2023 Latest Semiconductor News Released from May 14th to 20th

The SiC chips will be produced in Takasaki, Gunma Prefecture, Japan, northwest of Tokyo. The site currently produces conventional silicon wafer chips. In addition, the investment amount and production scale have not yet been determined.

Meta Platforms launched its self-developed AI inference and video encoding chips at its AI Infra @ Scale event on the 19th, and discussed the deployment of its research supercomputers, new data center designs for heavy AI workloads, and the development of its AI framework. evolve.

On May 19, Ampere Computing announced the launch of the third generation data center CPU AmpereOne. This marked a huge change for the company, as it was the first time they were using a bespoke internal architecture. The company was previously using Arm's Neoverse cores, but they have now managed to break free from Arm's expensive and restrictive core licensing terms and adopt a more liberal Arm architecture.

Shares of Nvdia Corp, Advanced Micro Devices and Micron Technology provided the biggest boost to the chip sector on Thursday, which outperformed the broader market as investors sought ways to invest in AI, Japan in fouces, Reuters reported.

Among them, Nvidia shares rose 5.0%, while the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose 3.2%. The company stock has risen 116% so far in 2023, hitting its highest point since December 2021, while the S&P 500 technology index, which lags the chip sector, rose 2.1%, and the growth index slowed to 1.0%.

According to WSTS, the global semiconductor market will decline by 8.7% in Q1 2023 compared to the Q4 2022. This was the largest quarter-on-quarter drop since the Q1 2019, when it fell 14.7%. The 21.3% year-over-year decline in the Q1 2023 is the largest year-over-year decline in thirteen years since the 30.4% decline in the Q1 2009. According to revenues for the top 15 semiconductor companies, the weighted average revenues down 12% in Q1 2023 compared to Q4 2022.

The memory companies (Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron Technology) hit more, and their shares collectively lost 26%. The biggest decliners among non-memory companies were Intel (down 17%) and MediaTek (down 12%). In short, 12 non-memory companies fell 7%, and four companies achieved revenue growth in the Q1 2023 compared to the Q4 2022.

Renesas plans to spend about 48 billion yen to introduce manufacturing equipment in three factories in Japan, Nikkei News reported on the 17^th.

It plans to introduce 40nm MCU manufacturing equipment in its core stronghold Naka factory by February 2025, and introduce 130nm MCU equipment in Kawajiri factory by March 2025. In addition, it will reopen Kofu plant in the first half of 2024, and introduce film-forming manufacturing equipment by August 2026.

ON Semiconductor considers investing $2 bln to boost production of silicon carbide chips widely used to help extend the range of electric vehicles, executives said on Tuesday. And the company is considering expansion in the U.S., the Czech Republic or South Korea, and it already has factories in each of these countries.

Ethernovia, a startup based in Silicon Valley, has announced that it has completed a $64 million Series A round of financing, including Porsche SE, Qualcomm Ventures, VentureTech Alliance, AMD Ventures, Western Digital Capital, Fall Line Capital, Taiwania Capital, ENEA Capital, and others.

As vehicle architectures evolve from domain-centric controllers, networking solutions must evolve in parallel to support higher data rates for advanced vehicle applications, which include a rich customer software ecosystem for advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), autonomous driving (AD) and over-the-air delivery (OTA). Ethernovia is developing a seamless, holistic and simplified hardware and software system that addresses this need by integrating advanced networks for a software-defined vehicles.

Samsung Electronics is investing a bold $222 million in a brand new development facility in Yokohama, Japan. The move is expected to boost cooperation between Japan and South Korea, two of the world's most advanced chip industries.

As first reported by Nikkei Asia, the investment will leverage the shared expertise of the two countries, Samsung, the world's largest maker of memory chips, and Japan, a major producer of basic materials for chip production such as wafers and chipmaking business in a leading position in equipment.

Micron will receive about 200 billion yen (about US$1.5 bln) in financial subsidies from the Japanese government, and the funds will be used to install ASML's EUV advanced chips equipment at its factory in Hiroshima to produce DRAM chips, Bloomberg reported on the 18th. This is the latest step Japan has taken to boost domestic semiconductor production.

Buffett's Berkshire sold its entire stake in TSMC in the first quarter after cutting its stake by 86% late last year, Bloomberg reported.

In the Q3 of 2022, Buffett spent more than US$4.1 billion to buy TSMC ADR, but Berkshire disclosed in February this year that it had sold 86% of its holdings in the fourth quarter. The group exited TSMC stock in the first quarter, according to a filing. Buffett told investors at his annual conference earlier this month that the move sent TSMC shares plunging amid concerns over geopolitical tensions between China and Taiwan.

OpenAI has launched an iOS app for ChatGPT on May 18. While iPhone users in the U.S can download and install it for free through the Apple App Store.

And there will be in-app purchases—currently only “ChatGPT Plus” for $19.99. Its subscribers have exclusive access to GPT-4 features. In less than 12 hours after it was put on the shelves, the ChatGPT app rushed to the second place among the free apps in the Apple App Store.