Worldwide semiconductor sales totaled US$573.5 billion in 2022, the highest-ever annual total and an increase of 3.2% compared to the 2021 total of US$555.9 billion, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA). Sales slowed during the second half of the year, however.
Among the growing ambiguity in the global environment, a number of well-developed semiconductor equipment manufacturers based in China have emerged, with some already capable of producing sub-28nm fab tools, according to industry sources.
China-based Montage Technology, dedicated to memory interface products and PCIe retimer chips, has recently kicked off volume production of its latest PCIe5.0/CXL 2.0 retimer, which adopts advanced signal conversion technology to boost signal integrity and increase the effective transmission distance of high-speed signals.
Memory chipmakers including major ones have come under intense inventory pressure, prompting suppliers engaged in the industry supply chain to be cautious about shipment pull-ins from terminal device customers that may not take place until the fourth quarter of this year, according to industry sources.
News from South Korea's semiconductor sector pointed out that Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix have recently stopped a "bomb sale" that began back in the fourth quarter of 2022. To clear excess DRAM inventory, the two manufacturers have been previously selling at a price that's 40% lower than the average selling price (ASP). The sector interpreted the normalization of DRAM prices as a sign that inventory issues have been resolved for now.
DRAM spot prices have continued their downward trend in January 2023, as buyers from end markets remain cautious about procurement and order pull-ins, according to industry sources.
Samsung Electronics has reiterated its policy of non-artificial production cut and will keep its 2023 capex budget unchanged at the 2022 level, aiming to boost its cost competitiveness to counter poor semiconductor sales performance in the fourth quarter of the past year. It remains to be seen whether or not the policy can work well.
Taiwan-based makers received export orders totaling US$52.17 billion in December 2022, down 23.2% on year, according to the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA).
Powertech Technology (PTI) chairman DK Tsai has warned of tough market conditions that will be challenging the memory and logic IC backend house in the first quarter of 2023.
Server DRAM prices are likely to drop 20-25% in the first quarter of 2023, as cloud service providers continue to slow down on server procurement, according to TrendForce.
The semiconductor industry can learn from its past development history for making changes needed to cope with the trends and phenomena of the automotive industry.
The new breed of industrial policies formulated to rekindle its semiconductor industry is taking hold in Japan. The Japanese government is offering subsidies to TSMC to build a wafer foundry in Kumamoto, promoting collaboration between Japan and the US to develop advanced processes for fabricating chips below 2nm and supporting the establishment of the local foundry house, Rapidus.
Taiwan's memory module and SSD vendor Team Group is optimistic that its revenues will return to a growth track in 2023, expecting annual sales for the year to grow 23% on year to NT$8.3 billion (US$273.93 million) on increased shipments of large-capacity SSDs and datacenter-use memory modules.
ROM and NOR flash memory specialist Macronix International has started mass producing its in-house developed 96-layer 3D NAND flash memory, marking a milestone in the chipmaker's NAND business.
Tsinghua Unigroup Co.'s new owners are exploring ways to stave off creditors after completing a $9 billion takeover, including industrial property sales and floating fast-growing business units such as a local rival to Qualcomm Inc.
Samsung Electronics reportedly is quietly reducing NAND flash production by lowering capacity utilization for the chips to 90% in response to sluggish demand, after resisting doing so for a while, according to industry sources.
To sustain their leaderships in the global memory market, South Korean memory makers have to step up the development of new-generation memory technology and memory-based logic chips, and should also drop the traditional academia-industry collaboration mode for talent cultivation, according to South Korean academic experts.
Micron Technology announced that its DDR5 server memory portfolio for the data center is now fully validated on the 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processor family. Micron DDR5 memory delivers up to twice the memory bandwidth over previous generations, which is essential to fueling the rapid growth of cores in today's data center processors, according to the memory chip vendor.
DRAM maker Nanya Technology swung to net losses of NT$1.15 billion (US$37.8 million) in the fourth quarter of 2022 when revenue fell 27.8% on quarter. The results marked the company's first quarterly loss in 10 years.
Micron Technology has announced the Micron 9400 NVMe SSD is in volume production and immediately available from channel partners and to global OEM customers. The drive is designed to manage the most demanding data center workloads, particularly in artificial intelligence (AI) training, machine learning (ML) and high-performance computing (HPC) applications, the company said.
Global semiconductor industry sales in November 2022 declined 2.9% sequentially to reach US$45.5 billion, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), quoting data compiled by the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) organization.
Memory and logic IC backend specialist Powertech Technology (PTI) Group has reported revenue still edged up 0.16% on year to NT$83.93 billion (US$2.75 billion) in 2022, despite lackluster market sales of memory chips and consumer logic chips.