IF / News

Chipsets

The supply of Samsung’s upcoming flagship smartphone, presumably the Galaxy S8, may fail to meet demand due to the sluggish production of Qualcomm chipsets. The production of the Snapdragon 835 and Exynos 8895 are reportedly falling behind market expectations. (Android Authority, Korea Herald, Phone Arena)

Intel executive vice president Stacy Smith said that Moore’s Law is on track as the company moves to 10nm manufacturing, where the width between circuits is 10 billionth of a meter. Intel runs its business on Moore’s Law — the prediction in 1965 made by Intel chairman emeritus Gordon Moore that the number of transistors on a chip will double every year.  (VentureBeat, Sina)

Touch Display

BOE indicates that its collaboration with Huawei on the OLED display has already started mass production, and in the near future it will open to other vendors in China. (Laoyaoba, Sohu, FPDisplay)

As demand for the flexible AMOLED display continues to sharply increase, its revenues are expected to reach USD3.2B in 3Q17, exceeding that of rigid AMOLED panels at USD3B, according to IHS Markit.  (Laoyaoba, IHS Markit, press)

Under the joint-venture agreement approved by the board of ChipMOS on 30 Nov 2016, ChipMOS Technologies (BVI), a wholly-owned subsidiary of ChipMOS, sold 54.98% of the equity interest of its wholly-owned subsidiary, ChipMOS Technologies (Shanghai), to Tsinghua Unigroup and other strategic investors for approximately USD72M.  (Digitimes, press, Quamnet, FM5)

A recent patent filing in China has revealed that Xiaomi is working on a foldable smartphone. The phone has 2 displays which can be folded together. It includes an input section for typing and a display section. The device will not open up flat as it an only be opened up to 160º and not 180º. (GizChina, Gizmo China, CNMO)

Camera

Samsung has filed a new patent application with South Korea’s KIPRIS (Korea Intellectual Property Rights Information Service), revealing that the manufacturer is working on creating its own dual-camera setup for mobile devices. The dual sensor is described as a “camera module including multi-lens and electronic device”. (Android Headlines, Android Authority, KIPRIS, 163)

Memory

Intel is warning its channel partners that demand for SSDs is expected to outstrip supply for all of 2017, forcing the company to prioritize its production for data center SSDs over lower-cost consumer SSDs. Intel also noted that it was “aggressively” transitioning part of its business to 3D NAND SSDs.  (Laoyaoba, CRN)

Intel has officially launched their first Optane product, the SSD DC P4800X enterprise drive. Now, the 3D XPoint memory comes to the client and consumer market in the form of the Intel Optane Memory product, a low-capacity M.2 NVMe SSD intended for use as a cache drive for systems using a mechanical hard drive for primary storage. (Liliputing, CNET, AnandTech, 163)

The market has expected that entering 2Q17 with Samsung’s 18nm and Micron’s 17nm PC DRAM starts shipping, the tight supply situation could be alleviated. However, Samsung has recalled its defective 18nm PC DRAM, and now Micron’s 17nm PC DRAM is reportedly facing the same problem, with yield rate lower than 50%. (TechNews, EEPW, Sohu)

Battery

Apple has been granted patent covering their invention relating to inductive power transmission, and more specifically to tessellated inductive power transmission coil configurations capable of charging multiple devices utilizing complex areas. (Laoyaoba, Patently Apple)

Sensory

Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) have been developed in a direction of featuring autonomous driving solutions that can take control to enhance road safety, instead of simply acting as a warning system to assist drivers. With ADAS growing to become a new promotion point for car vendors and many countries having started to enact related policies, ADAS may become the newest must-have car safety feature after anti-lock braking systems (ABS) and airbags, according to Digitimes Research. (Digitimes, press, Laoyaoba)

Connectivity

Infineon Technologies AG has joined the GSMA. In its role as a GSMA member, Infineon will drive further development of next-generation embedded SIM (eSIM) standards. (Sohu, Laoyaoba, Infineon, Fierce Wireless)

Smartphones

Months after Samsung recalled all units of its Galaxy Note 7 smartphone, the company has confirmed it does plan to offer refurbished versions of the device for sale or rental. Samsung has noted these Note 7 refurbs are not in fact coming to the United States. In addition, it also hints that the refurbished models could come to market with a different name.  (Android Authority, The Verge, Samsung, Tencent, Yesky, Newhua)

Xiaomi recorded a revenue of USD1B in India in 2016 and has set a USD15B target for overall global revenue for 2017. The founder Lei Jun indicates that the company’s short term goal is to grab 50% of the online market share (29.3% as at 2016, and over 30% now) then grab 50% of the offline market share in India. At the moment, 95% of Xiaomi phones sold in India are manufactured in the country.  (Gizmo China, Economic Times, 163)

IHS Technology analyst Kevin Wang has predicted that the sales of Xiaomi smartphones is going to exceed 18M units in India as the company seems to be selling 1.5M units per month. (Gizmo China, 163)

J.P. Morgan analyst Rod Hall believes that Apple will sell 260M iPhones in fiscal year 2018, up from his previous projection of 245M. According to a proprietary replacement model developed by J.P. Morgan, the average relevant base age for an iPhone by Sept 2017 will be around 6.4 quarters. J.P. Morgan estimates suggest the iPhone user base will be 1.14B total handsets in use by the end of the Sept 2017 quarter. (CN Beta, Business Insider, Apple Insider)

LG has filed a lawsuit against US-based rival BLU over alleged patent infringements. The company said the US phone manufacturer has infringed five LTE standard-related patents owned by LG.  (Android Authority, Korea Herald, Android Headlines, Digitimes)

Compal Electronics, one of LeEco’s suppliers, has announced that it has bought a CNY700M stake in Leshi Internet Information and Technology Corp., one of LeEco’s subsidiaries. The investment will give Compal Electronics a 2.15% stake in Leshi Zhixin, a company known for their smart Internet TVs and other video products and services. (Gizmo China, Reuters, P5W, 163)

The bi-annual “Threat intelligence Report” for 2016 from Nokia has revealed that the infection rates have shot up by 400% and as many as 85% devices were infected. According to the report, phones and tablets running on Android OS are highly vulnerable to malware infections.  (Gizmo China, Android Headlines, Nokia report, ZOL)

Wearables

HTC is launching MakeVR, a program built in collaboration with Sixense that can make modeling and sculpting in VR, then export the results to a CAD program or 3D printer. (Engadget, Viveport, Android Headlines)

Viveport, A VR platform established by HTC, has attracted registration by more than 20,000 independent VR application developers, who have together launched about 2,200 applications supporting the HTC Vive, according to Alvin Wang Graylin, president of HTC China. (Digitimes, press)

Facebook is taking on Michael Hillman —a person with 15 years at Apple, including key work on the company’s Mac desktops —as the head of hardware at its Oculus VR division. (Apple Insider, Bloomberg, Pingwest)

Internet of Things

More than a third of U.S. jobs could be at “high risk” of automation by the early 2030s, a percentage that’s greater than in Britain, Germany and Japan, according to PwC. It said that in the U.S., 38% of jobs could be at risk of automation, compared with 30% in Britain, 35%  in Germany and 21% in Japan. (Oregon Live, PwC, blog, RT, CN Beta)

Tesla that Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings Ltd has invested USD1.78B in the electric carmaker for a 5% stake. (VentureBeat, SEC, Sina, ZOL)

In Jul 2016, LeEco Global has announced acquiring US TV vendor Vizio for USD2B, and the deal should have been closed by end of 2016. However, entering 2017, both parties still stay silent. With the recent changes in foreign exchange policy, this transaction is still unknown. (Laoyaoba, Sina, Elecfans)