IF / News

Chipsets

TSMC global marketing chief Godfrey Cheng says that Moore’s Law is not dead. Cheng says that TSMC still has many more years of innovation ahead during which it will continue to shrink the size of individual transistors and fit more of them into a dense location. Cheng notes that since Moore’s Law is essentially based on increasing density, there are various things that can be done to squeeze more transistors into integrated circuits. (Phone Arena, TSMC, Apple Insider, CN Beta)

Celltrion has decided to replace more than 20 Japanese ingredients and materials with alternatives from other countries to remove potential risks stemming from Seoul’s worsening ties with Tokyo. Of those materials, the official said the company has secured an alternative for a virus removal filter made by Asahi Kasei Corporation of Japan. (CN Beta, Korea Times)

Touch Display

TCL founder and chairman Li Dongsheng has talked about Huawei’s relationship, saying that TCL and Huawei are now suppliers. He has also said that TCL and Huawei, Xiaomi, Hisense, and Mieda have a willingness to establish a standard like smart house, smart home, and intelligent application services, so that products of different brands can be interconnected. (My Drivers, Sina)

Memory

According to TrendForce, on the performance of the NAND flash market for 2Q19 finds that end demand in smartphone, notebook PC and server markets have recovered from the traditional offseason 1Q19, bringing total bit consumption growth to 15%. But since suppliers still have rather large levels of inventory on their hands, the drop in contract prices for 2Q19 have remained quite significant. Total business revenue remained around the USD10.8B mark, trending flat from 1Q19. (TrendForce, TrendForce, press)

Sensory

FundamentalVR is on a mission to make VR surgery simulation as robust, convincing, and efficient as possible. Recently, it has made a small but significant step toward that goal with eye-tracking. (Upload VR, VentureBeat)

Battery

The Toyota subsidiary Primearth EV Energy, which is also partly owned by Panasonic, is planning to build a fourth factory in China. The plan is to complete construction of the factory by 2021, when it will deliver an output of around 100,000 batteries per year. This will increase the total capacity in China to 400,000 units per year and will be the NiMH batteries known from Toyota hybrid cars. (CN Beta, Electrive, Guancha, TechNode)

Connectivity

According to Ovum, between 2017 and 2024, mobile-only households will rise by 14pp to 31% worldwide, driven by higher mobile penetration, larger data allowances, and declining per megabyte prices of mobile plans facilitated by 4.5G and eventually 5G. Among major countries, India and China will have the highest number of mobile-only households, followed by Indonesia, Brazil, and Nigeria. (CN Beta, Ovum)

Phone

Guotai Junan Securities believes that the pace of construction of Chinese 5G base stations is much better now. They expects large-scale exchanges by next year (ie large-scale adoption of 5G devices). In addition, they also believes that 5G smartphone shipments will exceed 200M. (iFeng, Sina, GizChina)

China Telecom marketing SVP Lu Liangjun believes that by the end of 2019, more than a dozen 5G mobile phones will be on the market at prices ranging from CNY3,000-10,000. Due to the popularity of operators, the price of 5G mobile phones will drop to about CNY3,000 in 1H20, and the price of 5G mobile phones will drop to less than CNY2,000 by the end of 2020. (CN Beta, JQK News)

Augmented / Virtual Reality

Talespin Studios has developed a virtual reality training platform that allows trainers to conduct personnel communication exercises with Barry, the virtual employee. Its virtual (VR) and augmented reality (AR) personnel training programs are based entirely on “virtual character technology”. (CN Beta, CNET, Futurism, Talespin)

Home

Ikea has established a full-fledged Home Smart business unit. The company has been involved in connected homes since 2012, but this investment in a division help it “grasp the full potential” of the technology. It will work with “all other departments” to digitize the IKEA lineup. (Engadget, TechCrunch, Ikea, CN Beta)