Notebook demand may be robust at this moment to support stay-at-home needs in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, which nevertheless is casting a shadow over third-quarter 2020 outlook for notebook ODMs. The pandemic has worsened Washington-Beijing relations with the Trump administration now reportedly increasing pressure on TSMC to build wafer fabs in the US, but the Taiwan-based foundry house has maintained it has no plans to build one in the US. For PCB maker Unimicron, order visibility for ABF substrates is clear through at least the third quarter, but thee is still a chance that clients may postpone product launches due to the pandemic.
Notebook ODMs see clouded 3Q20: Notebook ODMs Quanta Computer, Compal Electronics, Inventec and Wistron are all expected to enjoy strong shipments in the second quarter, but prolonged impacts from the coronavirus pandemic have cast a shadow over their shipments in the following quarter, according to sources from the upstream supply chain.
No specific plans yet for US fab, says TSMC: TSMC has always been evaluating potential locations for an advanced wafer fab overseas, including the US, but no specific plans have been put in place yet, according to the pure-play foundry.
Unimicron embraces brisk orders for ABF substrates: Unimicron Technology has seen clear order visibility for ABF substrates at least through the third quarter, with the orders mainly for 5G infrastructure, networking and HPC chips applications, according to the Taiwan-based IC substrate and PCB maker.