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Company Trend（Feb. 27）

Samsung unveils HBM with highest-capacity to date

Samsung Electronics announced recently that it has developed a new high-bandwidth memory chip that has broken the record of “capacity” in the industry and will be mainly used in consumer devices such as smartphones and PC. The chip, named HBM3E 12H, with the 12-layer stack design and the innovative thermal pressure non-conductive film technology, achieves the same height specification as the 8-layer product, meeting the current HBM packaging requirements. As a result, the chip has achieved increases in both performance and capacity by more than 50%.

According to Executive Vice President of Memory Product Planning at Samsung Electronics, the industry’s AI service providers are increasingly requiring HBM with higher capacity, and Samsung’s new HBM3E 12H product has been designed to answer that need. This new memory solution forms part of Samsung’s drive toward developing core technologies for high-stack HBM and providing technological leadership for the high-capacity HBM market in the AI era.

It is learned that Samsung has started to supply sample chips to its customers and plans to put HBM3E12H into mass production in H1 2024.

Comments:

OpenAIs ChatGPT and other generative AI models require a large number of high-performance storage chips. Such chips enable the generative AI models to remember the details of past conversations and user preferences in order to generate human-like responses. The HBM3E 12H is expected to be an optimal solution for future systems that require more memory. Its higher performance and capacity will especially allow customers to manage their resources more flexibly and reduce total cost of ownership (TCO) for datacenters.

At the same time, Samsungs release of high-capacity HBM may have impact on its competitors. At present, the HBM market is dominated by a few companies such as Samsung and SK Hynix. Samsungs release of the high-capacity HBM could change the competitive landscape and increase its competitiveness in the market. At the same time, it may also prompt other companies to accelerate the pace of technology development and product upgrades, advancing the whole industry.

Market Trend（Feb. 27）

Japanese research group works with Jim Keller to develop RISC-V AI chip

A Japanese government-backed research group developing semiconductors will partner with US startup Tenstorrent Inc. on the design of its first advanced AI chip.

On this Tuesday, the US company Tenstorrent (led by Jim Keller) said that it will license its design for part of Japan’s AI accelerator and co-design the overall chip at a joint event in Tokyo. Tenstorrent, by adopting the open-source RISC-V standard, aims to provide customers with an alternative to the leaders Nvidia Corp. and Arm who have their own so-called instruction sets to communicate between hardware and software.

The Japanese government is funding a series of projects from research to advanced chip manufacturing, making an ambitious US$ 67bn bid to reclaim a central role in the semiconductor industry. The Tenstorrent agreement has the potential to advance those efforts, with the goal of producing the jointly designed AI chips at the government-backed startup Rapidus Corp.

Comments:

The US startup Tenstorrent Inc. has reached agreement with the Japanese government-backed semiconductor research group on the design of its first advanced AI chip. This cooperation not only highlights Japans ambition in the semiconductor industry, but also demonstrates the world-wide huge potential of open source RISC-V.

This cooperation marks Japans positive attitude in the semiconductor industry. By investing up to US$ 67bn, the Japanese government aims to regain its central role in the semiconductor industry. The collaboration with Tenstorrent not only brings advanced design ideas and technical support to Japan, but also provides a globally competitive platform that helps to promote the development of the semiconductor industry in Japan. However, the production of chips in Japan may face challenges from a series of social problems such as lack of water supply in Kumamoto due to TSMCs earlier presence.

Company Trend(Feb. 28)

Break news! TI laid off all its power chip R&D team in Beijing

According to the latest news, Texas Instruments (TI) has laid off its low-end power chip design team of around 50 people in Beijing. TIs layoff may be affected by a variety of factors, such as sluggish consumer market demand, domestic competition in the power chip industry as well as the current US-China relations.

TI holds the No. 1 market share in the analog chip market, but it does not perform well in recent days. The company’s CEO bluntly stated at last month’s financial report meeting that the company is increasingly weak in the industrial sector this quarter and continuously decline in the automotive industry. Its CFO even pointed out that the recent economic downturn is different from the past and that various industries have experienced declines at different time periods. In addition, TI’s overall business in China is also facing challenges too and it made the decision to relocate its MCU team to India as early as two years ago.

Comments:

Chip giant TI’s approach is not an isolated case. For example, chip giant Qualcomm had removed its WiFi chip team in China last year and shifted business focus to India. Other American chip giants like AMD and Marvell are also gradually reducing their investments in China, and are instead turning to neighboring countries such as India, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Thailand.

Although the analog chip market has a vast development space, its wide product range and wide application areas make it has a strong cycle-crossing capability. In addition, analog chip design relies mainly on the experience of engineers, and the R&D threshold is high. Generally, it takes analog chip engineers 5 to 10 years to accumulate experience before design chips independently.

For Chinese chip enterprises, the development of China’s chip industry has greatly benefited from the R&D centers established by these foreign companies in China, but their collective departure this time has sounded an alarm for us. Chinas domestic chip enterprises, apart from seizing the opportunity of industrial development, also need to actively cope with the pressure brought by the low-end market competition.

Company Trend(Feb. 28)

Qualcomm’s acquisition of Autototalks being investigated

On February 27, the UK antitrust regulator said that it has investigated Qualcomms plan to acquire Israeli auto chip maker Autostats, fearing that the deal could harm free competition in the market. The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has announced that April 25 is the deadline for the first stage decision on whether to approve the deal or submit an in-depth investigation.

Qualcomm announced on May 8, 2023 that its subsidiary Qualcomm Technologies Inc. would acquire Autostats, but did not disclose the purchase price at that time. The company stated that the acquisition would help to enhance its auto safety system products. It is learned that Autotalks is a fabless semiconductor company that has been dedicated to V2X communications since 2009.  The company provides automotive qualified dual-mode global V2X solutions compatible with multiple V2X standards that are designed to reduce collisions and improve mobility experience.

Apart from the investigation of FTC, Qualcomm’s acquisition also faces more investigations. EU recently said that at the request of 15 countries including France, Ireland, Italy, etc., it will investigate whether the acquisition involves market monopolies and it requires approval before proceeding.

Comments:

Qualcomms auto business has grown rapidly in recent years and has increased to the size of US$ 30bn, showing its strong momentum in the automotive sector. This acquisition is an important step for Qualcomm to deepen its landscape in the automotive sector. To address potential concerns about the acquisition, Qualcomm emphasized that the deal was supported by automakers and component manufacturers based on a broad partnership and market base when announcing the acquisition of Autototalks. These automakers include Volkswagen, General Motors, Renault, Continental AG, and Harman International, a subsidy of Samsung. However, the deal was also opposed by anonymous complainants. In particular, MediaTek, a chip manufacturer, raised objection against the deal, which brought some uncertainty to it. This may involve deep-seated issues such as market competition, technology patents or future business directions.

05 Domestic Trend

AMS announced reorganization and its RMB 10bnn fab shifted to foundry(Feb. 26)

According to the announcement issued by the official Wechat account of Jiangsu Advanced Memory Semiconductor Co., Ltd. (AMS), according to the ruling made by the Peoples Court of Huaiyin District, Huaian, Jiangsu Province recently, concluding that AMS would be reorganized. According to the written verdict and the effective reorganization plan, Huaxin Jiechuang Integrated Circuit Manufacturing (Guangdong) Co., Ltd. will hold 100% equity interest in AMS after the reorganization. After the reorganization, AMS will achieve business transformation and become a semiconductor foundry of manufacturing products including but not limited to DDIC, PMIC, and highly reliable storage chips and RF chips.

According to the effective reorganization plan ruled by the court, Beijing Advanced Memory Technology Co., Ltd. (AMT) no longer holds equity in AMS and no longer assumes the operation and responsibility of AMS.

It is learned that AMT fell in a capital predicament due to its plan of investing RMB 13bn in building a 12-inch fab due to incompletion of the project, and paid RMB 863mn according to a judgement execution. The total investment of Huaxin Jiechuang Project will be RMB 20bn and the investment in the first phase is RMB 5bn. The project is planned to achieve a capacity of 200,000 units of 12-inch wafers per year in three years and 600,000 units per year in five years.

AMSFAB’s phase II project settled in Lingang with total investment of RMB 3bn(Feb. 27)

According to the news released by Shanghai Construction Engineering Trading Service Center, the second phase project of Shanghai Advanced Micro Semiconductors Co., Ltd. (AMSFAB) in Lingang New Sub-zone has entered the pre-review of qualification and an open bidding was held on February 27.

It is learned that the second phase of the project of AMSFAB covers electronic communications, radio, television and microelectronics products, and the proposed multi-story plant and warehouse will be 3 stories, with a total investment of RMB 3bn.

According to data, AMSFAB was founded in Lingang of the Shanghai Free Trade Zone in January 2020. As an advanced compound semiconductor foundry, AMSFAB has first-class processes and distinctive solutions, and focuses on providing diversified foundry and supporting services to its customers in the fields of radio frequency ("RF"), power electronics ("Power") and optoelectronics ("OE"), which support products widely used in various terminal applications including communication, automotive, new energy, consumer electronics, automobile, industries and biomedicine, etc. MSFAB offers complete process nodes and one-stop solutions for customers and provides value-added services including design support, MPW wafer services, mask services, wafer testing, failure analysis etc.

Sirius Semiconductor officially opened its Shanghai Automotive Reliability Test Center(Mar. 1)

According to the news released by the WeChat account of Shenzhen Sirius Semiconductor Co., Ltd. (Sirius Semiconductor), its Shanghai Automotive Reliability Testing Center has been officially put into operation.

It is learned that the center is an open testing platform for power devices specially built by Sirius Semiconductor and was set up in Jiading District, Shanghai at the end of 2023. The main business of the center includes the reliability testing and validation of automotive power devices (MOSFET, SiC, GaN, single IGBT + modules) and the center is committed to providing reliability testing and certification reports to the customers of Sirius Semiconductor. Currently, the lab has started the admission process of the coaching facility and is expected to complete the CNAS coaching and certification process in early 2025.

According to the official news, more than RMB 10mn will be invested in the phase I project of the lab. The lab team is composed of about 10 engineers and lab technicians, and the lab is equipped with advanced high-precision reliability testing equipment at home and abroad, and the experiment projects will be carried out in full compliance with the AEC-Q101 accreditation standards, and 15 experiment projects of the first phase have been carried out in full swing.

Currently, the lab can operate the following projects such as Highly Accelerate Atress Test, High Humidity High Temp. Reverse Bias, Autoclave, Temperature Cycling, High Temperature Storage, Temperature Humidity Test, Intermittent Operational Life, High Temperature Reverse Bias, High Temperature Gate Bias, and Scanning Acoustic Microscope.