The war between Russia and Ukraine has been going on for over a year and a half, and unfortunately, it shows no signs of slowing down. Thousands of people have been killed and billions of dollars worth of damage has been done. Despite this, the two sides have yet to sit down for peace negotiations. Russia has continued to make advances in Ukraine, seemingly unaffected by the embargo that has been imposed on it. However, it appears that Russia may not be as troubled as we thought. Semiconductors made by Japanese manufacturers are still making their way into the country. Here are the details…

China a major transit point for Japanese semiconductors to Russia

Russia has been facing a global backlash for its invasion of Ukraine. Many countries have condemned the invasion and imposed sanctions on Russia, which have caused economic difficulties for the country. Some companies, such as Apple and Samsung, have also withdrawn from Russia. This was intended to put pressure on the Russian government to withdraw from Ukraine, but it has not yet had the desired effect.

Japan has imposed sanctions on Russia, but Japanese-made semiconductors are still finding their way into the country. This is because the semiconductors are being sent through intermediary countries, such as China. Japan’s Foreign Exchange Law only applies to direct exports from Japan, so it is difficult for the Japanese government to stop the flow of semiconductors through third-party countries.

In 2022, Japan exported $11 million worth of semiconductors to Russia. China was the top destination for these exports, accounting for over 70% of the shipments, followed by South Korea and Turkey. The Japanese government has tightened its export controls on semiconductors, but it is still difficult to stop the flow of these products to Russia. Unfortunately, it is unknown whether this extra measures will work or not.

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(via)

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US sanctions on semiconductor exports to China have minimal effect on the industry as companies are creating different variants of microchips, especially for the Chinese market. 

As part of a deliberate effort to stifle China’s domestic semiconductor industry, the US has been gradually limiting the access of Chinese companies to advanced chipmaking technologies. The sanctions bar US companies like Nvidia Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc from exporting the latest chips to China.

However, Nvidia Corp and other technology giants facing strict US sanctions have managed to overcome the restrictions by producing customized versions of their chips exclusively for the Chinese market. 

According to a Reuters report, these chips are not cutting-edge and may take 10% to 30% longer to perform certain AI tasks, potentially doubling the costs compared to Nvidia’s top-performing chips in the US. Despite the reduced speed of Nvidia’s chips designed for the Chinese market, they still provide a significant upgrade for Chinese companies. 

Nvidia is currently providing its H800 chips to some of the biggest technology companies in China, such as Tencent, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, and Baidu Inc, for their use. Nvidia has stated that the U.S. government’s intention is not to damage competition or American industry and that U.S. firms are permitted to offer products for commercial purposes, such as providing cloud services to consumers.

What are the major US Sanctions?

The US has implemented two types of sanctions on semiconductors. Firstly, they have imposed a limit on a chip’s ability to perform exceptionally accurate calculations, with the intention of curbing the creation of military-focused supercomputers. Secondly, there is a constraint on chip-to-chip transfer speeds, which has an impact on artificial intelligence. For instance, technologies like ChatGPT rely on models that are too vast to be contained on a single chip, necessitating distribution across thousands of chips that need to intercommunicate.

The US announced controls on technologies for making advanced chips, including 14-nanometer, 16-nanometer, and even shorter-length chips, in an effort to limit China’s progress in fields such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and ballistic missile development. Despite these efforts, there are indications that China may have already made significant strides in producing chips smaller than 14 nm. For instance, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC), China’s biggest contract chip manufacturer, claimed to have successfully produced 7 nm chips last year, though questions remain about the sustainability of this production.

China’s Semiconductor Industry

China’s current semiconductor capabilities are not on par with those of countries like Taiwan, the Netherlands, or the US. However, since the launch of the Made in China 2025 initiative Chinese companies have made progress in different aspects of the semiconductor industry

China’s semiconductor industry comprises a diverse range of companies, including fabless semiconductor firms such as ZhaoXin, UNISOC, and HiSilicon, as well as integrated device manufacturers like Yangtze Memory Technology Corp and ChangXin Memory Technologies.

With almost one-third of the global sales, China currently holds the position of the world’s largest semiconductor market. The semiconductor industry is a significant contributor to China’s technology sector, which comprises around 30% of its GDP. 

According to Cade Daniel, a software engineer at San Francisco-based start-up Anyscale, the industry had anticipated that AI models would continue to grow in size two years ago. If that were still the case, the current export restrictions would have had a much greater effect. However today, while the restrictions are noticeable, they are not as catastrophic as they could have been.

Moreover, the process of chipmaking involves the synchronization of numerous disparate resources and sophisticated technologies, including raw silicon ingots, rare earth metals, and more which cannot be easily achieved by any country. 

However, China has a three-decade headstart in developing its collection of skilled chip engineers, rare earth metals, and numerous domestic suppliers. Thus despite being behind the global leaders in semiconductor technology, China has the ability to bounce back from the restrictions and compete with global leaders in the near future. 

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(via)

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Recent reports suggest that Japan is planning to restrict the export of Photoresists to China. This speculative news has led to an increase in the share price of many domestic companies in China that make photoresists. Investors are also rushing to buy companies that possess the technology, tools, and potential to manufacture photoresists, which are needed to make semiconductors. 

Last week, Jiangsu Nata Optoelectronic Material Co saw an increase of up to 34.31 yuan per share. The company specializes in photoresist technology and makes a particular type of photoresist used in semiconductors. Crystal Clear Electronic Material Co, which produces ultra-pure materials for major semiconductor firms like Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp, ChangXin Memory Technologies, and Hua Hong Semiconductor, saw an increase of 7.3% in its share price. Chemical manufacturers Shenzhen Rongda Photosensitive & Technology Co and Shenzhen Tongyi Industry Co gained almost 20% last week. These two companies specialize in making chemicals that are used in chip manufacturing processes.

What is Photoresist and why is it important?

A photoresist is a light-sensitive substance that is used in photolithography technology which is the standard method of printed circuit board (PCB) and microprocessor fabrication. Photoresists are made up of polymers, sensitizers, and solvents. It plays a vital role in manufacturing semiconductors. 

The global photoresist market is dominated by Japanese and American companies. Japan is almost a monopoly in this industry with just four Japanese companies the JSR, Tokyo Ohka Kogyo, Shin-Etsu Chemical, and Fujifilm Electronic Materials, having a combined 72.5% market share. Moreover, the high-resolution KrF/ArF semiconductor photoresists and the advanced EUV photoresist tech are available with Japanese companies only. 

If Japan stops the sale of Photoresists, then it will be difficult for China to manufacture advanced semiconductors. Though China has made huge progress in producing photoresists, it still relies on Japan for advanced technology.  Domestic producers can make photoresists for legacy nodes, but the high-end photoresists must be imported from Japan. 

According to Xuan Jiyou, a researcher at the Kandong Research institute, Even though China has progressed in this field and made breakthrough research in photoresist technology, it will take a long time for the country to produce high-end photoresists on a large scale. 

Related:

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(source)

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If you are a citizen of the 21st century, you have probably heard of FAANG, the world’s 5 biggest companies that are running our modern-day tech industry, or as folks call it – Big Tech. FAANG is an abbreviation for Facebook (now rebranded as Meta), Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google.

However, a recent report this week seems to indicate that FAANG is no longer relevant in today’s market and that today, Big Tech is now spearheaded by 6 new leading tech giants that make up MATANA, and they are Microsoft, Amazon, Tesla, Apple, Nvidia, and Alphabet (the parent company of Google).

In a recent video interview with Yahoo Finance Live, Constellation Research Principal Analyst & Founder Ray Wang states that the FAANG abbreviation should be reassessed as it no longer reflects the current market trends. 

In the interview, Wang debates that MATANA is an upgrade from FAANG as the new abbreviation added Microsoft, Tesla, and Nvidia into the Big Tech lineup whilst dropping Facebook and Netflix from the list altogether. 

The main reason behind the current market trend is because of both Facebook and Netflix are facing fierce competition from their industry rivals, whilst facing backlash from their audiences as well as regulations from governing bodies worldwide.

On the topic of Meta, Yahoo Finance quotes Wang, “Facebook has got to do something besides ads.” “Once again, they’re taking a beating for it. So, is it going to be the glasses? Is it going to be the metaverse? We’re not there yet and that’s really kind of what the challenge is.”

As for Netflix, Wang comments, “The reason they’re out is because, how many more subscribers? How many more subscriptions are you going to handle?” “Product placement should be where they are, plus the ability to do IP licensing. Look at how Disney makes its money.”

Thus, it seems as if the days of Meta and Netflix as market leaders in the industry are numbered, and unless both companies provide new and innovative products in the markets fast, they may end up the likes of Nokia, Blackberry, and other once globally dominant technology brands.

Coming to Microsoft and Nvidia, the analyst had several insights to share about them. To quote Wang via Yahoo Finance:

“Microsoft has more than just business-to-business and consumer – they’ve been able to manage both,” he said. “They’re positioned well for the metaverse. They’re positioned well for the cloud and, of course, they’ve got their gaming business.”

“Nvidia is a lot more than just the chips that we look at and more than the data center or gaming,” Wang said. “They’re sitting at the edge between AI, the metaverse, the future of computing, and the way they do their partnerships, they’re set up in a way that’s going to be dominant for quite some time.”

As for Tesla, people had already heard the story of Elon Musk many times, and that he is now the world’s wealthiest man on Earth. And despite the current negative press on Tesla cars, the company sales are still growing and projected to grow further as the world switches away from petrol and gas vehicles to the more environmentally friendly electrical vehicle alternative.

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Samsung Electronics on Friday broke ground for a new semiconductor research and development complex in Giheung, South Korea, with the goal of extending its leadership in cutting-edge semiconductor technology.

The South Korean tech giant intends to invest approximately KRW 20 trillion ($15 billion) by 2028 in the complex, which will span approximately 109,000 square meters on its Giheung campus. The new facility will apparently spearhead advanced research on next-generation devices and processes for memory and system semiconductors, as well as the development of innovative new technologies based on the company’s long-term roadmap.

Samsung hopes to surpass the restrictions of semiconductor scaling and strengthen its competitive edge in semiconductor technology by establishing the new R&D facility.

Back in 2019, Samsung stated intentions to spend KRW 133 trillion ($100 billion today, $115 billion in 2019) on semiconductor R&D by 2030. The business devoted KRW 73 trillion ($54.6 billion) to R&D operations in South Korea, thus investing $15 billion in a single R&D site fits perfectly with this strategy.

The new R&D center will collaborate with Samsung’s existing R&D line in Hwaseong (which focuses on memory, system LSI, and foundry technologies) and the company’s Pyeongtaek production complex.

“Our new state-of-the-art R&D complex will become a hub for innovation where the best research talent from around the world can come and grow together,” said President Kye Hyun Kyung, who also heads the Device Solutions (DS) Division. “We expect this new beginning will lay the foundation for sustainable growth of our semiconductor business.”

It is Samsung’s first semiconductor R&D facility of this scale and will fuel the company’s ambitions to create more competitive logic and memory chips.

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ARM Processors are the foundations for all smartphone chipsets we see today. Whether it be a Qualcomm Snapdragon, MediaTek Dimensity, Apple Silicon or Samsung Exynos chipset, chances are that all the aforementioned silicon SoCs (system on a chip) are using ARM’s technology which includes its wildly popular ARM Cortex CPU Cores and ARM Mali GPUs.

Today, the ARM Limited tech giant has revealed the company’s earnings and profits for the fiscal year of 2021, and to the company’s investors’ delight, ARM had generated record-breaking yearly sales revenue and profits in the business throughout 2021.

In the media statement, ARM reveals that its 2021 total revenues were up by 35% when compared to 2020, totalling at 2.7 billion USD with strong growth in both royalty and non-royalty revenue streams. And as for profits, the company generated record EBITDA adjusted profits of 1 billion USD, which is up by 68% compared to 68%. Overall, the ARM company’s profit margins after adjustment is a high 37%.

Going into the specifics, ARM’s 2021 licensing (non-royalty) revenues were up 61% to 1.13 billion USD as the brand’s expanded product portfolio and new business models such as ARM Flexible Access gave more customers more reasons and more ways to license ARM technology.

As for royalty revenues, ARM’s 2021 figures were up 20% from 2020 to a record 1.54 billion USD, helped by continuing strong growth of 5G smartphones, more ADAS and IVI chips going into cars, and price increases in 32-bit microcontrollers.

In his closing remarks, Mr Rene Has, CEO of ARM said: “Our record results demonstrate that the demand for ARM technology and the strength of the ARM ecosystem has never been greater – our compute platform will power the next set of technology revolutions across cloud computing, automotive and autonomous systems, the IoT, the Metaverse and beyond.” 

“As we look ahead to a future built on ARM, our priority is to continue to deliver on our business strategy, enable partners with the solutions they need through further investment in our roadmaps and engineering talent, and together with our ecosystem redefine the future of computing,” Mr Rene added.

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As global demand for silicon processors continue to surge, TSMC (the world’s largest semiconductor manufacturer that accounts for more than 50% of the production of the chipsets found in our smartphones, smart cars and computer of today) has achieved an all-time high record-breaking monthly sales for the company in 2022.

According to a report by Taiwanese news site Focus Taiwan, TSMC has put out a media statement stating the company has witnessed sales earnings of 172.56 billion NTD (5.81 billion USD) in the month of April 2022, setting a new record earnings figure for the company. 

For context, TSMC’s previous record earnings were 172.18 billion NTD (5.78 billion USD), which the company had achieved earlier in January of this year. Compared to March 2022, TSMC April 2022 earnings were up by 0.3 percent and compared to April 2021, the company’s earnings grew up by 55 percent. 

And from January to April 2022, the company had amassed a total consolidated sales earnings of 663.64 billion NTD (22.29 billion USD) in the first 4 months, which is a 40.1 percent increase over last year.

As for the future of the company, TSMC also forecasted in its statement that it would earn 17.6 billion to 18.2 billion USD in consolidated sales in Q2 2022, and that based on the median sales forecasts, the company’s quarter-on-quarter growth would reach 1.9 percent.

According to TSMC‘s second-quarter sales forecast, industry analysts said the chipmaker was expected to generate 162.7 billion NTD in revenue for May and 175.8 billion NTD for June on average consolidated sales.

Therefore, analysts claim that they did not rule out the possibility that TSMC would report another new sales high for the following two months after April.

TSMC earnings has remained on a positive trend because of strong global demand for tech devices in 2022, and the company is expecting its sales to grow 25 percent to 29 percent from a year earlier. It cited HPC (high processing computing) devices like the Apple Silicon and automotive electronics as the two pillars of the expected sales growth.

And despite the increasingly serious COVID outbreak in Taiwan currently, the chipmaker has also anticipated that its production capacity would still remain fully utilized throughout 2022.

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TSMC plays a crucial role in the semiconductor industry as the company is behind manufacturing the foundational silicon chip wafers needed for chip suppliers such as Qualcomm and MediaTek to build their smartphone chipsets. 

As TSMC reveals its Q1 2022 quarterly earnings report this week, Neil Shah, the VP of Counterpoint Research also recently shared a report on the breakdown of the TSMC’s clients by platform.

Historically, TSMC’s highest revenue earner is the smartphone industry with tech giants like Apple, Qualcomm and MediaTek ordering their small yet high-density chip wafers for smartphone chipset production. However, in Q1 2022, in an unexpected upset, it seems that the HPC(high-performance computing) market has dethroned the smartphone market in being TSMC’s highest revenue earner among its clients base.

High-performance computing normally refers to the processors found on your desktop or laptop as these processors require higher clock speeds and in turn have higher power draws. Among TSMC’s HPC clients are Apple’s M1 Series of Apple Silicon SoCs for its Macbooks, AMD with their Ryzen desktop and laptop CPUs and their Radeon GPUs, and Nvidia with their MX and GTX lineup of budget to midrange dedicated graphic cards.

Looking back at the data, HPC which accounts for 41% of TSMC’s revenue has surpassed smartphones which only account for 40% of the company’s revenue. For revenue growth trends by platform, TSMC concluded that its HPC client revenue rose 26% quarter-on-quarter for Q1, making it one of the highest growing industry clients for the company. The other vital industry is the automotive industry which has also seen a growth of 26% quarter-on-quarter in the first quarter of 2022.

Another graph published by Counterpoint Research also points out that the newest 5nm and 7nm advanced nodes now account for 50% of TSMC’s revenue portfolio as of Q1 2022. This may be due to the fact that smartphones and HPC Clients such as Apple, AMD, MediaTek and Qualcomm have been placing orders with TSMC in regards to their latest high-density chip wafers for better performance in consumer smartphones and consumer laptops.

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ARM Processors are the foundations for all mobile chipsets we see today. Whether it be a Qualcomm Snapdragon, MediaTek Dimensity, Apple Silicon or Samsung Exynos chipset, chances are that all the aforementioned technologies are using ARM’s technology which includes its wildly popular ARM Cortex CPU Cores and ARM Mali GPUs.

In the early 2020s, Nvidia initially had plans to acquire the British semiconductor design company, ARM Limited, from its parent company, Softbank Group, the Japanese technology conglomerate headquartered in Tokyo for over 40 billion USD. However, Nvidia’s plan was disrupted due to rising regulatory conflicts with the US government and the acquisition was terminated in February 2022.

The aftermath of this was that Softbank now values its ARM chip-making business as more crucial to the entire tech industry. So valuable in fact, that Softbank is actually considering listing its ARM business as an entity on the US NASDAQ Stock Market to gain more funding to further develop the company.

According to Nikkei Asia, industry sources say that SoftBank wanted the NASDAQ IPO(Initial Public Offering) to take place by the end of March 2023, meaning that ARM needs to complete auditing between June and September this year, as per NASDAQ listing procedures.

However, ARM has one problem that has yet to be resolved to complete its internal organisation auditing, which is its tense relationship with ARM China, the Chinese subsidiary of ARM.

Ever since 2020, ARM has struggled to regain control of ARM China as the subsidiary’s head, Allen Wu, has refused to relinquish power despite a 7-1 board vote in June 2020 to kick him out. The spat has made it difficult for ARM to audit the financials of the company, creating a major stumbling block to an initial public offering in the US.

Because of this, ARM decided to now transfer its shares in its wayward China joint venture to a special purpose vehicle that it jointly owns with its parent SoftBank Group Corp. A partner at the U.S. law firm Katten Muchin Rosenman, Han Lijie, commented that creating a special purpose vehicle that will not be part of the offering will allow ARM to indirectly hold ARM China shares. That means it can treat ARM China as an investment rather than a subsidiary when reporting financials.

The move by ARM is seen to be clever, as it is now able to speed up its plans to go public if it decides to list in the US.

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Have you ever encountered a situation where your personal desktop or laptop did not have enough RAM to run a task? Or was your RAM not sufficient enough to prevent the programme from stuttering? And was that task keeping 15 tabs open on Google Chrome? 

If you answered yes to any of the 3 questions above, then Samsung might have the solution for you. Introducing Samsung’s latest DDR5 RAM solution, where technology now enables a user to possess 512GB of DDR5 memory on a single RAM stick.

As one of the current industry-leading suppliers of DDR4 memory, Samsung is planning to take the lead in the development of DDR5 RAM. Recently Samsung posted a video on its YouTube channel, highlighting the latest features of Samsung DDR5-7200 module technology.

Samsung‘s new 512GB DDR5 RAM modules refine the firm’s layer stacking memory packing tech, as used in its latest DDR4 memory modules. In the diagram below, you can compare the difference between Samsung’s 4-layer DDR4 memory chips, with the 8-layer DDR5 chips, both connected using Samsung’s Through Silicon Via technology. 

Through grinding of the silicon layers Samsung has been able to make the constituent dies 40 per cent thinner, and similarly reduced layer spacing – thus these much denser DDR5 integrated chipsets are actually thinner, at 1.0mm vs 1.2mm. In turn, Samsung will be able to manufacture a single 512GB RAM stick with 8 stacked DRAMs connected together.

Last but not least, Samsung claims its DDR5 technology is twice as fast as the previous generation, claiming speeds of up to more than 6400Mbps.

However, the increase in performance does not affect power efficiency because Samsung’s DDR5 technology is actually 30% more power-efficient than its previous generation thanks to the lower required voltages to run the DDR5 RAM.

Samsung has mentioned that it will be supplying DDR5 RAM to data centres, smartphone manufacturers and laptop manufacturers alike. And whether 512GB DDR5 RAM sticks will reach the hands of consumers, is a question reserved to be answered in the 2020s.

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Samsung has joined forces with Hyundai Motor Co. to collaborate with the South Korean government and some agencies to tackle headlong the global chip shortage. The agreement recently signed by both companies and the Korean Electronics Technology Institute, the Korea Automotive Technology Institute, and the Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy will foster a more robust local supply chain for vital semiconductors needed for many production processes within the country.

While the local automotive industry will be the primary beneficiaries of the new collaboration between Samsung and Hyundai, there are possible global implications if the partnership is successful. Samsung and Hyundai will develop next-generation super-efficient semiconductors, battery management chips, image sensors, and application processors for in-car entertainment/ information systems.

The semiconductor industry is a long-term and capital-intensive industry. Therefore the dividends from the partnership, if sustained, could take several years to become visible. Samsung is already pursuing research in an alternative wafer production template, with a focus on 12-inch wafers. This could also revolutionize chip making across different types.

The moves by both companies are long-term efforts to shore up the development of the automotive industry. They could be a culmination of the corporate social responsibility initiatives of both companies. The goal remains to establish a strong supply base for the local production of semiconductors for the automotive industry in its home market.

In line with its desire to bridge the supply gap in global chip shortage, Samsung Electronics had announced expansion plans for its existing chip manufacturing plants. The company has also made progress in developing innovative solutions like the new PixCell LED intelligent headlight technology, which is being deployed specifically to the automotive industry.

The fine details of the Samsung Hyundai collaboration including timelines and deliverables will be unveiled soon.

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The semiconductor sales rose by 6.5 percent overall across the globe last year. The main recovery of the chip sales arrived after the final quarter saw a strong performance that offset the initial sharp decline of the industry owing to the Coronavirus pandemic.

According to a Reuters report, the global chip sales in 2020 reached 439 billion US Dollars, out of which, 208 billion US Dollars or about 47 percent of all sales were from US chipmakers. Notably, chip sales in the US alone accounted for 94.15 billion US Dollars, which is up by 19.8 percent year on year over 2019, as per information from Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA).

As per Falan Yinug, director of industry statistics and economic policy at SIA, the primary reason for the chip sales rise in the US was driven by the rising demand for high end memory chipsets that are used in applications like data centers. This was further backed by major American tech giants like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google seeing a surging rise in demand in the use of cloud computing during last year as business shifted towards the digital realm for online education to even remote working.

Despite American firms accounting for nearly half of all semiconductor sales during this time, the companies only represented about 12 percent of the chip manufacturing capacity in 2020. This marks a decline from 37 percent in 1990, after most US based companies now outsource their chips to factories established in Asia. John Neuffer, president and chief executive of the industry group also added that “Over the next 10 years, semiconductor manufacturing is going to grow 56 percent. We want to make sure we’re getting a bigger piece of the manufacturing pie.”

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Huawei is apparently planning on manufacturing its own chipsets. Reportedly, the Chinese tech giant will be announcing its plan on creating its own semiconductor chips without requiring any US equipment or components.

According to an RT News report, sources have claimed that Huawei is already considering this route seriously and that part of their manufacturing of chips will be ready by the end of this year. In other words, the company will begin its chip manufacturing process, at least partly, by the year end and compete with industry giants like Samsung, TSMC, Intel, and more.

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The move from Huawei is said to be a way to bypass the US, which has been pressuring the Chinese OEM. For those unaware, the US government introduced certain sanctions that banned its chip supply from TSMC, and are further extending the ban to include its supply chains as well. However, the report suggests that the restrictions on Huawei only push it forward to build its own chip manufacturing process.

Unfortunately, this report is still unconfirmed so take it with a pinch of salt for now. Furthermore, RT News is funded partially or wholly by the Russian government, so the legitimacy of its claims is rather in the gray at the moment. Huawei has yet to comment on the matter either, although, manufacturing semiconductors is an extremely complicated process so we will have to wait and see if the company actually manages to pull this move off.

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Arm has just announced that it is planning to spin off two of its IoT businesses. Earlier today, the known chip designer said that it would be transferring these divisions to SoftBank Group, who had also acquired Arm back in 2016.

With the announcement, Arm also mentioned that it would be focusing on its core business, which is its semiconductor IP business. The firm is a known chip designer and its architecture has been used by various different companies. Furthermore, the transfer of these two businesses is currently pending additional review from the company’s board, although, this process is expected to be completed before the end of September.

UP NEXT: Huawei likely to overtake Samsung as the world’s largest smartphone maker in Q2 2020

The move from Arm will have it see its way out of the IoT Platform and Treasure Data businesses, but, the company said that it would continue to cooperate with the ISG (IoT Services Group) businesses. In other words, Arm will retain its business on the compute IP aspect of the IoT, while the data software and services aspects will be handled by the two divisions individually.

According to ARM CEO, Simon Segars, “Arm believes there are great opportunities in the symbiotic growth of data and compute. SoftBank’s experience in managing fast-growing, early-stage businesses would enable ISG to maximize its value in capturing the data opportunity. Arm would be in a stronger position to innovate in our core IP roadmap and provide our partners with greater support to capture the expanding opportunities for compute solutions across a range of markets.”

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According to Jimmy Goodrich, vice president of global policy at the Semiconductor Industry Association, a trade group based in Washington DC, “Semiconductors are arguably humanity’s greatest achievement to date. They’re still central to everything that’s modern or electronic, whether you’re driving a car, or surfing the internet, or using a supercomputer-everything is ultimately based on a semiconductor and lots of them.” If you think this assertion isn’t correct, ask Chinese firm ZTE which almost went bankrupt when the US government imposed a ban which prevented the company from using US technology. Even though the biggest challenge was the use of Google’s Android OS, the company would have lost out entirely because a flagship phone without Qualcomm’s latest chipset isn’t really one.

The semiconductor industry continues to post some gains as the market experiences boom. Preliminary results released by Gartner show that worldwide semiconductor revenues totalled US$476.7 billion in 2018 which is 13.4% higher than the revenue in 2017. The Memory chips solidified its ranking as the largest semiconductor category as it reportedly accounted for 34.8% of total semiconductor revenues, an increase of 31% from 2017’s revenue.

In terms of ranking, Samsung maintained its lead of the market and even increased the gap solidifying its position as the No. 1 vendor. Samsung’s impressive revenue is tied to the DRAM market, an analyst at Garner disclosed. He went on to state that despite building on the growth established in 2017, Samsung’s overall gains due to its memory chips accounted for half the 2017 growth rate.

Read Also: Samsung announces record profit for Q3 2018 despite a decline in smartphone sales YoY

Gartner’s report also reveals that the top-4 vendors in 2017 retained their ranking in 2018. This means Intel still remains the second largest semiconductor manufacturer. Intel’s semiconductor revenue is said to have grown by 12.2% compared with 2017, driven by a combination of unit and average selling price (ASP) growth. At the third position is SK Hynix, while Micron Technology is in the fourth position. Qualcomm moved from the fifth largest chipmaker in 2017 to the sixth position in 2018 while Broadcom moved a step up. The rest of the top 10 comprises Texas Instruments, Toshiba, Western Digital and NXP. However, Gartner projects the current rankings may see significant change this year due to expectations that memory market conditions will weaken in 2019 in the face of rising US/China tensions.

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