01. Nvidia rush orders lifting TSMC 5nm fab utilization
An influx of Nvidia orders requiring super hot runs (SHR) have shored up capacity utilization rates for TSMC's 5nm process platform to almost full, according to industry sources.
Nvidia is placing rush orders with TSMC for its H100 and A100, as well as the H800 and A800 designed specifically for China, the sources said. TSMC's SHR for Nvidia's AI GPUs will last throughout the year, the sources added.
The Nvidia orders have already lifted the utilization rates of TSMC's 7/6nm process family, which had previously been falling fast amid weakening demand, and the foundry house's utilization rates for the 5/4 processes are also rising fast, reaching almost full capacity, the sources said.
02. Japanese electronics component makers turn to automotive applications for growth
Japanese electronics component manufacturers such as Murata, Taiyo Yuden, and TDK are mostly conservative about the recovery of smartphone demand and are now placing their hope on orders from automotive electronics components.
03. Samsung reportedly planning to cut Q3 wafer foundry production by 10%
Following the reduction of memory chip production, Samsung Electronics is planning to reduce its wafer production in the third quarter of 2023 due to the poor demand for its foundry services, according to a Korean media report.
04. onsemi plans to invest $2 billion to increase SiC chip production
May. 22, 2023, According to Reuters, onsemi is considering investing $2 billion to increase production of silicon carbide chips in the United States, the Czech Republic or South Korea.
onsemi Chief Executive Hassane El-Khoury said the company's silicon carbide chip production is currently concentrated at a fab in Bucheon, South Korea. The company plans to look for "end-to-end" production, meaning whichever site it chooses, it will turn raw silicon carbide powder into chips.
ON Semiconductor is a supplier to the auto industry, supplying not only chips for the powertrain of electric vehicles but also other chips such as cameras and sensors that help in driver assistance systems. The company produces more than half of its chips in-house and has invested in a complete supply chain for energy-efficient silicon carbide chips, producing raw materials and finished chips in-house.
05. Kyocera to invest $2.9 billion to develop cutting-edge chip components in AI and other fields
May. 24, 2023, Kyocera announced on May 16 that it will invest 400 billion yen (about 2.9 billion U.S. dollars) in the construction of semiconductor-related production facilities in artificial intelligence and other fields by March 2026.
The company's overall capital expenditure for the next three years will reach a maximum of 850 billion yen, of which 400 billion yen will be used to focus on the core component business of semiconductors. The three-year capex plan will be the largest ever by Kyocera, both in terms of overall investment and semiconductor-related investments.
Kyocera will increase its production capacity for packaged products, as well as its production capacity for fine ceramic parts for semiconductor processing equipment. In addition, Kyocera will begin construction of a new factory in Nagasaki Prefecture in March 2024, and two major factories in Kagoshima Prefecture in southern Japan will undergo expansion. It is estimated that by March 2026, the output value of fine ceramic parts will reach 1.8 times that of March 2023.
"We will take advantage of the demand for advanced semiconductor components related to ChatGPT. In addition, we plan to increase the production of automotive capacitors. With the development of autonomous driving technology, the demand for automotive capacitors is also increasing," Kyocera President Hideo Tanimoto said.
06. Microchip Extends its Radiation-Tolerant Family of Gigabit Ethernet PHYs
The space industry is shifting its connectivity interfaces from traditional dedicated networks to Ethernet solutions that provide added flexibility and simplify the design process. To streamline the implementation of Ethernet for aerospace and defense customers, Microchip Technology announces it has extended its radiation-tolerant (RT) Ethernet PHY devices with the new VSC8574RT PHY.
The VSC8574RT PHY supports the Serial Gigabit Media Independent Interface (SGMII) and Quad Serial Gigabit Media-Independent Interface (QSGMII) to reduce the overall signal pins in the design and free up the host device.
07. AMD rolls high-performance processors for automotive usage
Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and automated driving require increasingly powerful and sophisticated edge sensors that also generate even larger amounts of data. To meet these market demands, AMD is introducing two new products in the Automotive XA Artix+ UltraScale+ family.
These new, cost-optimized XA Artix FPGAs are available now and offer high serial bandwidth and signal processing density in an ultra-compact form factor. Artix UltraScale+ devices maximize system performance over DSP bandwidth for cost-sensitive and low-power ADAS edge applications, including networking, image and video processing, and secure connectivity.