01. TrendForce: IC design houses see business decline in Q3
The global market research organization TrendForce recently released a report stating that under the influence of various negative factors such as customer inventory adjustments, the total revenue of the world’s top ten IC design companies in the third quarter of 2022 came to $37.38 billion, a decrease of 5.3% from the previous quarter.
Qualcomm ranked first among IC design companies in the third quarter of 2022, with revenue of $9.904 billion, a quarter-on-quarter increase of 5.6%, and a market share of 26.5%. Qualcomm’s mobile phone processor and 5G modem chip sales increased in the second quarter, coupled with the expansion of cooperation between the automotive sector and the industry, the revenue of the two major product sectors increased by 6.8% and 22.0% month-on-month respectively, making up for the decline in the revenue of RF front-end chips.
02. NXP: Demand for automotive and industrial chips will remain strong in 2023
Netherlands-based NXP has enjoyed a windfall, as have its peer integrated device manufacturers — companies such as Texas Instruments and ON Semi, which both design and manufacture chips. NXP's competitors all specialize in semiconductors for industrial use, but NXP in particular has carved out a niche as a supplier to automakers. In the third quarter, more than 52% of its sales were to automotive end markets.
Secular growth trends within the auto market, industrial automation, and 5G mobile networks have management expressing optimism that it can continue growing sales at rates in the high-single-digit to low-teens percentages in the coming years.
03. Automobile IC, driver IC and PMIC have started to cut prices
The latest news shows that some automotive chips have been downgraded recently, including driver IC, PMIC and some control IC; Automobile LED manufacturers have also lowered their prices since Q4, with an overall average drop of about 3%-5%.
Even so, according to the latest statistics of the industry website, the ratio of the number of MCU product models up and down in the past month is 81:19, and the number of models with rising demand is far greater than the number with falling demand, thus alleviating the weak short-term demand.
04. Renesas Beijing factory stopped production
On December 17th, according to Japannews, according to the news of Renesas Electronics' public relations department, Renesas Beijing factory has been declared to be completely shut down because its employees have been infected with Covid-19.
The company has been short of manpower due to the spread of infections, making it difficult to maintain the production line, it said. It initially will shut down operations for a few days and will consider later whether or not to extend the shutdown should the number of infected people not decrease.
Renesas had not shut down a factory in China for a specified period of time since January-February 2020, when the pandemic first broke out. The Beijing plant, with about 1,000 employees, is mainly involved in the production of semiconductors for home appliances, industrial equipment and automobiles, which are shipped to companies in Japan and elsewhere.
05. ARM declines to license Neoverse V series to Alibaba
ARM thinks the performance of Neoverse V series of processors is too high to receive US approval, and has declined to provide them to China’s Alibaba.
The Neoverse processors are aimed data center operations and have been split into the V series, optimized for performance, the N series optimized for energy efficiency and the E series optimized for throughput.
06. Foxconn to sell stake in China chip giant amid Taiwan review
A subsidiary of Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision Industry will dispose of its indirect minority stake in China's semiconductor giant Tsinghua Unigroup, the latest sign that Beijing's chip industry is becoming increasingly isolated from the rest of the worl.
07. US adds 36 Chinese entities into Entity List, including YMTC
The US Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) added 36 entities to the Entity List, including China's largest memory manufacturer, Yangtze Memory Technology Corp (YMTC). The stringent license requirements that will severely restrict these entities' access to commodities, software, and technologies are subject to the Export Administration Regulations (EAR), said BIS statement.
The majority of them are located in the People's Republic of China (PRC). One entity, which is a subsidiary of a PRC entity being added to the list, is located in Japan.