01. Rockchip Prices Soar Due to Shortage, AIoT Demand Drives Market Heat
Recently, Rockchip's RV1126 and RV1109 chips have experienced shortages and significant price increases in the spot market. The price of the RV1126 has risen from around 40 yuan to over 80 yuan. The main reasons are upstream capacity and cost issues, which led the original manufacturer to raise prices in October 2024. Additionally, market demand has surged. These two chips are primarily used in visual processing fields such as security cameras and facial recognition access systems, where their high computing power and mature technology make them difficult to replace.
Furthermore, driven by the demand for AIoT, Rockchip's performance has seen significant growth. In the first half of 2024, its processor revenue exceeded 1.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 46.44%. Despite the shortage of some chips, Rockchip plans to focus on automotive electronics and industrial applications in 2025, developing multiple product lines to continuously release incremental product value.
02. NAND Wafer Prices Continue to Rise, with Further Increases Expected
On March 12th, according to the latest TrendForce report on memory spot price trends, in the DRAM segment, spot market transactions have continued to increase. The contract market has shown strong demand for SK Hynix's DDR5 products, with tight supplies and rising prices. Overall, the trading momentum of DDR4 products is weaker than that of DDR5 products. The average spot price of mainstream chips (such as DDR4 1Gx8 3200MT/s) rose from $1.445 last week to $1.454 this week, an increase of 0.62%. In the NAND Flash segment, the wafer spot market continued its upward price trend this week, with wafer prices expected to keep rising in the future. The spot price of 512Gb TLC wafers increased by 2.33% this week, reaching $2.50.
03. TI Launches a 1.38 mm² Miniature MCU Priced at Just 20 Cents
Texas Instruments (TI) unveiled what it claims to be the “world's smallest microcontroller (MCU)” at Embedded World 2025. The new MSPM0C1104 measures just 1.38 mm², which TI says is roughly the size of a peppercorn. This product is aimed at medical wearables and personal electronic applications. Compared to the most compact MCUs from its competitors, this product is 38% smaller, and when purchased in bulk, it costs only 20 cents per unit.
04. SK Keyfoundry Acquires SK Powertech to Expand SiC Power Semiconductor Capacity
On March 11th, SK Keyfoundry announced the acquisition of 98.59% of SK Powertech's shares for 25 billion KRW, with the transaction expected to be completed in the first half of the year. This acquisition will enhance SK Keyfoundry's competitiveness in the SiC power semiconductor field and help it transform into a specialized power semiconductor foundry. SiC devices, known for their durability and high efficiency, are widely used in electric vehicles and renewable energy systems. The global SiC semiconductor market is projected to reach 23 billion USD by 2030.
05. Metas Self-Developed Chip Enters Testing Phase
According to a Reuters report on March 11th, Meta is testing its first self-developed AI training chip, aiming to reduce its reliance on external suppliers such as Nvidia and cut the substantial costs of its AI infrastructure. The chip belongs to the Meta Training and Inference Accelerator (MTIA) series and is designed specifically for AI training tasks, offering higher energy efficiency compared to general-purpose GPUs. Meta plans to deploy the chip on a large scale in 2026, initially for recommendation systems before expanding to generative AI products.
06. Pegatron Announces U.S. Factory Plans in Response to Trumps Tariffs, Aims for Mass Production This Year
On March 13th, according to the Economic Daily, in response to the uncertainty of U.S. tariff policies, Pegatron announced plans to establish a manufacturing base in the United States, with mass production expected to start this year. Pegatron's Co-CEO, Jason Cheng, said that the company completed the initial validation of server products for its Taiwan clients last year and will conduct the final validation in the first quarter of this year, with plans to start small-volume orders in the second quarter. Additionally, Pegatron's Nvidia GB200 server has successfully completed testing with a mid-sized U.S. cloud service provider, yielding satisfactory results. Pegatron expects to achieve more shipping milestones in the second half of this year.