01. Demand and Lead Times Increase for Automotive Integrated Circuits
Market conditions are stabilizing for Renesas series, mainly for common series, as lead times have returned to a standard window of 16 – 24 weeks. However, demand is pushing lead times higher for automotive series. Shortages of image sensors, MOSFETs and transistors persist.
NXP is experiencing similar constraints for its automotive series. Lead times for the MCIMxx series are unstable and stretch up to 70 weeks. Meanwhile, the automotive-grade MCU series FSxxx is at least 52 weeks. Pricing is also rising for the S9x series, which faces severe shortages.
02. TI to expand manufacturing operations in Malaysia
Jun 14, 2023, Texas Instruments has announced plans to expand its internal manufacturing footprint in Malaysia with two new assembly and test factories in Kuala Lumpur and Melaka. Together, these new investments will support TI’s plan to bring 90% of its assembly and test operations internal by 2030 to have greater control of supply.
At full production, TI’s new, state-of-the-art factories in Malaysia will feature advanced factory automation to assemble and test hundreds of millions of analog and embedded processing chips daily that will go into electronics everywhere – from renewable energy sources to electric vehicles.
03. ESIA: Global semiconductor market is expected to grow by 11.8% in 2024
Jun 9, 2023, According to the forecast of the European Semiconductor Industry Association (ESIA), the global semiconductor market is expected to shrink by 10.3% to US$515 billion in 2023, and resume growth at a rate of 11.8% in 2024.
ESIA pointed out that although discrete devices and optoelectronics will grow by 5.6% and 4.6% year-on-year respectively in 2023, due to rising inflation and weak demand in the end market, other categories are expected to decrease, of which memory semiconductors will decline by 35% year-on-year.
The forecast shows that the Japanese and European markets will grow by about 1.2% and 6.3% in 2023, but other regions will face declines, with the Americas declining by 9.1% and Asia-Pacific by 15.1%.
ESIA expects the global semiconductor market to return to growth in 2024, reaching a size of $576 billion. Among them, memory chips will recover to $120 billion, an increase of more than 40%.
04. IC destocking, replenishment near end; industry hinges hope on end demand for 2H growth
As the market enters the second half of the second quarter, after a year-long chaotic period, both the inventory de-stocking and the subsequent stock replenishment will end in the near future. Inventory may not be the main determinant of IC shipment.
05. Competition in automotive SoC market heats up
As the research and development trends in the automotive industry evolve, chip design companies are adapting their strategies accordingly. Traditional automotive chip suppliers like NXP, Infineon, and Renesas have reduced their investments in high-performance computing System-on-Chip (SoC) development and shifted their focus towards the MCU market for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS).
On the other hand, non-traditional automotive chip providers, such as NVIDIA, have pivoted their business by expanding the SoC product lines and offering open Software Development Kits (SDKs) to cater to the diverse requirements of carmakers.
06. Micron to acquire Powertech's Xi'an factory
Powertech Technology Inc., one of the world's largest memory packaging and testing service providers, announced on June 16 that it has been informed by Micron Technology of the latter's decision to acquire Powertech's assets in Xi'an, China.
Powertech spokesperson told DIGITIMES Asia that Micron is acting in accordance with the terms of the agreement it entered with Powertech in 2016. The two companies agreed that Micron reserves the right to purchase Powertech's Xi'an factory after a 6-year service contract is fulfilled. After the decision to purchase the factory, they have one year to execute and complete the transactions.
"Powertech believes that it is in the best interest of both parties to accept Micron's request. On June 27, 2023, Powertech will convene an interim board of directors meeting to review the asset sale transaction," said a company spokesperson, adding that Powertech and Micron have a long-standing partnership and expect to continue to strengthen their cooperation on the basis of their existing relationship.
07. AMD Expands AI/HPC Product Lineup With Flagship GPU-only Instinct MI300X with 192GB Memory
Alongside their EPYC server CPU updates, as part of today’s AMD Data Center event, the company is also offering an update on the status of their nearly-finished AMD Instinct MI300 accelerator family. The company’s next-generation HPC-class processors, which use both Zen 4 CPU cores and CDNA 3 GPU cores on a single package, have now become a multi-SKU family of XPUs.
Joining the previously announced 128GB MI300 APU, which is now being called the MI300A, AMD is also producing a pure GPU part using the same design. This chip, dubbed the MI300X, uses just CDNA 3 GPU tiles rather than a mix of CPU and GPU tiles in the MI300A, making it a pure, high-performance GPU that gets paired with 192GB of HBM3 memory. Aimed squarely at the large language model market, the MI300X is designed for customers who need all the memory capacity they can get to run the largest of models.