IF / News

Chipsets

Taiwan fabless IC firms are aggressively vying to secure capacity at 8” foundries to meet increasing orders in 2018, particularly for MCU and MOSFET chips needed to support a variety of new applications, with such fabs in Taiwan and China expected to maintain high utilization rates through 2018, according to Digitimes. (Digitimes, press, Laoyaoba)

Japan’s NTT DoCoMo and MediaTek have completed a trial of groundbreaking wireless connectivity technology, the companies have announced. The trial combined DoCoMo’s non-orthogonal multiple access, or NOMA, chipset with Mediatek’s multi-user interference cancellation (MUIC) technology in three mobile devices the size of a smartphone. (Laoyaoba, EE World, Apple Daily, UDN, Fierce Wireless, Mobile ID World, DoCoMo)

Touch Display

Chairman of FocalTech Genda Hu indicated that despite the rosy long-term prospects, end-market demand in 2017 has seen slower-than-expected growth due to the high cost of full in-cell display modules. With full in-cell display module makers improving yield rates to lower their production costs, coupled with the growing adoption of all-screen panels for smartphones and tablets, FocalTech is optimistic about TDDI chip demand in 2018, Hu said. (Digitimes, press, 51Touch)

Wisconsin’s economic development agency on Wednesday approved a USD3B incentives package for Taiwan-based Foxconn to build a massive liquid-crystal display plant in the state, Governor Scott Walker said. Foxconn hopes to open a USD10B plant in 2020 at a 1,000-acre site in southeastern Wisconsin. (Laoyaoba, China Times, Journal Sentinel, Reuters)

Sensory

Global MEMS microphone shipments will increase to 4.8B units in 2017 from 4.4B units in 2016, and the volume will reach over 5.0B units in 2018, according to Digitimes Research. Global MEMS microphone shipments surpassed for the first time those of electret condenser microphones (ECMs) in 2015, reaching 3.8B units. Knowles and GoerTek and AAC Technologies were the global top-3 MEMS microphone vendors in 2016, with Sony and Infineon mainly undertaking outsourced production. IDMs including STMicroelectronics, Bosch, TDK and Omron, are also MEMS microphone suppliers. (Digitimes, press, Digitimes)

Privately held MEMS sensor vendor mCube announced the acquisition of 3D motion tracking technology company Xsens from ON Semiconductor for about USD26M. Combining the two companies will enable mCube to create new markets for motion sensing and tracking solution, especially in the medical devices and sports science motion tracking, said Ben Lee, mCube’s CEO. (EE Times, EE Journal, Laoyaoba, mCube)

Battery

Apple iPhone X new functionality of facial authentication and wireless charging have driven the companies’ share including Generalplus,  ENE Technology, Lextar and Shuttle increase.。(Laoyaoba, China Times, CTEE)

Smartphones

Kim Dong-won, a researcher at KB Securities Co indicates that machine learning for the precise recognition of objects, voice, and video is the key feature of AI smartphones. The global market for handsets will be divided into “AI” and “non-AI” segments in the future. (Laoyaoba, Korea Herald, Huanqiu, XCN News)

Ming-Chip Kuo, analyst from KGI Securities, explains that Apple iPhone X production will hit 25M~27M units during the holiday quarter, with sell through 22M~24M. Moving ahead to 1Q18, Kuo expects production to grow 35%~45% quarter-on-quarter. As for the iPhone 8, Kuo anititaptes that production will decline by 50%~60% during 1Q18 compared to the holiday shopping quarter. (Apple Insider, Laoyaoba, 9to5Mac)

Mid-to-high end smartphone because of industrial design lifecycle demand, emerging of 3D glass and OLED, as well as new technologies such as 5G and wireless charging, casing material perhaps will adopt non-glass material. Currently glass is more advantageous than ceramic in terms of cost and yield rate, thus glass would become the next-generation casing material.  However, as glass is fragile, thus requires metal frame to support its strength. Therefore, front-back cover glass with metal-frame solution would continue to become the mainstream design for the coming 2~3 years. However it will be used in mid-to-high in short term, mid-to-low continues to use plastic. (Laoyaoba, China Times, China Times)

Overall glass casing supply chain can be classified into upstream, mid-stream and downstream. As for the cost structure, upstream material occupies 27% of the cost, downstream manpower is about 24%, and mid-stream equipment is as high as 49%. (Laoyaoba, China Times)

Alibaba has set another Single’s Day record after the e-commerce giant sold over USD25B of product on the Chinese biggest online shopping date. The full number comes in at CNY163.8B (USD25.3B), in GMV  (gross merchandise volume, to measure a dollar value for all sales on a platform). Alibaba handled 1.48B transactions during the 24-hour period. (TechCrunch, Alizila, Sina, Xinhuanet)

JD.com, the perennial challenger to Alibaba’s e-commerce empire in China, has revealed its 11/11 figures. The company did process an impressive CNY127.1B (USD19.14B) GMV.  JD.com’s haul is from Nov 1 ~12 — “Single’s Day Period” — which itself indicates just how dominant Alibaba is. (TechCrunch, Wall Street CN, Caixin, Huanqiu, Sohu)

Internet of Things

Alibaba launched its smart speaker Tmall Genie X1 in Jul 2017, which is equipped with AliGenie the first-gen Mandarin human-machine interaction system. During Double-11 sales day, up to Nov 11, the salex of Tmall Genie X1 has exceeded 1M units. (My Drivers, Keke298, Sohu, Forbes)

Baidu will make available what it claims are three of the largest data sets related to Chinese voice recognition in an effort to attract developers. Its Project Prometheus also includes USD1M fund to invest in efforts related to voice and machine learning. The initiative is part of DuerOS, Baidu’s platform for natural-language services. (EE Times, Sina, Leiphone)

According to Sage, with 43% of US consumers and 46% of UK consumers stating they have ‘no idea what AI is about,’ there is a clear need for education on this much talked about technology that has the potential to unlock incumbent productivity issues.  (CN Beta, eWeek, Globe Newswire, Sage, report)

High dynamic range (HDR) is the strongest-developing feature in television sets, according to IHS Markit. IHS Markit forecasts that HDR TV shipments will grow from 12.2M in 2017 to 47.9M in 2021, with a further 88.6M HDR-ready sets — with HDR decoding but no HDR display capability — shipping in 2021. (IHS Markit, press, Tech-Ex, HC360)

According to Sirida Media, in 2017 smart lock (equipped with biometrics or internet connectivity) market size will grow to near 8M units, driven by the demand from apartment market and real estate market (6M and 1.5M, respectively). After 3 years, by 2020, the market size will grow to 60M units, with YoY growth more than 100%. (Laoyaoba, Pieeco, RFID World)