2023 Latest Semiconductor News Released from April 30th to May 6th

"The Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology is trying to build a memory-centric supercomputer by 2028, but there is no one in the country who has designed such powerful computing devices," the CEO of Samsung Semiconductor Kyung Kye-hyun said in a speech, at KAIST in Daejeon on May 4.

This is the first time the chipmaker has provided details about the timeline for supercomputer development. 

Supercomputers operate at or near maximum operating speed, utilize tens of thousands of processors, and perform billions and trillions of calculations per second. At present, supercomputer architectures involved multiple CPUs and GPUs. But Kyung wants to build a supercomputer entirely out of memory chips.

According to TrendForce, the U.S. promulgated semiconductor restrictions on October 7, 2022, and the import of equipment below 18 nanometers in China must be reviewed by the U.S. Department of Commerce. SK hynix Wuxi factory was granted a one-year production license, but worried about rising geopolitical risks, coupled with sluggish demand leading to aggravate inventory pressure, it began to reduce production in the Q1, 2023, and the monthly production volume decreased by about 30%. 

The mainstream process of the Wuxi factory is 1Y nanometer, and the original plan was to continue to transfer production capacity to 1Z nanometer and reduce the output of the old process. However, the future process transfer will be affected by the U.S ban, so SK Hynix has decided to increase the proportion of 21-nm production lines, where the main products are DDR3 and DDR4 4Gb. In the long run, SK Hynix will shift its production focus back to South Korea, while the Wuxi plant will supply China's domestic demand and the consumer-grade DRAM market with older processes.

According to related report, Meta Platforms Inc (META) has hired an Oslo-based team. Until late last year, the team had been building AI network technology at British chip unicorn Graphcore.

A Meta spokesperson confirmed the hiring in response to a request for comment after Reuters identified 10 people whose LinkedIn profiles showed they would work at Graphcore until December 2022 or January 2023 and then join Meta in February or March of this year.

“We recently welcomed some highly specialized engineers to our infrastructure team at Meta in Oslo. They bring deep expertise in the design and development of supercomputing systems to support large-scale AI and machine learning," Jon Carvill said.

Kioxia and its research and manufacturing partner Western Digital (WD) plan to demonstrate their innovations that will enable higher capacity and higher performance 3D NAND memory at the upcoming 2023 Symposium on VLSI Technology and Circuits, reported May 4. According to eeNewsEurope, engineers from the two companies are looking to realize 8-plane 3D NAND devices as well as 3D NAND ICs with more than 300 word lines.

Microsoft partner with AMD to boost GPU supply of in-demand parts

Microsoft Corp. is teaming up with Advanced Micro Devices Inc. to expand into AI processors, part of a multi-pronged strategy to secure more of the sought-after component.

The companies are teaming up to develop an alternative to Nvidia Corp., which dominates the market for AI-enabled GPU chips. According to report, Microsoft is lending support to efforts to bolster AMD and team up with the chipmaker on a homegrown processor code-named Athena for AI workloads.

Analog Devices has purchased another 39 acres of the historic Tektronix campus near Beaverton, said on May 4.

Analog Devices already occupies a piece of land near the campus and is working on a $1 billion upgrade to its semiconductor factory there. Thursday's deal could give the company more room to grow, even if it doesn't have enough space to build a major new factory.

During Intel's recent DCAI webinar, company executive vice president Sandra Rivera revealed the look of fifth-gen Xeon Scalable processors, Emerald Rapids (EMR). Intel has decided to go back a generation of chiplets by designing EMR using only 2 large dies.

Its predecessor, Sapphire Rapids (SPR), had 4 smaller dies. Contrary to usual, Intel is reducing the number of chiplets in its highest core-count configuration from 4 to 2 this time.

TSMC has repeatedly pointed out that building a fab outside of Taiwan is much more expensive than building at home. As it turns out, the foundry is preparing to pass those extra costs on to customers — so U.S. customers will have to pay 30% more for U.S.-made chips than Taiwan-made chips, DigiTimes reported.

TSMC has started negotiating with customers on orders and pricing for two overseas factories, and mass production is expected to begin by the end of 2024. Industry insiders believe that the price of chips produced by TSMC’s N4 and N5 process in the U.S will increase by 20% to 30%, which is much higher than that in Taiwan, while the old process chips produced by the Japanese factory on the N28/N22 and N16/N12 nodes may be cheaper than comparable chips made in Taiwan are 10% - 15% higher.

Arm today announced that it has confidentially filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) a draft registration statement on Form F-1 regarding the SEC’s proposed initial public offering (IPO), representing its ordinary shares. The volume and price of the proposed offering has not been determined, because the IPO is contingent on market and other conditions and the process of the SEC review process.

SoftBank Group Corp (SBG) also subsequently issued a statement that Arm will continue to be a consolidated subsidiary of SBG following the completion of the proposed IPO. And SBG said any such offering will not have a material impact on its consolidated results or financial condition, because a small portion of Arm will be listed.

During the quarterly results, the company Qualcomm will announce a 5% company-wide layoff, according to people familiar with the matter. This is due to declining sales and an ongoing technology slowdown, while all players are laying off workers globally, therefore, Qualcomm is assessing the situation and its strengths and has now made a decision. Most of the layoffs will affect the tech giant's mobile division, which will be cut about 20% of its workforce.