Latest Semiconductor News Released on August 27 to September 2, 2023

Rapidus held groundbreaking ceremony for Hokkaido 2nm wafer plant

Japanese startup Rapidus Corp. held groundbreaking ceremony for its 2nm fab in Chitose, Hokkaido. The company was established in 2022 with the support of a consortium of eight major Japanese companies, aims to develop and produce cutting-edge chips using a 2nm process by 2027. The fab is called IIM-1, and the construction on IIM-1 will begin later in September.

Samsung set to supply HBM3 to Nvidia from Q4

Samsung Electronic is expected to soon supply chips maker Nvidia with its high-performance DRAM chip HMB3, bolstering Samsung's position in the growing field of AI chips. With the completion of quality testing, Samsung may start supplying HBM3 chips to Nvidia in October. And Samsung could meet about 30% of Nvidia's HBM3 requirements by 2024.

ASML to ship some top chip tools to China until year-end

ASML confirmed on Friday that it had received permission from the Dutch government to export some of its advanced tools to China by the end of the year. It is important to point out that the new export control regulations promulgated by government only involve TWINSCAN NXT:2000i and subsequent immersion lithography systems, so not all DUV lithography machines require a license.

Nvidia's AI chips hit with new curbs for export to Middle East

The U.S. government has restricted sales of Nvidia’s GPUs to the Middle East and some other countries. H100 and A100 chips are critical for training software like ChatGPT, and they are at the center of a global race for computing power as countries seek leadership in AI. Currently, they are already restricted for sale in China and Russia. One of the reasons the Biden administration has decided to require export licenses for A100 and H100 products and servers at its base is to prevent GPUs from being resold to China.

Bosch completes acquisition of California chipmaker TSI Semiconductors

Bosch said on Wednesday it has acquired California chipmaker TSI Semiconductors, a move aimed at building a U.S. manufacturing base for SiC chips that will allow electric vehicles (EVs) to drive longer. Previously, Bosch said in April that it planned to purchase key assets of TSI's chip production facility and invest USD1.5 billion to renovate its Roseville, California plant. And the new company, Robert Bosch Semiconductor LLC, will begin production in 2026.

Google to release new generation AI chips

Google announced major enhancements to both its TPU and GPU portfolio. First, the company is expanding its AI-optimized infrastructure portfolio with Cloud TPU v5e, the most cost-effective, versatile, and scalable Cloud TPU to date, now available in preview. TPU v5e offers integration with Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), Vertex AI, and leading frameworks such as Pytorch, JAX, and TensorFlow, so users can get started with an easy-to-use, familiar interface. 

The company also announced that the A3 VM, a GPU supercomputer based on NVIDIA H100 GPUs, will be generally available next month to power your large-scale AI models.

Russian chipmaker T-Platforms declares bankruptcy, assets valued at $5 million

T-Platforms, the parent company of Russian chipmaker Baikal Electronics, has declared bankruptcy and is auctioning its assets, including intellectual property related to the Baikal processor, one of the few CPU and system-on-chip designers in Russia. The total value of the company's assets is estimated at $5 million.

Mitsubishi Electric completes installation of 12-inch wafer processing line

Mitsubishi Electric announced that it has completed the installation of the company's first 300mm (12-inch) wafer production line at its Fukuyama Factory Power Device Works.

It aims to double the capacity of the company's silicon power semiconductor wafer process by fiscal year 2025 compared to fiscal year 2020. Mass production is scheduled to begin in 2024, and it has been confirmed that prototypes of power semiconductor chips using wafers manufactured on the same production line have been reached the designed performance.

Apple manufacturers may move 50% of production capacity out of China

China has long been at the heart of Apple's highly regarded supply chain, with about 80% of the company's manufacturing partners operating in China, according to Bloomberg. However, as the competitive landscape between China and the United States changes, Apple's supply chain is shifting to Vietnam and India. In addition to cheap labor, these two countries also have close relations with the United States. Therefore, they have become the most popular manufacturing centers in the past decade. And the new production base is changing the way Apple devices are made.

World's top 10 semiconductor manufacturers profits halved in chip downturn

The recession in the semiconductor industry continues. The net profits of the world's 10 largest semiconductor manufacturers plunged 49% in the last quarter and were almost halved, hitting a seven-year low.

In this statistics, they include TSMC, NVIDIA, Samsung Electronics, ST, Qualcomm, Intel, AMD, Texas Instruments, Micron and SK Hynix. The financial results from April to June 2023 (partially from March to May or from May to July) show a total net profit of USD15.1 billion, which fell 49% from the same period last year, and sales fell 19% year-on-year to USD$119.6 billion, the first decline in three years.

AI chips have met shorage due to limited CoWoS packaging capacity

AI chips are out of stock, because both Nvidia H100 and A100 chips production capacities use TSMC CoWoS are limited. According to the analysis, CoWoS packaging interposers are in short supply due to the complexity of the key process and the prolonged delivery of high-precision equipment, which affects the CoWoS packaging schedule and AI chip shipments.