Global semiconductor materials market revenue grew 8.9% to $72.7 billion in 2022, surpassing the previous market high of $66.8 billion set in 2021, SEMI, the global industry association representing the electronics manufacturing and design supply chain, reported today in its Materials Market Data Subscription (MMDS). Wafer fabrication materials and packaging materials revenue in 2022 reached $44.7 billion and $28.0 billion, respectively, increasing 10.5% and 6.3%. The silicon, electronic gases, and photomask segments showed the strongest growth in the wafer fabrication materials market, while the organic substrates segment largely drove packaging materials market growth.

For the 13th consecutive year, Taiwan, at $20.1 billion, was the world's largest consumer of semiconductor materials on the strength of its foundry capacity and advanced packaging base. China continued to register strong year-over-year results, ranking second in 2022, while Korea finished as the third largest consumer of semiconductor materials. Most regions registered high single- or double-digit growth last year.

TrendForce reports that the global top 10 foundries witnessed a significant 18.6% QoQ decline in revenue during the first quarter of 2023. This decline—amounting to approximately US$27.3 billion—can be attributed to sustained weak end-market demand and the compounded effects of the off-peak season. The rankings also underwent notable changes, with GlobalFoundries surpassing UMC to secure the third position, and Tower Semiconductor surpassing PSMC and VIS to claim the seventh spot.

Declining capacity utilization rate and shipment volume contribute to widened revenue decline
The revenue decline in Q1 was primarily influenced by declining capacity utilization rates and shipment volume across the top 10 foundries. For instance, TSMC generated US$16.74 billion in revenue—marking a 16.2% QoQ drop in revenue. Weakened demand for mainstream applications such as laptops and smartphones led to a significant decline in the utilization rates and revenue of the 7/6 nm and 5/4 nm processes, falling over 20% and 17%, respectively. While the second quarter may see temporary relief coming from rush orders, the persistently low capacity utilization rate indicates that revenue is likely to continue declining, albeit at a slower pace compared to Q1.

GlobalFoundries Inc., a global leader in feature-rich semiconductor manufacturing, and STMicroelectronics, a global semiconductor leader serving customers across the spectrum of electronics applications, announced today the conclusion of the agreement to create a new, jointly-operated, high-volume semiconductor manufacturing facility in Crolles (France), which was announced on 11 July 2022.

"I would like to thank Minister Le Maire, the French Minister of the Economy and Finance, and his team for their support and the dedication for the last 12+ months that have made celebrating today's milestone possible," said Dr. Thomas Caulfield, President and CEO of GlobalFoundries. "In partnership with ST in Crolles, we are further expanding GF's presence within Europe's dynamic technology ecosystem while benefiting from economies of scale to deliver additional capacity in a highly capital efficient manner. Together we will deliver GF's market leading FDX technology and ST's comprehensive technology roadmap, in alignment with customer demand which is expected to remain high for Automotive, IoT, and Mobile applications over the next decades."

Achronix Semiconductor Corporation, a leader in high-performance FPGAs and embedded FPGA (eFPGA) IP, today announced that its VectorPath accelerator card featuring a Speedster 7t FPGA has been certified by PCI-SIG for PCIe Gen 5 and is the first and only FPGA accelerated CEM add-in card certified for PCIe Gen 5 x16 at 32 gigatransfers per second (GT/s) on the PCI-SIG Integrator's list. VectorPath S7t-VG6 accelerator cards are designed to reduce time to market when developing high-performance compute and acceleration functions for AI, ML, networking and data center applications and are shipping today.

"Achronix continues to drive acceleration in the high-performance FPGA add-in card market," said Craig Petrie, Vice President at BittWare. "Achieving PCI-SIG Gen 5 certification is an important milestone. Our customers can be assured of the highest PCIe bandwidths and have confidence that VectorPath cards will interoperate with Gen 5 servers."

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

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

Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SEHK: 00981; SSE STAR MARKET: 688981) ("SMIC", the "Company" or "we"), one of the leading semiconductor foundries in the world, today announced its consolidated results of operations for the three months ended March 31, 2023.

According to the international financial reporting standards, in the first quarter, the Company's revenue slightly beat guidance, gross margin was close to the high end of our guided range; in the second quarter, the Company expects the capacity utilization rate and shipments will perform better than first quarter. Revenue is expected to increase by 5% to 7% sequentially, with a decline in blended ASP due to the impact of changes in product mix; gross margin is expected to be between 19% and 21%.

Three years ago, Intel announced a goal to increase global annual spending with diverse suppliers to $2 billion by 2030. We are proud to announce we reached $2.2 billion in diverse supplier spending in 2022, eight years ahead of schedule. This $2.2 billion represents nearly 15 times the annual total when our supplier diversity program launched in 2015 and double our 2019 results.

GlobalFoundries (GF) today announced the appointment of Hui Peng Koh as vice president and general manager of the company's semiconductor manufacturing facility in Malta, New York. Building on her experience in leading the 1,200 strong engineering team in Malta for the last three years, Ms. Koh is stepping up to lead GF's most advanced U.S. fab that supports a wide range of customers. She succeeds long time GF executive and industry veteran Peter Benyon who will retire in early July 2023 after more than 40 years in the semiconductor industry including being part of the GF team since the acquisition of Chartered Semiconductor in 2011.

Ms. Koh, an accomplished leader with more than 23 years of semiconductor manufacturing experience, currently serves as vice president of manufacturing engineering at GF. Prior to her current role, she was the director of lithography and held various leadership positions at the company's Malta facility. Previously, she served in several technology development roles at GF's Singapore campus. Ms. Koh earned her master's degree in materials engineering from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

NEO Semiconductor, a leading developer of innovative technologies for 3D NAND flash and DRAM memory, today announced the launch of its ground-breaking technology, 3D X-DRAM. This development is the world's first 3D NAND-like DRAM cell array that is targeted to solve DRAM's capacity bottleneck and replace the entire 2D DRAM market. Relevant patent applications were published with the United States Patent Application Publication on April 6, 2023.

"3D X-DRAM will be the absolute future growth driver for the Semiconductor industry," said Andy Hsu, Founder and CEO of NEO Semiconductor and an accomplished technology inventor with more than 120 U.S. patents. "Today I can say with confidence that Neo is becoming a clear leader in the 3D DRAM market. Our invention, compared to the other solutions in the market today, is very simple and less expensive to manufacture and scale. The industry can expect to achieve 8X density and capacity improvements per decade with our 3D X-DRAM."

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) today announced worldwide sales of semiconductors totaled $119.5 billion during the first quarter of 2023, a decrease of 8.7% compared to the fourth quarter of 2022 and 21.3% less than the first quarter of 2022. Sales for the month of March 2023 increased 0.3% compared to February 2023. Monthly sales are compiled by the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) organization and represent a three-month moving average. SIA represents 99% of the U.S. semiconductor industry by revenue and nearly two-thirds of non-U.S. chip firms.

"Semiconductor sales continued to slip during the first quarter of 2023 due to market cyclicality and macroeconomic headwinds, but month-to-month sales were up in March for the first time in nearly a year, providing optimism for a rebound in the months ahead," said John Neuffer, SIA president and CEO. Regionally, month-to-month sales increased in Europe (2.7%), Asia Pacific/All Other (2.6%), and China (1.2%), but decreased in Japan (-1.1%) and the Americas (-3.5%). Year-to-year sales decreased across all regions: Europe (-0.7%), Japan (-1.3%), the Americas (-16.4%), Asia Pacific/All Other (-22.2%), and China (-34.1%).

Bosch is expanding its semiconductor business with silicon carbide chips. The technology company plans to acquire assets of the U.S. chipmaker TSI Semiconductors, based in Roseville, California. With a workforce of 250, the company is a foundry for application-specific integrated circuits, or ASICs. Currently, it mainly develops and produces large volumes of chips on 200-millimeter silicon wafers for applications in the mobility, telecommunications, energy, and life sciences industries. Over the next years, Bosch intends to invest more than 1.5 billion USD in the Roseville site and convert the TSI Semiconductors manufacturing facilities to state-of-the-art processes. Starting in 2026, the first chips will be produced on 200-millimeter wafers based on the innovative material silicon carbide (SiC).

In this way, Bosch is systematically reinforcing its semiconductor business, and will have significantly extended its global portfolio of SiC chips by the end of 2030. Above all, the global boom and ramp-up of electromobility are resulting in huge demand for such special semiconductors. The full scope of the planned investment will be heavily dependent on federal funding opportunities available via the CHIPS and Science Act as well as economic development opportunities within the State of California. Bosch and TSI Semiconductors have reached an agreement to not to disclose any financial details of the transaction, which is subject to regulatory approval.

Samsung Electronics today reported financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2023. The Company posted KRW 63.75 trillion in consolidated revenue, a 10% decline from the previous quarter, as overall consumer spending slowed amid the uncertain global macroeconomic environment. Operating profit was KRW 0.64 trillion as the DS (Device Solutions) Division faced decreased demand, while profit in the DX (Device eXperience) Division increased.

The DS Division's profit declined from the previous quarter due to weak demand in the Memory Business, a decline in utilization rates in the Foundry Business and continued weak demand and inventory adjustments from customers. Samsung Display Corporation (SDC) saw earnings in the mobile panel business decline quarter-on-quarter amid a market contraction, while the large panel business slightly narrowed its losses. The DX Division's results improved on the back of strong sales of the premium Galaxy S23 series as well as an enhanced sales mix focusing on premium TVs.

Future Japanese chipmaker Rapidus has announced that their first fab will be located in Chitose, Hokkaido, located in northern Japan. The planned 2 nm fab will be one of the most advanced fabs in the world once it's ready and construction is said to be starting in September, thanks to approval by the related Japanese government agencies. So far, the Japanese government has approved 330 billion yen for Rapidus, with the most recent investment being 260 billion yen or the equivalent of US$1.94 billion.

However, the total investment into the 2 nm fab is expected to end up somewhere around 5 trillion yen (~US$37.5 billion) in total investments before the fab is ready for mass production. Rapidus is collaborating with IBM and has already sent a group of researchers to its Albany Nanotech facility in upstate New York, which is one of the world's most advanced semiconductor research facilities. At the same time, Japan is working on building a local talent pool of researchers and semiconductor plant workers, by spearheading specialised training for select university students from Japan's top universities. Time will tell if this gamble pays off for Japan, as it's going to be a huge investment before the new fab stands ready in early 2025.

As a part of the CHIPS act, the US government has announced that it will set up a network for advanced chip design that goes under the name of the National Semiconductor Technology Center or NSTC. The NSTC is intended to help the US pull ahead of other nations when it comes to advanced chip design, but it's also meant to help reduce the time and maybe more importantly the cost of going from a design concept to a final commercial product. A big part of this is said to be about helping startups and entrepreneurs make prototypes and pilot runs, to enable them to bring proof of concepts to the market, so they can raise funds for a full production run.

However, it doesn't stop there, as the US government also wants the NSTC to help build and sustain a suitable workforce for the semiconductor industry, suggesting that the NSTC will be involved in academia as well as the industry itself. The NSTC is backed by the Commerce Department and it's expected to involve multiple locations nationwide, although at this point in time, it's not clear if this involves new locations outside of areas where the US based semiconductor industry is located today. Even the NSTC headquarter location has as yet to be decided, but its location alongside other sites are said to be worked out over the next few months. Time will tell if the NSTC will help bring change to the US semiconductor industry, but it seems like a step in the right direction.

The global economy has faced increased inflation risks and downstream inventory corrections in 2H22, which have affected IC design houses faster than wafer foundries, as they are far more sensitive and responsive to market reversals. TrendForce reports that adverse factors such as weak overall consumption, restrictions from China, and the slowdown of corporate IT spending and CSP demand have impacted the revenue performance of the world's top 10 IC design houses in 4Q22, leading to a QoQ decline of 9.2%, or approximately US$33.96 billion.

TrendForce predicts that the revenue of these top 10 companies keep declining—though with a slight convergence—into 1Q23, owing to ongoing inventory corrections across the entire supply chain as well as Q1 being the traditional off-season for consumer demand. Demand will continue to be weak despite new product launches and inventory replenishment in the supply chain.

The Financial Times this weekend has published details about an interesting development project that is currently in-the-works at British semiconductor specialist firm Arm Ltd. The article states that several executives in the industry have divulged (anonymously) that Arm's engineering team is designing a proprietary chip - these insider sources opine that this new creation could be one of the company's most advanced undertakings. The SoftBank-owned chipmaker is having a bumper year in terms of financial success and has invested in its future - it is speculated that their own semiconductor design will be showcased as a prototype product to potential new clients - with the main goal being to drum up more business and growth. Parent group SoftBank is likely pushing for maximum profit margins as it prepares Arm for an initial public offering (IPO) this year.

Arm's modus operandi involves partnering up with other chip manufacturers in order to license out its semiconductor intellectual properties. In turn these partners are expected to deal with the overall design and manufacturing processes of chips (plus sales of). Arm has teamed up with foundries TSMC and Samsung in the past to create prototypes for software testing purposes, but not much has been heard about those proofing projects in the following years. In an unusual turn (from certain industry perspectives) from its traditional working methodologies, it seems that Arm is embracing a different approach by producing its own compelling designs, with the hope of demonstrating greater potential to customers. FT's sources have provided evidence that Arm has expanded its operations and that a newly formed "solutions engineering" team is focused on prototyping new silicon for usage in mobile hardware and related devices.

Worldwide sales of semiconductor manufacturing equipment increased 5% from $102.6 billion in 2021 to an all-time record of $107.6 billion last year, SEMI, the industry association representing the global electronics design and manufacturing supply chain, reported today. The data is now available in the Worldwide Semiconductor Equipment Market Statistics (WWSEMS) Report.

For the third consecutive year, China remained the largest semiconductor equipment market in 2022 despite a 5% slowdown in the pace of investments in the region year over year, accounting for $28.3 billion in billings. Taiwan, the second-largest destination for equipment spending, recorded an increase of 8% to $26.8 billion, marking the fourth straight year of growth for the region. Equipment sales to Korea contracted 14% to $21.5 billion. Annual semiconductor equipment investments in Europe surged 93%, while North America logged a 38% increase. Sales to the Rest of World and Japan increased 34% and 7% year over year, respectively.

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

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

Semiconductor manufacturers worldwide are forecast to increase 300 mm fab capacity to an all-time high of 9.6 million wafers per month (wpm) in 2026, SEMI announced today in its 300 mm Fab Outlook to 2026 report. After strong growth in 2021 and 2022, the 300 mm capacity expansion is expected to slow this year due to soft demand for memory and logic devices.

"While the pace of the global 300 mm fab capacity expansion is moderating, the industry remains squarely focused on growing capacity to meet robust secular demand for semiconductors," said Ajit Manocha, SEMI President and CEO. "The foundry, memory and power sectors will be major drivers of the new record capacity increase expected in 2026."

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

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

Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd. (DNP) has developed a Glass Core Substrate (GCS) targeting next-generation semiconductor packages. The new product replaces conventional resin substrates (ex. FC-BGA: Flip Chip-Ball Grid Array) with a glass substrate. Through the use of high-density Through Glass Via (TGV), it is now possible to provide a higher performance semiconductor package than that based on currently available technology. In addition, by adapting our panel manufacturing process, the new product can also support demands for high efficiency and large-scale substrate.

Features
Fine pitch and high reliability
The newly developed GCS includes a TGV necessary for electrically connecting the fine metal wiring configured on the front and back of the glass. It is a Conformal Type glass substrate in which a metal layer is adhered to the side walls of the via. Our new proprietary manufacturing method enhances the adhesion between glass and metal, which was difficult to achieve with conventional technology, to realize fine pitch and high reliability.

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

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

Semiconductors are largely made using silicon, even though there are other types of substrates that can be used as well, such as gallium nitride or silicon carbide. However, most semiconductors today are made using silicon wafers, which in turn means that silicon wafers are a key material in the semiconductor industry. Over the past three years, the cost of silicon wafers have increased in pricing, due to higher demand, as there has been a higher demand for semiconductors. However, as there are a limited number of suppliers of silicon wafers, especially at the larger 12-inch size, the increased cost in materials has had an impact on the cost of the final semiconductors.

Reports out of Taiwan are suggesting that the price of 12-, 8- and 6-inch wafers are all starting to see a decline in price. We're talking single digit percentages here and it should be noted that these are spot prices, not contract prices, which are negotiated between the parties a long time before delivery. That said, the fact that the spot prices are point downwards also means that companies with not so great contract pricing are starting to want to renegotiate their contract pricing, as even a small saving here can lead to a bigger saving further down the line. Many IC manufacturers have also asked to pause their contract orders, as the utilisation rate of many foundry nodes are going down, which means the foundries aren't in need of as many wafers as they have ordered. Hopefully this will all lead to lower prices across the board when it comes to semiconductors this year, but it's too early to draw any real conclusions. It's also possible that the end customers won't see any direct benefits from lower costs to the manufacturers.

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) today announced global semiconductor industry sales totaled $573.5 billion in 2022, the highest-ever annual total and an increase of 3.2% compared to the 2021 total of $555.9 billion. Sales slowed during the second half of the year, however. Fourth-quarter sales of $130.2 billion were 14.7% less than the total from the fourth quarter of 2021 and 7.7% lower than the total from third quarter of 2022. And global sales for the month of December 2022 were $43.4 billion, a decrease of 4.4% compared to November 2022 total. Monthly sales are compiled by the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) organization and represent a three-month moving average. SIA represents 99% of the U.S. semiconductor industry by revenue and nearly two-thirds of non-U.S. chip firms.

"The global semiconductor market experienced significant ups and downs in 2022, with record-high sales early in the year followed by a cyclical downturn taking hold later in the year," said John Neuffer, SIA president and CEO. "Despite short-term fluctuations in sales due to market cyclicality and macroeconomic conditions, the long-term outlook for the semiconductor market remains incredibly strong, due to the ever-increasing role of chips in making the world smarter, more efficient, and better connected."

Samsung Electronics today reported financial results for the fourth quarter and the fiscal year 2022. The Company posted KRW 70.46 trillion in consolidated revenue and KRW 4.31 trillion in operating profit in the quarter ended December 31, 2022. For the full year, it reported 302.23 trillion in annual revenue, a record high and KRW 43.38 trillion in operating profit.

The business environment deteriorated significantly in the fourth quarter due to weak demand amid a global economic slowdown. Earnings at the Memory Business decreased sharply as prices fell and customers continued to adjust inventory. The System LSI Business also saw a decline in earnings as sales of key products were weighed down by inventory adjustments in the industry. The Foundry Business posted a new record for quarterly revenue while profit increased year-on-year on the back of advanced node capacity expansion as well as customer base and application area diversification.