06-25: Taiwan foundry vendors try to set up new fabs in Mainland China; Some vendors reportedly to pay a significant premium in an effort to secure longer-term contracts for supply of memory; etc.
Chipsets
From end 2016 the global semiconductor silicon wafer prices have rebound, mainly because of high demand from Mainland China. According to Gartner, in 2016~2019, Mainland China will build at least 20 semiconductor fabs. SEMI estimates in 2017~2020, Mainland will have 26 new fabs. To grab the opportunity, Taiwan foundry vendors try to set up new fabs in Mainland China. (Laoyaoba, China Times, Apple Daily)
Allwinner officially announces the release of the A63 high-performance tablet processor. In addition to supporting an improved interface it also offers features such as dual MIPI and eDP screen, can drive a single display resolution of up to 2560×1600, with powerful video and audio decoding capabilities and image rendering technology. (EE Trend, Allwinner, KK News, ZOL, PR Newswire)
After the global semiconductor silicon wafer industry expanded in 2008, the price dropped from USD1.04 (per square inch) to USD0.67 in 4Q16. During this period, suppliers are exiting the market, from more than 20 vendors drop to only 6. On the other hand, with the growth of smartphone, IoT and automotive electronics, the demand of wafer is growing, and in 2016 the shipment has reached new record in 3 conservative years. (China Times, Laoyaoba)
Touch Display
As Chinese and Taiwanese panel manufacturers are operating their new Gen-8 and Gen-8.6 LCD facilities one after the other in 2Q17, industries are interested on whether or not this will impact related markets. Compared to current 8th generation and 8.5th generation (2250×2500mm), standard for 8.6th generation (2250×2600mm) has better panel ratio that can be obtained from original board for panels with sizes 45”~58”. (Laoyaoba, ET News)
Innolux has revamped its production strategy and already begun producing complete set of TVs recently, according to chairman and CEO Jyh-Chau Wang. Monthly shipments of complete TV sets will reach over 100K units in the 2H17 and further increase to 500K units in 2018, Wang said, adding that total TV shipments are expected to reach 5M~6M units in 2018 and 10M in 2019. (Laoyaoba, Sigmaintell, Digitimes, EE World, Digitimes, press, Taipei Times)
Camera
Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO) has managed to create a digital imaging sensor that can capture ultraviolet, infrared and visible light at the same time. ICFO has used metallic, PbS colloidal quantum dots deposited onto a sheet of graphene. This hybrid system was then deposited onto a complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) wafer, and hooked up to image sensor dies and a read-out circuit. (Eureka Alert, Laoyaoba, Science Daily, New Atlas)
Memory
The growing demand for NAND and memory across the mobile and PC market is reportedly forcing some vendors to pay a significant premium in an effort to secure longer-term contracts for supply. More than a few clients have allegedly moved to 6-month supply agreements, taking the hit due to the financial premium in an effort to get enough chips for products. Typically, these companies would get by on quarterly or monthly deals. (Reuters, Kit Guru)
Biometrics
Mobile payment has become a mainstream. It is used to be the mid-t0-high end smartphones equipped with fingerprint scanner function, but now in 2017 this function is proliferate to low-end smartphone market. Mainland China and Taiwan fingerprint sensor and modules vendors are beneficial the most from this, including Goodix and Egis. (Laoyaoba, EE World, KK News, Money DJ)
Smartphones
Foxconn’s subsidy iFengPai is official Apple’s iPhone recycling platform. According to its study, every day there are about 10,000 iPhone being recycled, 20% of which will be bought by 10 US insurance companies as a backup for customers who have their phones being repaired, and the remainder 80% will flow back to Hong Kong. (Laoyaoba, My Drivers, Sina)
Wearables
Navy plans to equip every pilot who flies an F/A-18 Hornet or E/A-18G Growler a Garmin Fenix 3 watch. Navy Air Forces Commander Vice Adm. Mike Shoemaker released a message to the force in Jan 2017 announcing that he had authorized the devices for deploying strike fighter squadrons 34 and 37, which both fly the older F/A-18C Hornet, rather than the E/F Super Hornet. (TechNews, Digital Trends, Military)
