04-20: Yota Devices goes bankrupt as declared the Cayman Islands Supreme Court; Huawei is allegedly trying to enter the Brazilian smartphone market for the second time; etc.
Chipsets
Qualcomm has announced it is working with vivo, Tencent Honor of Kings and Tencent AI Lab to drive and explore new gaming experiences of on-device AI applications utilizing the 4th Generation Qualcomm Artificial Intelligence (AI) Engine, dubbed “Project Imagination”. (Tencent, VentureBeat, Qualcomm, Caijing)
Huaxintong Semiconductor Technologies (HXT), a joint venture established in 2016 by Qualcomm and China’s Guizhou government that specializes in making server chips, will be wound down by the end of Apr 2019. (CN Beta, My Drivers, Reuters, Breitbart, SCMP)
IBS has simulated based on Apple’s A-series processors estimating that the procesors’ transistor density, chip area, chip cost, etc. after upgrading to 10nm, 7nm, 5nm and 3nm processes, including 16nm. The core area of the chip is about 125mm2, the number of transistors is 3.3B units, the number of wafers per wafer is 478, the net output is 359.74, the wafer price is USD5,912, and the cost per billion transistors is about USD4.98 and the core cost is USD16.43. From 16nm to 10nm to 5nm to 3nm, transistors have grown from 3.3B in 16nm to 14.1B in 3nm, but will remain between 83-85mm after 10nm, resulting in each wafer. The number of cores is stable at around 510 to 540. (WCCFTech, CN Beta, EXP Review)
Touch Display
Foxconn has revealed that it remains committed to its contract to build a display plant and tech research facilities in Wisconsin, days after the U.S. state’s governor said he wanted to renegotiate the deal. Democratic Governor Tony Evers, who inherited a deal to give Foxconn USD4B in tax breaks and other incentives, has indicated that he wants renegotiation because the firm is not expected to reach its job creation goals for the state. (VentureBeat, The Verge, CN Beta)
Camera
Meizu has applied for a patent design to the China Intellectual Property Office in which the smartphone is carrying a pop-up mechanism that houses the front-facing camera. The patent describes the usage of a few components for this mechanism, including a cover, camera, middle frame, and a motor. (Gizmo China, CN Beta)
Memory
SK Hynix has announced it has completed the expansion of a current DRAM production line in Wuxi, China, for technological migration. As the company’s first 300-mm wafer fab, the Wuxi plant has served as a major growth driver for the Korean chipmaker. The C2 fab accounts for about 40% of SK Hynix’s total DRAM production capacities. (CN Beta, YNA, Telecom Paper, Korea Herald)
Biometric
The Department of Homeland Security says it expects to use facial recognition technology on 97% of departing passengers within the next 4 years. The system, which involves photographing passengers before they board their flight, first started rolling out in 2017, and was operational in 15 US airports as of the end of 2018. (The Verge, CN Beta, DHS)
Phone
According to data from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) logging smartphone activations in the United States, Apple had the highest share of all smartphone brands, taking up 36% of the market. Samsung, the nearest competitor, made up 34% of device activations, while LG and Motorola have 11% and 10% shares, respectively. (Apple Insider, CN Beta, GSM Arena)
Yota Devices, a dual display smartphone manufacturer, goes bankrupt as declared the Cayman Islands Supreme Court in a recent ruling. Yota appears to have paid USD17M to Hi-p Electronics as a result of that lawsuit, but when Hi-p filed another claim for USD1M, Yota was unable to pay. Thus the company is declaring bankruptcy. (CN Beta, Liliputing, Sohu, Gizmo China)
Huawei is allegedly trying to enter the Brazilian smartphone market for the second time. Huawei will launch 2 high-end smartphones in Apr 2019 to enter the world’s fourth-largest smartphone market. (My Drivers, GizChina, Reuters)
Unfazed by the ban on TikTok in India, the popular Chinese short video app’s parent ByteDance remains “very optimistic” and plans to invest USD1B in the country over the next 3 years. ByteDance Director (International Public Policy) Helena Lersch said the company has been strengthening its content moderation policies over the last many months. (CN Beta, Live Mint, Business Today)
PC / Tablet
ASUS allegedly will not be making any more tablets in the future. The company will instead focus on the ZenFone series and the ROG e-sports market and consumers can expect the second generation of the ROG Phone and the ZenFone 6z in the near future. (CN Beta, Gizmo China, WCCFTech, ePrice)
Augmented / Virtual Reality
Microsoft is trying to solve that vision problems via a tool kit for Unity VR developers to help players with low vision. Since vision problems vary by individual, Microsoft has decided on a tool kit approach so players can customize their experience. The 14 tools include a bifocal lens, a magnifier, controls to adjust for brightness and contrast, edge enhancement and depth measurements. (Engadget, Microsoft Research, CN Beta)
