Ethernovia, Inc., a Silicon Valley-based startup, today announced that it has completed its A-round financing of $64 million. The funding round consists of multiple investors, including Porsche Automobile Holding SE (Porsche SE), Qualcomm Ventures, VentureTech Alliance, AMD Ventures, Western Digital Capital, Fall Line Capital, Taiwania Capital, ENEA Capital and others.

As vehicle architectures evolve from domain-centric controllers, networking solutions must concurrently evolve to support higher data rates of advanced vehicle applications while meeting demand for improved reliability and security. Such advanced applications include Advanced Driver-Assisted Systems (ADAS), autonomous driving (AD) and a rich ecosystem of customer software delivered Over the Air (OTA).

TSMC, a Taiwanese semiconductor giant, is reportedly talking to its partners to develop an $11 billion (€10 billion) factory in Germany with the help of a few European partners. Currently assessing the plant location for Saxony in Germany, the fab wouldn't only be exclusively made by TSMC but will bring in NXP, Bosch, and Infineon that, will create a budget of around 7 billion Euros, including state subsidies, while the total budget is leaning closer to 10 billion Euros in total. However, it is essential to note that TSMC is still assessing the possibility of a Europe-based plant altogether.

Asking for as much as 40% of the total investment to be European-backed subsidies, TSMC wants to create a European facility that will be focused on a growing sector--automotive. If approved in August, the TSMC plant will become the company's first European facility and will first focus on manufacturing 28 nm chips. As one of the first significant EU Chips Act €43 billion investment, it will heavily boost European semiconductor manufacturing.

MIT researchers have developed a groundbreaking technology that allows for the growth of 2D transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) materials directly on fully fabricated silicon chips, enabling denser integrations. Conventional methods require temperatures of about 600°C, which can damage silicon transistors and circuits as they break down above 400°C. The MIT team overcame this challenge by creating a low-temperature growth process that preserves the chip's integrity, allowing 2D semiconductor transistors to be directly integrated on top of standard silicon circuits. The new approach grows a smooth, highly uniform layer across an entire 8-inch wafer, unlike previous methods that involved growing 2D materials elsewhere before transferring them to a chip or wafer. This process often led to imperfections that negatively impacted device and chip performance.

Additionally, the novel technology can grow a uniform layer of TMD material in less than an hour over 8-inch wafers, a significant improvement from previous methods that required over a day for a single layer. The enhanced speed and uniformity of this technology make it suitable for commercial applications, where 8-inch or larger wafers are essential. The researchers focused on molybdenum disulfide, a flexible, transparent 2D material with powerful electronic and photonic properties ideal for semiconductor transistors. They designed a new furnace for the metal-organic chemical vapor deposition process, which has separate low and high-temperature regions. The silicon wafer is placed in the low-temperature region while vaporized molybdenum and sulfur precursors flow into the furnace. Molybdenum remains in the low-temperature region, while the sulfur precursor decomposes in the high-temperature region before flowing back into the low-temperature region to grow molybdenum disulfide on the wafer surface.

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.

Intel Foundry Services (IFS) and Arm today announced a multigeneration agreement to enable chip designers to build low-power compute system-on-chips (SoCs) on the Intel 18A process. The collaboration will focus on mobile SoC designs first, but allow for potential design expansion into automotive, Internet of Things (IoT), data center, aerospace and government applications. Arm customers designing their next-generation mobile SoCs will benefit from leading-edge Intel 18A process technology, which delivers new breakthrough transistor technologies for improved power and performance, and from IFS's robust manufacturing footprint that includes U.S.- and EU-based capacity.

"There is growing demand for computing power driven by the digitization of everything, but until now fabless customers have had limited options for designing around the most advanced mobile technology," said Pat Gelsinger, CEO of Intel Corporation. "Intel's collaboration with Arm will expand the market opportunity for IFS and open up new options and approaches for any fabless company that wants to access best-in-class CPU IP and the power of an open system foundry with leading-edge process technology."

DFI, the global leader in embedded motherboards and industrial computers, has stepped into the electric vehicle (EV) market in recent years. Alongside VicOne, the automotive cybersecurity expert and the subsidiary of Trend Micro, they will demonstrate technologies related to vehicle software security application that enable more comprehensive network security protection for smart cities.

This year, to demonstrate the AI computing and vehicle-to-everything technology used in Connected Vehicles and Smart Poles, DFI has built an actual smart traffic intersection at the venue with road side units (RSU), digital signage, intelligent edge computers, onboard units (OBU), in-vehicle AI computers, and driver HMIs.

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.

TrendForce's recent analysis of the foundry market reveals that demand continues to slide for all types of mature and advanced nodes. The major IC design houses have cut wafer input for 1Q23 and will likely scale back further for 2Q23. Currently, foundries are expected to maintain a lower-than-ideal level of capacity utilization rate in the first two quarters of this year. Some nodes could experience a steeper demand drop in 2Q23 as there are still no signs of a significant rebound in wafer orders. Looking ahead to the second half of this year, orders will likely pick up for some components that underwent an inventory correction at an earlier time. However, the state of the global economy will remain the largest variable that affect demand, and the recovery of individual foundries' capacity utilization rates will not occur as quickly as expected. Taking these factors into account, TrendForce currently forecasts that global foundry revenue will drop by around 4% YoY for 2023. The projected decline for 2023 is more severe when compared with the one that was recorded for 2019.

United Microelectronics Corporation ("UMC" or "The Company"), a leading global semiconductor foundry, today announced its consolidated operating results for the fourth quarter of 2022. Fourth quarter consolidated revenue was NT$67.84 billion, decreasing 10.0% QoQ from NT$75.39 billion in 3Q22. Compared to a year ago, 4Q22 revenue grew 14.8% YoY from NT$59.10 billion in 4Q21. Consolidated gross margin for 4Q22 was 42.9%. Net income attributable to the shareholders of the parent was NT$19.1 billion, with earnings per ordinary share of NT$1.54.

Jason Wang, co-president of UMC, said, "In the fourth quarter, due to a significant slowdown across most of our end markets and inventory correction in the semiconductor industry, our wafer shipments fell 14.8% QoQ while overall fab utilization rate dropped to 90%. Average selling price increased slightly during the quarter as a result of our ongoing product mix optimization efforts, moderating the decline in revenue."

According to TrendForce's research, the total revenue of the global top 10 foundries rose by 6% QoQ to US$35.21 billion for 3Q22 as the release of the new iPhone series during the second half of the year generated significant stock-up activities across Apple's supply chain. However, the global economy shows weak performances, and factors such as China's policy on containing COVID-19 outbreaks and high inflation continue to impact consumer confidence. As a result, peak-season demand in the second half of the year has been underwhelming, and inventory consumption is proceeding slower than anticipated. This situation has led to substantial downward corrections to foundry orders as well. For 4Q22, TrendForce forecasts that the total revenue of the global top 10 foundries will register a QoQ decline, thereby terminating the boom of the past two years—when there was an uninterrupted trend of QoQ revenue growth.

Regarding individual foundries' performances in 3Q22, the group of the top five was led by TSMC, followed by Samsung, UMC, GlobalFoundries, and SMIC. Their collective global market share (in revenue terms) came to 89.6%. Most foundries were directly impacted by clients slowing down their stock-up activities or significantly correcting down their orders. Only TSMC was able to make a notable gain due to Apple's strong stock-up demand for the SoCs deployed in this year's new iPhone models. TSMC saw its revenue rise by 11.1% QoQ to US$20.16 billion, and the corresponding market share expanded to 56.1%. The growth was mainly attributed to the ≤7 nm nodes, whose share in the foundry's revenue had kept climbing and reached 54% in the third quarter. Conversely, Samsung actually experienced a slight QoQ drop of 0.1% in foundry revenue even though it had also benefited from the component demand related to the new iPhone series. Partially impacted by the weakening of the Korean won, Samsung's market share fell to 15.5%.

Market intelligence firm TrendForce reports that the whole NAND Flash market was severely weakened by plummeting demand in 3Q22. Because shipments of end products including consumer electronics and servers had been below expectations, the overall NAND ASP fell by 18.3% QoQ. Furthermore, the general economic outlook remained pessimistic, so enterprises across many sectors started to scale back their capital expenditure plans and halted the momentum of their procurement activities. Due to this development, the problem of excess inventory eventually spread to NAND Flash suppliers. The pressure on suppliers to make sales was ratcheted up dramatically. According to TrendForce's investigation, NAND Flash bit shipments fell by 6.7% QoQ for 3Q22, and the overall NAND Flash ASP also kept sliding. On account of the unfavorable market situation, the NAND Flash industry recorded a total revenue of around US$13.71 billion for 3Q22. The QoQ revenue decline reached as much as 24.3%.

The ranking of NAND Flash suppliers by revenue saw two notable changes for 3Q22. First, SK Group moved down to third place as it suffered the largest revenue drop among suppliers. Its revenue slipped by 29.8% QoQ to US$2.54 billion mainly due to the significant deterioration of the demand for PCs and smartphones. Its subsidiary Solidigm was also affected by the slowdown in server procurements. Previously, servers had a fairly stable demand situation compared with other kinds of end products. However, server demand eventually buckled in 3Q22 as result of enterprises cutting capital expenditure and undergoing a period of inventory correction. Compared with 2Q22, SK Group (that encompasses SK hynix and Solidigm) posted a drop of 11.1% in bit shipments and an even steeper decline of more than 20% in ASP.

According to TrendForce research, due to steady weakening of overall demand for consumer electronics, inventory pressure has increased among downstream distributors and brands. Although there are still sporadic shortages of specific components, the curtain has officially fallen on a two-year wave of shortages in general, and brands have gradually suspended stocking in response to changes in market conditions. However, stable demand for automotive and industrial equipment is key to supporting the ongoing growth of foundry output value. At the same time, since the creation of a marginal amount of new capacity in 2Q22 led to growth in wafer shipments and a price hike for certain wafers, this drove output value among top ten foundries to reach US$33.20 billion in 2Q22. Quarterly growth fell to 3.9% on a weakening consumer market.

A prelude to inventory correction was officially revealed in 3Q22. In addition to intensifying severity in the initial wave of order slashing for LDDI/TDDI, and TV SoC, diminishing order volume also extended to non-Apple smartphone APs and peripheral IC PMIC, CIS, and consumer electronics PMICs, and mid-to-low-end MCUs, posing a challenge for foundry capacity utilization. However, the launch of the new iPhone in 3Q22 is expected to prop up a certain amount of stocking momentum for the sluggish market. Therefore, top ten foundry revenue in 3Q22 is expected to maintain a growth trend driven by high-priced processes and quarterly growth rate is expected to be slightly higher than in 2Q22.

AMD today announced a strategic collaboration with ECARX, a global mobility tech company. The companies will work together on an in-vehicle computing platform for next-generation electric vehicles (EVs), expected to be in mass production for global rollout in late 2023. The ECARX digital cockpit will be the first in-vehicle platform to be offered with AMD Ryzen Embedded V2000 processors and AMD Radeon RX 6000 Series GPUs along with ECARX hardware and software.

Combining the extensive experience in automotive digital cockpit design of ECARX with AMD advanced computing power and stunning visual graphic rendering capabilities, the companies aim to deliver an innovative in-car experience. The digital cockpit will launch with advanced features including driver information mode, heads-up display, rear seat entertainment, multiple-displays, multi-zone voice recognition, high-end gaming and a full 3D user experience.

Winbond Electronics Corporation, a leading global supplier of semiconductor memory solutions, today announced that its new package 100BGA LPDDR4/4X had achieved the JEDEC JED209-4 standard to ensure energy conservation and carbon reduction. The LPDDR4/4X is now available in a space-saving 100BGA package measuring only 7.5X10mm2. The device is ideal for IoT applications requiring higher throughput in a small package to allow designers to reduce the PCB size for more compact IoT designs.

Winbond's LPDDR4/4X memory is available in density of 1Gb and 2Gb, supporting speeds of up to 4267 Mbps. It is available in both Single-Die-Package (SDP) with a 2Gb density and Dual-Die-Package (DDP) with a 4Gb density. The higher speed of LPDDR4 1CH x16 4267 Mbps offers improved performance over previous DDR4 x16 3200 Mbps devices, which is especially useful for consumer applications.

Mobileye, an Intel company, has launched the EyeQ Kit - its first software development kit (SDK) for the EyeQ system-on-chip that powers driver-assistance and future autonomous technologies for automakers worldwide. Built to leverage the powerful and highly power-efficient architecture of the upcoming EyeQ 6 High and EyeQ Ultra processors, EyeQ Kit allows automakers to utilize Mobileye's proven core technology, while deploying their own differentiated code and human-machine interface tools on the EyeQ platform.

"EyeQ Kit allows our customers to benefit from the best of both worlds — Mobileye's proven and validated core technologies, along with their own expertise in delivering unique driver experiences and interfaces. As more core functions of vehicles are defined in software, we know our customers will want the flexibility and capacity they need to differentiate and define their brands through code."
- Prof. Amnon Shashua, Mobileye president and chief executive officer

With the course of the COVID-19 pandemic constantly changing, China is sticking with its "Dynamic Zero-COVID Policy" and has been slow to lift the lockdown on its cities that have been recently affected by the outbreaks of the disease. Hence, the manufacturing industries of the major Chinese cities are facing delays in the resumption of normal operation, and a production gap has emerged in 2Q22. For the electronics ODMs, this production gap will be difficult to bridge in 2H22. Additionally, the ongoing global inflation is keeping prices of goods at a very high level, and this trend will dampen the peak-season demand surge during the second half of the year. The effect of the inflationary pressure has been especially noticeable in the demand for consumer electronics such as smartphones, notebook computers, and tablet computers. This, in turn, is also impacting the MLCC market in terms of demand and inventory. Currently, the general inventory level has risen above 90 days for MLCCs of all sizes. Therefore, TrendForce forecasts that prices of consumer-spec MLCCs will fall further by 3-6% on average in 2H22.

On the other hand, demand remains fairly strong in application segments such as high-performance computing solutions (which include servers), networking equipment, industrial automation solutions, and energy storage systems. Furthermore, IDMs in the semiconductor industry will be adjusting the allocation of production capacity as the market for consumer electronics continues to experience a slowdown in 2H22. As a result, the undersupply situation for certain ICs will ease. Moreover, demand will be propped up in the high-end segment of the MLCC market and other application segments (e.g., automotive electronics and industrial equipment). All in all, thanks to the demand related to automotive electronics, servers, networking equipment, etc., TrendForce forecasts that the annual total MLCC shipments will increase by 2% YoY to around 2.58 trillion pieces for 2022.

At Intel's 2022 Investor Meeting, Chief Executive Officer Pat Gelsinger and Intel's business leaders outlined key elements of the company's strategy and path for long-term growth. Intel's long-term plans will capitalize on transformative growth during an era of unprecedented demand for semiconductors. Among the presentations, Intel announced product roadmaps across its major business units and key execution milestones, including: Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics, Intel Foundry Services, Software and Advanced Technology, Network and Edge, Technology Development, More: For more from Intel's Investor Meeting 2022, including the presentations and news, please visit the Intel Newsroom and Intel.com's Investor Meeting site.

Arm announced today that its board of directors has appointed 35-year semiconductor industry leader Rene Haas as chief executive officer and member of the board of directors, effective immediately. Mr. Haas succeeds Simon Segars, who has stepped down as chief executive officer and member of the board of directors after 30 years with the company. In the near-term, Mr. Segars will support the leadership transition in an advisory role for Arm.

"Rene is the right leader to accelerate Arm's growth as the company starts making preparations to re-enter the public markets," said Masayoshi Son, Representative Director, Corporate Officer, Chairman & CEO of SoftBank Group Corp. "I would like to thank Simon for his leadership, contributions and dedication to Arm over the past 30 years."

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.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, today unveiled an extensive lineup of cutting-edge automotive memory solutions designed for next-generation autonomous electric vehicles. The new lineup includes a 256-gigabyte (GB) PCIe Gen3 NVMe ball grid array (BGA) SSD, 2 GB GDDR6 DRAM and 2 GB DDR4 DRAM for high-performance infotainment systems, as well as 2 GB GDDR6 DRAM and 128 GB Universal Flash Storage (UFS) for autonomous driving systems.

"With the recent proliferation of electric vehicles and the rapid advancement of infotainment and autonomous driving systems, the semiconductor automotive platform is facing a paradigm shift. What used to be a seven to eight-year replacement cycle is now being compressed into a three to four-year cycle, and at the same time, performance and capacity requirements are advancing to levels commonly found in servers," said Jinman Han, executive vice president and head of Memory Global Sales & Marketing at Samsung Electronics. "Samsung's reinforced lineup of memory solutions will act as a major catalyst in further accelerating the shift toward the 'Server on Wheels' era."

Due to material shortages caused by insufficient semiconductor supply, to date, power management IC (PMIC) prices remain on an upward trend, according to TrendForce's latest investigations. Average selling price (ASP) for 1H22 is forecast to increase by nearly 10%, reaching a record six year high.

In terms of the global supply chain, in addition to the production capacity of major IDM manufacturers including TI, Infineon, ADI, STMicroelectronics, NXP, ON Semiconductor, Renesas, Microchip, ROHM (Maxim has been acquired by ADI and Dialog by Renesas), IC design houses such as Qualcomm and MediaTek (MTK) have obtained a certain level of production capacity from foundries. Of these, TI is in a leadership position and the aforementioned companies possess a combined market share of over 80%.

The chip shortage discussion has been very focused on TSMC for some reason and although the company is without a doubt the world's leading foundry, the company is making its living from being a cutting edge foundry, whereas much of the components that there's a shortage of are made on far older nodes at many different foundries. Taiwanese UMC is one of the foundries that makes many of the automotive semiconductors, as well as key components when it comes to power regulation and is considered the world's third largest foundry.

Until 2018, UMC was competing head on with TSMC, although the company was always about a node behind TSMC, which led to a management team decision to slow down its node transition and instead to focus on speciality technologies. The company has done well in this niche, with a revenue of about US$6.2 billion in 2020. However, UMC is starting to feel the pressure from its competitors in China, as the PRC government is making a push for local production of local IC designs.

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.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a world leader in advanced semiconductor technology, today introduced three of its latest automotive chip solutions: the Exynos Auto T5123 for 5G connectivity, the Exynos Auto V7 for comprehensive in-vehicle infotainment systems, and the ASIL-B certified S2VPS01 power management IC (PMIC) for the Auto V series.

"Smarter and more connected automotive technologies for enriched in-vehicle experiences including entertainment, safety and comfort are becoming critical features on the road," said Jaehong Park, Executive Vice President of System LSI Custom SOC Business at Samsung Electronics. "With an advanced 5G modem, an AI-enhanced multi-core processor, and a market-proven PMIC solution, Samsung is transfusing its expertise in mobile solutions into its automotive lineup and is positioned to expand its presence within the field."

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.