Core News Headlines
1, STMicroelectronics announced reorganization, the president will leave the company
Comprehensive Seeking Alpha, Telecomlead reported on January 10, chip giant "ST" (ST) announced the upcoming restructuring, the restructuring will be effective on February 5, 2024, the restructuring. The reorganization will see the company transition from three product divisions to two (APMS and MDRF), and will see Marco Monti, ST's former president of the automotive and discrete products group, leave the company, according to the report.
Figure Source:Telecomlead
Among them are Analog, Power & Discrete, MEMS & Sensors (APMS), which will be led by Marco Cassis, ST's president and member of the Executive Committee, and combines ST's analog products, including automotive smart power solutions, power and discrete product lines (including silicon carbide products), and MEMS and sensors.APMS will have two reportable segments : Analog Products, MEMS and Sensors; Power and Discrete Products.
Microcontrollers, Digital ICs and RF Products (MDRF), a group led by Remi El-Ouazzane, ST's president and member of the Executive Committee, covers ST's digital ICs, MCUs (including automotive MCUs), RF, ADAS and infotainment ICs.The MDRF will have two reportable segments: MCUs; and digital ICs and RF products.
In addition to these product group changes, ST plans to implement a novel application marketing organization in all of its regional segment end-markets, catering to the four main end-markets of automotive, industrial electronics and energy, industrial automation and IoT and AI, personal electronics, communications equipment and computer peripherals.ST President and Executive Committee member Jerome Roux will oversee the initiative.
The organizational changes are in line with ST's commitment to accelerating time-to-market, strengthening innovation in product development and improving operational efficiency, said Jean-Marc Chery, ST's president and CEO.
Photo credit: photogallery.com
2, Microchip Technology shows warning: Q3 fiscal quarter revenue decreased by 22%, the decline will exceed expectations
Comprehensive Taiwan Economic Daily, Financial News reported on January 10, MCU maker Microchip Technology (Microchip) issued a revenue warning. Initial estimates for the third quarter of fiscal year 2024 (as of December 31, 2023), a 22% quarterly decline in revenue, lower than the November 2, 2023 financial estimates (quarterly decline between 15% to 20%).
It's worth noting that Microchip isn't the only chipmaker to release disappointing news this month. Previously, Intel's subsidiary Mobileye warned that this quarter's revenue will be reduced by 50% annually, far less than the market expected growth, mainly due to the accumulation of inventory of EyeQ chips for automotive chip customers.
The CEO of Microchip Technology said, "The weak economic environment that our customers and distributors faced in the fourth quarter of last year resulted in many of them wanting to receive lower shipments as they took actions to further reduce inventory risk." Many customers also experienced extended downtime at the end of the quarter, and as a result of these and related factors, the backlog of orders that Microchip Technology had estimated to ship at the time of its November 2, 2023 earnings release was not shipped to customers by the end of the December 2023 quarter. It is reported that the company on February 1 will announce the third quarter full financial results.
According to the report, Microchip Technology is the world's leading 8-bit MCU market share, the scope of its chip applications is quite broad, in the industrial, automotive, consumer, defense, communications and computer markets, the customer base of more than 125,000, due to the coverage of diversified and many customers, and therefore known as an important indicator of the semiconductor market to observe. According to the market, Microchip's earnings report pulled the alarm, revealing that market conditions in automotive, consumer electronics and other areas continue to be sluggish.
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Fabless/IDM
3, Intel will launch automotive "AI PC" chip, to buy Silicon Mobility
Reuters reported on January 10, Intel said on Tuesday that it will launch the latest artificial intelligence chip version of the car, in the semiconductor market to compete with Qualcomm and Nvidia. And it said it would buy French startup Silicon Mobility, which designs system-on-chip technology and software for controlling electric vehicle motors and on-board charging systems.
Intel's new automotive system-on-a-chip offerings will utilize the company's recently introduced AI PC technology to meet the durability and performance requirements of cars, the head of Intel's automotive business said. Chinese automaker Krypton will be the first automaker to use Intel's automotive AI chips to create an "enhanced living room experience" for vehicles, including AI voice assistants and video conferencing.
Photo credit: Reuters
4, SK Hynix considers easing production cuts as demand improves
Pulse News reported on January 10 that storage maker SK Hynix CEO Kwak Noh-Jung said during CES 2024 that the company is considering changing its production reduction strategy in the first quarter, as the DRAM market is showing signs of improvement.For NAND, the production reduction strategy will be adjusted in the second or third quarter according to the market situation.
5、Samsung rumored to order dozens of TC bonding machines to boost HBM and DDR5 production capacity
The Elec reported on January 10 that Samsung has ordered dozens of thermal compression (TC) bonding machines from its subsidiary Semes. Since TC bonders are used to stack DRAMs and are necessary for manufacturing high bandwidth memory (HBM) and DDR5, the order suggests that Samsung may focus on advanced DRAM production this year. In view of the large order of TC bonding machine, it is expected that Samsung will also order the Syndion (for silicon through-hole TSV etching), Damascene SABRE 3D made by the Pan-Lin Group, both of which are also used in the production of HBM.
6, Qualcomm said automotive chip business is expected to exceed sales expectations; announced the latest XR chip cooperation manufacturers list
IT home reported on January 10, at CES 2024, Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon said in an interview that the company's automotive chip business is expected to exceed sales expectations, which will help reduce Qualcomm's reliance on the chip business for cell phones and other electronic products. The company expects sales in its automotive chip division to reach about $4 billion by 2026, and revenue from its automotive chip business to increase to $9 billion by the end of the 20s of this century. In addition, Qualcomm announced a list of partners for its XR chip Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2, which in addition to Samsung includes HTC Vive, Immersed, and Playing Out Dreams Technology.
Materials / equipment
7, semiconductor equipment leader set a full-year goal, revenue growth rate of up to more than 40%
Sci-Tech Daily reported on January 10, domestic semiconductor cleaning equipment leader Shengmei Shanghai 9 after-hours announcement, is expected to 2024 full-year revenue will be between RMB 5 billion and 5.8 billion. According to the previously forecasted median revenue for 2023, its 2024 revenue will increase by 26.58%-46.84% year-on-year. It is also the first A-share company to disclose its 2024 revenue forecast.
Also according to this announcement, Shengmei Shanghai's 2023 revenue is expected to remain unchanged at between 3.65 billion yuan and 4.25 billion yuan (the same range as disclosed on January 3, 2023), with year-on-year growth of 27.04%-47.93%. According to the original plan, Shengmei Shanghai will be the first company to disclose its annual report on the Science and Technology Board (STB), and its official annual report for 2023 will be disclosed on February 29, 2024.
Manufacturing/Sealing
8, sources say TSMC continues to expand CoWoS packaging capacity, Q1 will reach 17,000 wafers / month
Taiwan Electronic Times reported on January 10 that TSMC's December sales of NT$176.3 billion were down 14.4% sequentially and 8.4% year-on-year; 2023 sales of NT$216.174 billion were down 4.5% year-on-year. According to industry sources, TSMC continues to expand its CoWoS packaging capacity despite recent market rumors that NVIDIA has scaled back orders with TSMC foundries for 2024. The fab equipment maker said that TSMC's available CoWoS capacity is still not enough to meet demand. By the end of 2023, CoWoS capacity will be only 15,000 wafers per month.
TSMC is currently modifying some of its InFO (integrated fan-out) equipment to support CoWoS production, which still handles the majority of advanced packaging shipments.Monthly production capacity for CoWoS packaging is expected to reach 17,000 wafers in the first quarter of 2024. TSMC also allocates more fab capacity for CoWoS production, which will result in a quarterly increase in monthly capacity for CoWoS packaging in 2024, eventually reaching 26,000-28,000 wafers.
9, Sun Micron 2023 revenue of more than 581.9 billion NT, capacity utilization rate of nearly 65%
Taiwan Economic Daily reported on January 10, semiconductor sealing and testing maker Sun Micron 2023 fourth quarter consolidated revenue of NT $ 160,581 million, up 4.2% sequentially. Sun Micron 2023 average capacity utilization rate of about 60 ~ 65%, annual consolidated revenue of 581.914 billion NTD, although down 13.3%, but still the second highest performance of the calendar year. It is estimated that the capacity utilization rate will rebound to 70~80% in 2024, and this year's revenue and profit are expected to be better than that of 2023.
Industry trends
10, SIA: semiconductor sales in November 2023 increased by 5.3% year-on-year, 2024 will achieve double-digit growth
The U.S. Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) announced that global semiconductor industry sales totaled $48 billion in November 2023, a 5.3% increase over the $45.6 billion total in November 2022, and a 2.9% increase over the $46.6 billion total in October 2023.The SIA CEO said, "November 2023 global semiconductor sales were up year-over-year for the first time since August 2022, indicating that the global chip market continues to strengthen as we enter the new year, with the global semiconductor market expected to realize double-digit growth in 2024."
11, the industry said 2024 memory supply chain operations are expected to turn losses into profits
Taiwan Electronic Times reported on January 10, memory quotes from the second half of 2023 to start a strong rise in DRAM prices are expected to see a double-digit increase in the first quarter of 2024, benefiting from the memory demand and offer rebound, storage plant operating performance has gradually stabilized. The industry is optimistic that in 2024, the memory supply chain operations are expected to turn a loss into a profit and return to growth momentum.
12, Ming-Chi Kuo: Android phone inventory replenishment is coming to an end, demand improvement or lower than market expectations
TechCrunch Daily reported on January 10, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said in a post on the X platform that the inventory replenishment of major Android phone brands since 2023Q3 is expected to end in January 2024 for all. Looking at the changes in shipment estimates and order visibility, the improvement in demand for Android phones may be lower than market expectations. Currently non-Chinese market shipments of low-end cell phone estimates have begun to be revised downward, cut orders generally in the double-digit above, emerging markets, local brands even up to 40-50% above the cut orders.
13, pen electric ODM factory: 2024 visibility is weak, Q1 for the traditional off-season
Taiwan Electronic Times reported on January 10, notebook ODM manufacturer Quanta pointed out that 2024 expectations can be comparable to the 2023 shipments, but visibility is weak; Compal has not yet provided the 2024 outlook, said only that the first quarter of 2024 is the traditional off-season, notebook shipments are estimated to be a double-digit reduction in the ring.
In addition, the three major notebook foundries Quanta, Compal, and Inventec have recently released their latest notebook shipment data. Among them, for the year 2023, Quanta's laptop shipments amounted to 46.9 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 19%; Compal shipped 34 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 13.4%; Inventec shipped 18.7 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 5.56%.
14, 2025 NVIDIA DRIVE Th
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U.S. Semiconductor Index ETF (SOXX.US)
Tencent's self-selected stock data shows that the U.S. Semiconductor Index ETF (SOXX.US) closed at $559.68 on Jan. 9, up 0.03%, with a total volume of 981,400 shares.
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Information from Seeking Alpha, Telecomlead, Sci-Tech Board Daily, Reuters, Pulse News, The Elec, IT Home, Financial News, Taiwan Electronic Times, Taiwan Economic Daily, Caixin, Haitong eHaitong Caixin, Tencent Self-Selected Stocks, etc., summarized and collated by Today's Core News, for the sole purpose of communication and learning. If you need to reproduce, please indicate the original source!