01.Automotive chip suppliers cut automotive MCU, CIS test orders in the fourth quarter
According to reports, Morgan Stanley Securities pointed out in the latest report that suppliers of automotive semiconductors such as MCU and CIS, including Renesas Semiconductor and onsemi, are cutting some chip test orders in the fourth quarter.
Morgan Stanley pointed to TSMC's 82% year-on-year increase in automotive semiconductor wafer production in the third quarter and weak sales of electric vehicles in mainland China as the reasons for the order cut.
Morgan Stanley's report shows that the shortage of some automotive chips has eased.
As electric vehicles and driver assistance technologies continue to develop, semiconductors will become even more important to automakers. Automakers and semiconductor suppliers are working to prevent such severe shortages in the future.
02.AMD issues price increase notice
According to the supply chain, AMD recently issued a price increase notice, saying that it will increase the price of some of its products.
AMD stated in the notice that due to the increase in supply chain investment costs, suppliers are passing on the rising costs to AMD.
According to AMD’s notice, the price of some Xilinx products will increase by 8%, while the price of the Spartan 6 series will increase by 25%. New orders, stock, backlog and distribution orders will all trade at the new price, effective January 9, 2023.
03.HP to Cut up to 6,000 Jobs Amid PC Sales Drop
HP, once the world’s largest personal computer (PC) maker, said it plans to cut between 4,000 and 6,000 jobs by the end of its fiscal 2025, making it the latest tech giant to lay off thousands of employees in response to increasing economic uncertainty.
CNET.com says the word of the layoffs, which the company announced alongside an 11% drop in quarterly sales, came a month after industry watchers IDC and Gartner warned that demand for computers is dropping at its fastest pace in decades.
HP’s layoffs make it the latest in a string of tech giants cutting staff in response to an increasingly sour economy, marked by high inflation that’s dented demand for goods and slowed ad spending. Other big names in the tech world, including Facebook parent Meta, Google parent Alphabet, Intel and Apple have either slowed hiring or cut staff after rapidly growing their staff during the pandemic. Twitter has cut deeply into its staffing in the weeks since Elon Musk took over.
PC makers like HP appear particularly hard hit after demand jumped from people upgrading home computers for school and work during the COVID-19 pandemic. The only company that appears to be beating that trend is Apple, which continues to report record sales driven in part by launches of highly anticipated new laptops and tablets.
04.NVIDIA, AMD, & Intel Prepped For High Wafer Cost As TSMC's 3nm Crosses $20,000 US Price
According to a report by DigiTimes, it looks like TSMC's 3nm wafers are going to be super expensive and will affect next-gen CPU & GPU prices.
The report states that due to its dominance in the chip manufacturing field and no competition yet in the 3nm process segment, TSMC is going to raise the prices of its 3nm wafers significantly. TSMC wafer pricing is depicted in a chart that shows the jump from 7nm ($10,000 US) to 5nm ($16,000) wafers to be around 60%. Now with 3nm, TSMC's wafer costs are expected to surpass the $20,000 US figure which would mean that we are bound to get more expensive products in the form of next generation CPUs and GPUs.
05.Q3 GPU shipments fell 25.1% y-o-y, while CPU shipments fell 19%
Q3 GPU shipments fell 25.1% y-o-y, while CPU shipments fell 19%, according to Jon Peddie Research.
The typically strong Q3 was down 10.3% q-o-q for CPU shipments. The overall PC CPU market decreased by 5.7% q-o-a and decreased by 18.6% y-o-y.
The GPU numbers include all platforms and all types of GPUs. Desktop graphics decreased by 15.43%, and notebooks decreased by 30%.
AMD’s market Q3 GPU share fell 8.5% q-o-q, Intel’s market share increased by 10.3%, and Nvidia’s market share decreased by -1.87%.
06.Intel regains industry leadership
Intel regained its No.1 slot in the semiconductor industry in Q3,as the memory slump hit Samsung, reports the market research firm Omdia.
Qualcomm came third after a Q3 sales increase of 5.6% q-o-q.
Hynix dropped from third to fourth place as sales dropped by more than 26%.
Broadcom was No.5 and Micron No.6 Micron sales fell by more than 27%.
07.Q3 NAND market down 18% QoQ and falling
The Q3 NAND ASP fell by 18.3% QoQ, reports TrendForce and Q4 revenues are expected to fall by almost 20% QoQ.
Q3 NAND bit shipments fell by 6.7% QoQ.
Q3 NAND revenues fell 24.3% to $13.71 billion.
Hynix dropped to third place in the rankings after a 29.8% revenue drop to$2.54 billion.
Kioxia took second place in the rankings after its Q3 bit shipments rose by 23.5% QoQ and its revenue dipped by just 0.1% QoQ to $2.83 billion.
Samsung’s revenue fell by 28.1% QoQ to $4.3 billion.
Western Digital’s revenue fell by 28.3% QoQ to $1.72 billion.
Micron’s Q3 NAND revenue fell 26.2% QoQ to $1.69 billion.
TrendForce projects a 20-25% drop in NAND contract prices in Q4.