01 Chip delivery time reduced, but still takes 24 weeks
Jan. 23, 2023 – Chip supply is picking up, with average delivery times now about 24 weeks, three weeks shorter than last May’s record high but still well above the 10 to 15 weeks before the outbreak, according to a new report released by Susquehanna Financial Group.
The report also notes that lead times are being reduced in all key product categories, with power management ICs and analog IC chips showing the largest decreases in lead times. Infineon’s lead time was reduced by 23 days, TI by 4 weeks, and Microchip by 24 days.
02 TI: still optimistic about 1Q2023 automotive chip market
January 27, 2023 – The analog and embedded chip maker Texas Instruments (TI) forecasts that its revenue will decline another 8% to 15% year-over-year in the first quarter of 2023. The company sees “weak demand across all end markets except automotive” for the quarter.
In other words, for TI, in 2023, as automakers install more analog and embedded chips in their electric vehicles, the company’s automotive chip business may remain stable, other businesses, such as smartphones, communications and enterprise systems chip sales or remain subdued.
03 ST expects slower growth in 2023, maintains capital expenditures
Amid continued earnings growth and sold-out capacity, ST President and CEO Jean-Marc Chery continues to see a slowdown in semiconductor industry growth in 2023.
In its latest earnings release, ST reported fourth-quarter net income of $4.42 billion and profit of $1.25 billion, with full-year revenue exceeding $16 billion. The company also increased capital expenditures at its 300 million mm wafer fab in Crolles, France, and its silicon carbide wafer fab and substrate fab in Catania, Italy.
Revenues grew 26.4% to $16.13 billion in fiscal 2022, driven by strong demand from the automotive and industrial sectors,” said Jean-Marc Chery, president and CEO of STMicroelectronics. “We spent $3.52 billion in capital expenditures while generating $1.59 billion in free cash flow. Our medium-term business outlook for the first quarter is for net revenues of $4.2 billion, up 18.5 percent year-over-year and down 5.1 percent sequentially.”
He said: ‘In 2023, we will drive revenues to $16.8 billion to $17.8 billion, an increase of 4 to 10 percent over 2022.’ ‘Automotive and industrial will be the main growth drivers, and we plan to invest $4 billion, 80 percent of which is for 300mm fab and SiC growth, including substrate initiatives, and the remaining 20 percent for R&D and labs.‘
Chery said, “It is clear that all areas related to the automotive and B2B industry (including power supplies and automotive microcontrollers) are fully booked for our capacity this year.”
Original Factory News: Sony, Intel, ADI
04 Omdia: Sony holds 51.6% of the CIS market
Recently, according to Omdia’s ranking of the global CMOS image sensor market, Sony image sensor sales reached $2.442 billion in the third quarter of 2022, accounting for 51.6% of the market share, further widening the gap with second-ranked Samsung, which accounted for 15.6%.
The third to fifth places are OmniVision, onsemi, and GalaxyCore, with market shares of 9.7%, 7%, and 4%, respectively. Samsung’s sales reached $740 million in the third quarter of last year, down from $800 million to $900 million in previous quarters, as Sony continued to gain market share driven by orders for smartphones such as the Xiaomi Mi 12S Ultra.
In 2021, Samsung’s CIS market share reaches 29% and Sony’s 46%. In 2022, Sony further widened the gap with the second place. Omdia believes this trend will continue, especially with Sony’s upcoming CIS for Apple’s iPhone 15 series, which is expected to extend the lead.
05 Intel: customers clear inventory only seen in the past year, predicted 1Q23 continued loss
Recently, Intel (Intel) announced its 4Q2022 earnings, with revenue of $14 billion, a new low in 2016, and a loss of $664 million, a 32% drop in profit over the same period last year.
Pat Gelsinger, the CEO, expects the recession to continue in the first half of 2023, and therefore a loss is expected to continue in the first quarter. In the past 30 years, Intel has never had two consecutive quarters of losses.
According to Bloomberg, the business group responsible for CPUs declined 36% to $6.6 billion in the fourth quarter. Intel expects total PC shipments this year to reach only 270 million units to 295 million units of the lowest mark.
The company expects server demand to decline in the first quarter and rebound afterwards.
Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger admitted that the market share of the data center continues to be eroded by rival Supermicro (AMD).
Gelsinger also predicted that the action of customer inventory clearance still continues, this wave of inventory clearance as only seen in the past year, so Intel will also be significantly affected in the first quarter.
06 For Industrial and Automotive, ADI Expands Analog IC Capacity
Recently, it was reported that ADI is spending $1 billion to upgrade its semiconductor plant near Beaverton, Oregon, USA, which will double its production capacity.
We are making significant investments to modernize our existing manufacturing space, reorganize equipment to increase productivity, and expand our overall infrastructure by adding 25,000 square feet of additional cleanroom space,” said Fred Bailey, vice president of plant operations at ADI.
The report noted that the plant mainly produces high-end analog chips that can be used for heat source management and thermal control. The target markets are mainly in the industrial and automotive sectors. This can avoid the impact to some extent in the current weak demand in the consumer electronics market.
New Product Technology: DRAM, SiC, Server
07 SK Hynix Announces Industry’s Fastest Mobile DRAM LPDDR5T
January 26, 2023 – SK Hynix announced the development of the world’s fastest mobile DRAM, LPDDR5T (Low Power Double Data Rate 5 Turbo), and the availability of prototype products to customers.
The new product, LPDDR5T, has a data rate of 9.6 gigabits per second (Gbps), which is 13 percent faster than the previous generation LPDDR5X, which will be launched in November 2022. To highlight the maximum speed characteristics of the product, SK Hynix added “Turbo” to the end of the standard name LPDDR5.
With the further expansion of the 5G smartphone market, the IT industry is forecasting an increase in demand for high-spec memory chips. With this trend, SK Hynix expects LPDDR5T applications to expand from smartphones to artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and augmented/virtual reality (AR/VR).
08. ON Semiconductor partners with VW to focus on SiC technology for electric vehicles
Jan. 28, 2023 – ON Semiconductor (onsemi) recently announced that it has signed a strategic agreement with Volkswagen Germany (VW) to provide modules and semiconductors to enable a complete electric vehicle (EV) traction inverter solution for VW’s next-generation platform family. The semiconductor is part of the overall system optimization, providing a solution to support front and rear traction inverters for VW models.
As part of the agreement, onsemi will deliver EliteSiC 1200V traction inverter power modules as a first step. The EliteSiC power modules are pin compatible, allowing easy scaling of the solution to different power levels and types of motors. Teams from both companies have been working together for more than a year on optimizing power modules for next-generation platforms, and pre-production samples are being developed and evaluated.
09 Rapidus plans to pilot production of 2nm chips as early as 2025
Jan. 26, 2023 – Japanese semiconductor company Rapidus plans to set up a pilot production line as early as the first half of 2025 and use it to produce 2nm semiconductor chips for supercomputers and other applications, and start mass production between 2025 and 2030, Nikkei Asia reported.
Rapidus aims to mass produce 2nm and is currently advancing to 3nm for mass production. The plan is to set up production lines in the late 2020s and start manufacturing semiconductors around 2030.
The report points out that Japan can only produce 40nm chips at present, and Rapidus was established to improve the level of semiconductor manufacturing in Japan.
Post time: Feb-03-2023