserve in premium ultra-slim and fanless laptops. To strengthen the entry-tier Windows PC and Chromebook ecosystems with robust 5G connectivity and advanced AI experiences, the Company also unveiled the Snapdragon 7c+ Gen 3 Compute Platform. Both platforms utilize smart, connected technology to modernize PC experiences and redefine mobile computing for end users.

"Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 builds on the technology that has transformed the PC industry, delivering premium experiences with breakthrough performance per watt, immersive camera and audio with enhanced AI-acceleration, lightning-fast 5G connectivity, and chip-to-cloud security in thin, fanless systems," says Miguel Nunes, vice president, product management, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. "With Snapdragon 7c+ Gen 3, we are raising the bar in the entry-tier by extending 5G mobile computing across ecosystems. Whether for consumers, business, or education, Snapdragon compute platforms deliver the capabilities and experiences that our ecosystem customers and end users need."

During the annual Snapdragon Tech Summit 2021, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. introduced its latest premium 5G mobile platform, Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. The new Snapdragon 8 leads the way into a new era of premium mobile technology equipped with cutting-edge 5G, AI, gaming, camera, and Wi-Fi and Bluetooth technologies to transform the next generation of flagship devices. Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 will be adopted by global OEMs and brands including Black Shark, Honor, iQOO, Motorola, Nubia, OnePlus, OPPO, Realme, Redmi, SHARP, Sony Corporation, vivo, Xiaomi, and ZTE, with commercial devices expected by the end of 2021.

"As the world's most advanced mobile platform, Snapdragon is synonymous with premium Android experiences and the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 sets the standard for the next generation of flagship mobile devices," said Alex Katouzian, senior vice president and general manager of mobile, compute, and infrastructure, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. "It delivers connectivity, photography, AI, gaming, sound, and security experiences never before available in a smartphone."

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.

According to an industry report by IC Insights, AMD will see a yearly growth rate of no less than 65 percent this year, compared to 2020, whereas Intel is expected to have a slightly negative growth rate of one percent. The report includes the top 25 semiconductor sales leaders, ranked by growth rate, although it should be pointed out that some of them are foundries and not just semiconductor companies.

AMD is closely followed by MediaTek, which is expected to reach a 60 percent growth rate this year, followed by Nvidia at 54 percent and Qualcomm and 51 percent growth. The only surprise in the top five is PRC based SMIC, which saw a 39 percent growth this year, despite, or maybe because of the US sanctions against various Chinese IC makers.

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

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

Qualcomm. introduces Snapdragon Spaces XR Developer Platform, a headworn Augmented Reality (AR) developer kit to enable the creation of immersive experiences that seamlessly blur the lines between our physical and digital realities. With proven technology and an open, cross-device horizontal platform and ecosystem, Snapdragon Spaces delivers the tools to bring developers' ideas to life and revolutionize the possibilities of headworn AR. Snapdragon Spaces is in early access with select developers and is expected to be generally available in the Spring of 2022.

Qualcomm Technologies is a pioneer in Augmented Reality with over a decade of AR research and development. Utilizing these years of innovation and expertise, Snapdragon Spaces offers robust machine perception technology that is optimized for performance and low power for the next generation of AR glasses. The Snapdragon Spaces platform provides environmental and user understanding capabilities that give developers the tools to create headworn AR experiences that can sense and intelligently interact with the user and adapt to their physical indoor spaces. Some of the marquee environmental understanding features include spatial mapping and meshing, occlusion, plane detection, object and image recognition and tracking, local anchors and persistence, and scene understanding. The user understanding machine perception features include positional tracking and hand tracking.