China is reacting to new outbreaks of the Omicron variant of the Coronavirus with partial lockdowns. This could further delay the availability of laptops with 12th Gen Intel Core processors and NVIDIA's Ti graphics cards, which debuted at the beginning of the year. The first factories have already been closed in Suzhou in the east of the country. Supply chain and logistics bottlenecks, a shortage of certain chip types and price increases are already on the horizon.

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.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a world leader in advanced semiconductor technology, today announced that it has received UL's Zero Waste to Landfill validation of Gold level and above for all of its global semiconductor operation sites. This signifies that Samsung's semiconductor sites in South Korea, US and China meet the requirement of more than 95-percent waste diversion through methods that do not involve thermal processing. In particular, the Samsung DSR building in Hwaseong, Korea, home to most of its local semiconductor R&D staff, is validated for Zero Waste to Landfill at the Platinum level for reaching 100-percent waste diversion.

"The Zero Waste to Landfill Gold validation is testament to the care and effort by our employees around the world to protect the environment," said Chanhoon Park, executive vice president of global infrastructure technology at Samsung Electronics. "Eco-friendly operations are now a must for any business and we will continue to ensure sustainable growth that is mindful of the environment that we live and operate in."

The woes for the trusty old HDD continue, as Seagate, one of the world's biggest players on the HDD manufacturing field, has confirmed they are closing up one of their largest plants. The factory, located in Suzhou, China, is one of the company's largest HDD production epicenters, and its closure will significantly reduce the company's HDD output - a step in the company's purported "optimizations" towards reducing their HDD production capabilities from 55-60 million HDDs per quarter to around 35-40 million. Production and demand's age-old feud are once again taking their toll, as demand for spindle-drive technology subsides on the wake of SSDs increased performance and consecutive price declines, with most laptops now shipping with either SSD-based storage or cheaper, yet less power-hungry, eMMC solutions.

AMD and Nantong Fujitsu Microelectronics Co., Ltd. today announced that they have closed the transaction to create a joint venture offering differentiated assembly, test, mark, and pack (ATMP) capabilities to both AMD and a broader range of customers.

"Combining AMD's world-class teams and facilities in Penang and Suzhou with NFME's expertise in the growing assembly and test market will create a new outsource assembly and test leader with the scale and capabilities to help us deliver our upcoming high-performance technologies and products that can re-shape the industry," said AMD President and CEO Dr. Lisa Su. "The creation of this joint venture marks another step in building a more focused AMD as we complete our transition to a fabless business model, enhance our supply chain operations, and further strengthen our financial position."

"AMD is a world class semiconductor provider with advanced flip chip packaging and test technologies. These capabilities are complementary with NFME's advanced packaging and test technologies, such as its flip chip and bump technology for the computing, communication and consumer market. The establishment of this joint venture will elevate the competitiveness of NFME's flip chip packaging and test technologies to a world-class level. With this joint venture, NFME's advanced packaging and test capabilities will account for 70 percent of its total revenue, leading the entire industry and ranking among the top packaging and test companies in the world," said Chairman of Nantong Fujitsu Mr. Shi Mingda.

Japan's Elpida Memory and China's Suzhou Venture Group (SVG) today announced that they have agreed to establish a joint venture company by the end of 2008 to produce DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) chips in Suzhou City of Jiangsu Province, China. The companies intend to build a 300mm wafer fabrication facility (fab) in Suzhou Industrial Park to meet growing DRAM demand in the Chinese market.