3-31 #Recharged: Samsung Display will end all LCD manufacturing in South Korea and China by end of 2020; JDI has revealed that it has finalized a deal to raise USD200M from “an overseas customer”; etc.
Chipsets
Huawei has unveiled the all-new HiSilicon Kirin 820 5G chipset. The new platform uses a 7nm process and features 4x ARM Cortex-A76 BIG cores and 4x ARM Cortex-A55 little cores. The new chipset has a single A76 core clocked at 2.36GHz, while the other three are clocked at 2.22GHz. The new SoC makes use of a Mali-G57 Hexa-Core GPU which is slightly better than the Mali-G52 found on Kirin 810. (CN Beta, Huawei Central, XDA-Developers, GizChina)
Huawei HiSilicon will allegedly release new 6nm-made Kirin 7 series chips. With the addition of Kirin 1020 is added, made by 5nm, Huawei self-developed chips will comprehensively cover all price segments of 5G products. (CN Beta, Small Tech News)
Shanghai has announced 152 investment projects with a total value of CNY441.8B (USD63.1B) to boost economy, including projects from foreign firms like Bosch and Walmart. Foreign investment totaled USD16B, including regional headquarters of Bosch Capital and Mitsubishi Corporation Metal Trading, as well as the Chinese flagship store of Sam’s Club, a chain of membership-only clubs under Walmart. (Shine, Laoyaoba)
The total investment of TSMC’s 3nm process is as high as TWD1.5T (USD50B). At least USD20B have been spent. The trial production is originally planned for Jun 2020. But now it will be postponed to Oct 2020. Correspondingly, the 3nm production line of TSMC’s Nanke 18 plant will also be postponed for a quarter. The equipment was originally installed in Oct 2020. It will be delayed to early 2021. (Digitimes, GizChina, UDN)
Touch Display
Huawei consumer group CEO Richard Yu has indicated that the cost for a foldable phone is very high and the company is losing money. He believes it will take 1.5-2 years for a foldable phone to cost the same as a regular phone nowadays. In 2o19, he has predicted that foldable phones will take about 5 years to become standard. He has also said that foldable phones could cost as low as USD500. (Wired, Welt, Android Authority)
Apple is reportedly considering acquiring British company Plessey Semiconductors, a maker of Micro-LED displays for augmented reality devices. However, Plessey has instead reached a licensing deal with Facebook, which in a statement said it wants to build “a glasses form factor that lets devices melt away so we can be more present with our friends, families, and surroundings”. (Mac Rumors, The Information, Sohu, Sina)
Samsung Display will end all LCD manufacturing in South Korea and China by end of 2020. The company will supply ordered LCDs to their customers by the end of 2020 without any issues. Over the next 5 years, it will sink money into converting one of its two South Korean LCD plants into a production facility for quantum dot displays. Samsung has not decided what to do with the 2 LCD factories in China. (CN Beta, Apple Insider, Reuters)
Japan Display Inc (JDI) has revealed that it has finalized a deal to raise USD200M from “an overseas customer”, which is believed to be Apple. The fund will come in the form of the customer purchasing equipment at JDI’s main smartphone screen factory in central Japan. (Reuters, JDI, Apple Insider, IT Home)
Camera
Huawei consumer business group CEO Richard Yu has revealed that each of the P40 camera module cost is about USD100 (approximately CNY709), and perhaps more than USD100. Huawei P40, P40 Pro and P40 Pro+ equip with Leica-rated tri-cam, quad-cam and peta-cam, respectively. Huawei P40 Pro+ is the first to achieve 10 times optical zoom and 100 times digital zoom. (My Drivers, Laoyaoba)
Phone
LG is reportedly changing its brand and device naming strategy. LG is allegedly killing off the G-series. LG might want to “reproduce the glory” of its long-forgotten “chocolate phone” with this rebranding effort. (GSM Arena, Naver, Pocket Now, Phone Arena)
Xiaomi has announced that its Wuhan Headquarters has officially resumed operations. Its total surface area covers nearly 52,000 square meters with 2 floors underground and 7 floors above ground. It can accommodate about 2,400 to 3,000 employees in total as well. (Laoyaoba, Gizmo China, CN Beta)
Huawei consumer business group CEO Richard Yu has indicated that the company still hopes to cooperate with Google for the Play Store. He has mentioned that he hopes to use all Google services and use the Google Play Store as the main content for Huawei Mobile Service (HMS) to provide users with more choices. Huawei wants to stay on Android platform. (CN Beta, Wired)
Huawei invested 15.3% of its 2019 revenue – or CNY131.7B – back into R&D. Its total R&D spend over the past decade now exceeds CNY600B. Huawei’s smartphone shipment has reached 240M units in 2019, a YoY increase of more than 16%, of which 5G handset shipments exceeded 6.9M units. (Laoyaoba, My Drivers, CNBC, Huawei Central)
Huawei India CEO, Jay Chen, has indicated that the company is working on solutions to apply their learnings and experience from China to the current situation in India and help combat COVID-19 with new technology such as remote temperature monitoring. The company has said 5G+ thermal imaging, which supports contagion monitoring, can accurately monitor a moving object’s temperature in real time without contact and issue alerts. (Gizmo China, Economic Times, Hindustan Times）
Honor 30S 5G is announced in China – 6.5” 1080×2400 FHD+ IPS HiD, HiSilicon Kirin 820, rear quad 64MP-8MP telephoto 3x optical zoom-8MP ultrawide-2MP macro + front 16MP, 8+128 / 8+256GB, Android 10.0 (HMS), side fingerprint, 4000mAh 40W, CNY2,399 (USD338) / CNY2,699 (USD380). (GSM Arena, CN Beta)
Honor Play 9A is announced in China – 6.3” 720×1600 HD+ IPS, MediaTek Helio P35 MT6765, rear dual 13MP-2MP depth + front 8MP, 4+64 / 4+128GB, Android 10.0 (HMS), rear fingerprint scanner, 5000mAh 10W, CNY899 (USD127) / CNY1,199 (USD169). (Gizmo China, GSM Arena)
Honor 8A Prime is launched in Russia – 6.09” 720×1560 HD+ IPS, MediaTek Helio P35 MT6765, rear 13MP + front 8MP, 3+64GB, Android 9.0, rear fingerprint, 3020mAh, RUB9,990 (USD125). (GSM Arena, Gizmo China)
Samsung Galaxy M11 is official – 6.4” 720×1560 HD+ HiD, Qualcomm Snapdragon 450, rear tri 13MP-5MP ultrawide-2MP depth + front 8MP, 3+32 / 4+64GB, Android 10.0, rear fingerprint, 5000mah 15W, est. USD179 (Galaxy M10 3+32GB). (Android Headlines, Samsung, GSM Arena, Gizmo China)
Automotive
Ford and GE Healthcare have licensed a ventilator design from Airon Corp and plan to produce as many as 50,000 of them at a Michigan factory by Jul 2020 as part of a broader effort to provide a critical medical device used to treat people with COVID-19. (TechCrunch, The Verge, CNBC, Barron’s, Yicai, Sina)
Huawei Technologies is stepping up its research and development efforts in the field of autonomous driving with the goal to become China’s leading platform for self-driving cars in the next 5 years. Huawei has set an internal goal of becoming the leading Chinese platform provider for self-driving vehicles by 2025. (Asia Nikkei, Laoyaoba)