01. Chinese Manufacturers’ Price Hikes: Signs of Power Semiconductor Industry Reversal?
From December 2023 to January this year, media reports revealed that five Chinese domestic power semiconductor manufacturers, including JJMicroelectronics, Sanlian Sheng, Sicilian Blue Color Electronics, Genesis Microelectronics, and Shenwei Semiconductor, have successively issued price adjustment notices to raise prices for their products.
The current significant reduction in power semiconductor inventory, coupled with signs of a gradual recovery in end-user demand, raises the question of whether the power semiconductor industry has hit rock bottom and is now rebounding.
02. AMD issues discontinuation statement for some products
January 19, 2024, According to the supply chain, AMD recently issued a product discontinuation notice, stating that it will no longer provide all CoolRunner and CoolRunner II CPLD chips, as well as Spartan II and Spartan 3 FPGA chips.
AMD stated in the notice that the company will be discontinuing XC9500XL、CoolRunner XPLA 3、CoolRunner II、Spartan II, and Spartan 3、3A、3AN、3E、3ADSP Commercial/ Industrial “XC” and Automotive “XA” Product Families due to declining run-rate and supplier sustainability reasons.
03. Microchip Technology announces two-week March furlough at Oregon site
Less than ten days after microcontroller manufacturer Microchip Technology was awarded $162 million in funding from the US CHIPS and Science Act, the company has announced it will be furloughing employees at its Gresham, Oregon plant for two weeks in March.
The temporary shutdown is related to a harsher-than-expected drop in sales for the company, which also floated the possibility of a further two-week furlough period in June.
04. Murata shut down Anamizu factory for 5 months due to earthquake damage
January 18, 2024, According to supply chain, Murata recently issued a notice to its customers that the company's Anamizu factory in Japan will not be able to resume production before mid-May due to the earthquake.
Murata stated in the notice that Anamizu Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd. suffered serious losses in the earthquake. The Anamizu factory is facing some injured employees, damaged buildings and machine, and a utility outage (e.g. power (electricity), water). This results in stoppage or delay of productions in and delivery from the Anamizu factory.
Murata said this constituted a force majeure event. The Company will use commercially reasonable efforts to continue to mitigate the effects of the force majeure event, but does not anticipate that the Anamizu factory will be able to resume production before mid-May 2024.
05. South Korea’s memory exports surged 58% in December 2023
January 17, 2024, According to a report from South Korea's Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, South Korea's memory chip exports surged 58% in December 2023 compared with the same period in 2022, the largest increase since May 2018, while system chip exports including logic and analog devices decreased by 14%.
The report pointed out that South Korea’s ICT (information and communications technology) exports reached US$18.26 billion in December 2023, an increase of 8.1% over the previous year. Semiconductor exports, the main export item of ICT, reached US$11.07 billion, a year-on-year increase of 19.3%. Among them, memory chip exports increased by 57.5% year-on-year to US$6.99 billion, leading overall semiconductor exports. Due to the decline in wafer foundry operating rates, system semiconductor exports fell 14.0% from the same period in 2022 to US$3.67 billion.
06. Six Companies, Including BYD and CATL, are Included in the U.S. Procurement Ban List
The U.S. lawmakers is reportedly attempting to further drive the “decoupling” of the Pentagon’s supply chain from China. According to sources cited by Bloomberg, the U.S. Congress has prohibited the Pentagon from procuring batteries produced by six Chinese companies, including CATL and BYD.
Additionally, the other four battery manufacturers set to be banned are Envision Energy, EVE Energy, Gotion High-Tech, and Hithium Energy Storage Technology. Based on the report, of the top 10 battery suppliers in the world, just three are non-Chinese companies.
07. Sales of semiconductor manufacturing equipment in Japan are expected to grow by 27% in fiscal 2024
January 19, 2024, The Semiconductor Equipment Association of Japan (SEAJ) recently stated that driven by new demands for artificial intelligence, Japan's semiconductor equipment sales are expected to soar 27% in the 2024 fiscal year starting in April this year, reaching 4.03 trillion yen (approximately US$27 billion).
The SEAJ, whose members include Tokyo Electronics, Advantest and Screen, said it expects that in addition to the recovery of wafer foundries and logic chip manufacturers, spending by memory chip manufacturers will recover significantly during the second half of fiscal 2023 ending in March this year. It is expected that the average annual compound growth rate will continue to remain at 10% by March 2026.