IF / News

Chipsets

According to IHS Markit, leading smartphone brands Samsung and Huawei are ramping up consumption of their own application processor solutions in their products, causing market share to shift away from the top third-party supplier, Qualcomm. Samsung and Huawei both expanded their in-house smartphone application processor shipments by more than 30% during 3Q19 compared to the same period in 2018, IHS indicated. (Android Headlines, Digitimes, Gizmo China, Digitimes, press, IHS Markit, press)

[CES2020] Altek has demonstrated its technologies and solutions in AI edge chips for visual edge computing, commercial and home AI security control systems, and 3D sensing solutions. Altek’s upcoming AI chip SUNNY M1 in 2020, with an area of 5×5 mm, is the smallest AI chip on the market. (Laoyaoba, Xueqiu)

[CES2020] Black Sesame has brought the latest products and solutions based on Huashan No. 1 A500 chip. (Laoyaoba, Sina)

Touch Display

Huawei has reportedly revealed that it ships 100,000 units of its foldable phone Mate X every month. The Huawei Mate X went on sale in China on 15 Nov 2019 and is not available anywhere else in the world right now. (Android Authority, Sina)

[CES2020] Samsung has allegedly held secret meetings with partners and carrier customers, where it showcased yet-unannounced products. The next foldable is going to be called Galaxy Bloom. (CN Beta, The Verge, Ajunews, GSM Arena)

[CES2020] TCL, owner of CSOT, and Juhua have just showcased a 31” rollable OLED TV prototype. It is being touted as the world’s first to be made with an inkjet technology and combines TFT with an OLED display. The rollable OLED TV prototype was developed by the National Printing and Flexible Display Innovation Center with Guangdong Juhua’s printing display technology and TCL (through CSOT). (CN Beta, Gizmo China, Display Specifications)

[CES2020] TCL founder and chairman Li Dongsheng has indicated that its subsidiary China Star Optoelectronics Technology (CSOT) is one of the main suppliers of the foldable display used by Motorola Razr. He has also said that CSOT has received orders for Samsung’s static curved screen. It has already supplied to Xiaomi and TCL, and other mobile phone manufacturers have also sent samples. (CN Beta, Tech Post, Medium)

Comparing Samsung Galaxy Fold and Galaxy S10 +, the total cost has increased by 30%. Among them, due to the increase of the display screen area of the Galaxy Fold, the BOM cost of the display has increased by bcompared to the Galaxy S10 +. According to IHS Markit, the average selling price of mobile flexible OLED panels is about 3 times that of rigid OLEDs and more than 6 times that of LCD screens. DSCC predicts that with the maturity of technology and the improvement of supply, the cost of foldable OLED screens will decrease rapidly in the next 3 years, and by 2022 the cost will drop to about USD90, a decrease of about 50%. (Laoyaoba)

[CES2020] Tanvas, a developer of next-generation multi-touch haptic technology, has teamed with Innolux to produce a 15” automotive-qualified touch display using TanvasTouch, programmable textures and haptic effects on smooth, physical surfaces. (Digitimes, press, UDN, Moore)

[CES2020] Taiwan-based LED epitaxial wafer and chip maker Epistar has partnered with China-based LED display maker Leyard Optoelectronic to exhibit 3 models of RGB mini LED fine-pitch displays with a pitch of 0.6mm. The three models are a 216” 8K model, and two 4K ones (135” and 108”), all to be marketed by Leyard under its own brand Planar. (Digitimes, press, PJ Times, CNYES)

[CES2020] LG Display (LGD) CEO Jung Ho-young has announced the company’s plan on cutting its LCD panel output at a recent event at CES 2020, saying the company is moving to focus more on OLED panels to strength and streamline its production. (Digitimes, press, Reuters, Laoyaoba, Korea IT Times)

Camera

OmniVision will revise upward by as much as 20% its quotes for high-resolution CMOS image sensors for use in consumer devices due to tight supply, according to Digitimes. (Digitimes)

Memory

[CES2020] Micron Technology has begun sampling DDR5 Registered DIMMs (RDIMM) based on its 1znm process technology. DDR5 will deliver more than a 1.85 times increase in performance compared to DDR4. (Digitimes, press, Sina, Sohu)

[CES2020] SK Hynix has unveiled two new M.2 PCIe NVMe SSDs aimed at the consumer market. The Platinum P31 is a flagship SSD with 2TB storage size and blazing read and write speeds. The Gold P31, available in 500GB or 1TB sizes, is the more mainstream option with similar performance. (My Drivers, Storage Review, Windows Central)

[CES2020] SK Hynix has showcased its new-generation DDR5 RDIMM by SK Hynix. Designed for next-generation enterprise platforms such as Intel “Sapphire Rapids”, the RDIMM ticks at DDR5-4800 MHz, offering 64 GB of density. (My Drivers, Tech Powerup)

Samsung Electronics plans to invest approximately KRW17T (about USD14.54B) in 2020 to expand its memory chip facilities at its two plants in Pyeongtaek, South Korea and Xi’an, Mainland China. Production will begin in 1H20. Samsung plans to expand these two facilities, increasing the output of NAND chips at the second plant in Xi’an, mainland China, to 65,000, and increasing the output of DRAM in Pyeongtaek, South Korea to 50,000. Among them, the DRAM output of the Pingze Plant 1 will be 20,000, and the Pyeongtaek Plant 2 will increase to 30,000. (UDN)

Sensory

[CES2020] AI virtual smart-sensor leader Elliptic Labs is introducing new ultrasonic sensing capabilities for next-generation smart devices based on audio amplifier technology from Texas Instruments (TI). When used with TI’s TAS5825M Class-D audio amplifier, Elliptic Labs’ AI Virtual Smart Sensor Platform software enables designers to easily add new interactive features to their systems through the transmission of always-on, low-power ultrasonic tones from the amplifier. (Digital Trends, Business Wire, Texas Instruments)

Biometrics

Intel and Gánsk University of Technology propose AI that recognizes faces from thermal images. They have investigated the performance of a model trained on visible light data that was subsequently retrained on thermal images. Thermal imagery is often used in lieu of RGB camera data within environments where privacy is preferred or otherwise mandated, like medical facilities. (VentureBeat, Intel)

Battery

SK Innovation plans to build a second electric vehicle (EV) battery plant in the United States and is considering expanding another factory in Hungary to meet soaring demand for EV cells. The firm has already pledged to invest USD1.7B to build the first, 9.8GWh factory to serve Volkswagen AG’s EV base in neighboring Tennessee, with production on track to begin early in 2022. (Laoyaoba, Reuters, Inside EVs)

Phone

[CES2020] LG’s CEO Kwon Bong-seok has indicated that the company will be expanding its smartphone lineup and release new devices with “some wow factors to woo consumers” in a bid to make its mobile division profitable by 2021. (Neowin, Korea Times, Engadget, TechNode)

Wearables

[CES2020] Huami unveils Amazfit T-Rex smartwatch and Amazfit Bip S fitness tracker: T-Rex – 1.3” 360×360 AMOLED, optical heart rate sensor, 5ATM water resistance, 19 sports modes, 390mAh battery, USD140. Bip S – 1.28” 176×176 TFT transflective color, BioTracker PPG heart rate sensor, Huami’s Personal Activity Intelligence (PAI) Assessment System, 200mAh battery, USD70. (XDA-Developers, Android Authority, GizChina, Gizmo China, IT Home)

Strategy Analytics forecasts Apple AirPods sales of nearly 60M in 2019. As a category, Totally Wireless (TWS) Bluetooth headset sales grew by 200% in 2019. Apple will capture a dominant share in the TWS segment that it created with the introduction of the first AirPods. (Strategy Analytics, CN Beta)

U.S. trade regulators have indicated that they will investigate wearable monitoring devices, including those made by Fitbit and Garmin, following allegations of patent violations by rival Koninklijke Philips and its North America unit. (The Verge, Reuters, UDN)

Robotics

[CES2020] Autel Robotics has unveiled EVO 2. The company claims that its foldable drone is exceedingly advanced and powerful, offering up to an 8K video camera, long flight time, and high speeds. (CN Beta, SlashGear)

Automotive

[CES2020] Nissan has shown off its dual motor technology in action. The system, called e-4ORCE (e-force), is destined to power future EVs from the company and will bring about a big performance shift on what Nissan can offer on its electric vehicles. (Pocket-Lint, Nissan, CN Beta)

Fintech

Bux, the Amsterdam-based fintech that wants to make investing more accessible, has acquired the European “social” cryptocurrency investment platform Blockport. Dubbed “BUX Crypto”, it will be available in the 9 countries in which Bux operates, and is planned to go live in 1Q20. (TechCrunch, Finextra, Blockport)

E-Commerce

India’s food delivery company Zomato has reportedly raised USD150M from existing investor Ant Financial, valuing the online food delivery and restaurant discovery platform at USD3B. (CN Beta, India Times, Asia Nikkei)