Apple, keen on boosting its services sales, is fast expanding its opwn datacenters. The US vendor is expected to see a sharp rise in purchases of server components in 2020 and 2021. Meanwhile, demand for 8-inch foundry support has been strong. UMC is ready to raise quptes for its 8-inch fab capacity, which it expects to stay tight for the long term. And UMC is identified as one of the possible beneficiaries if the US threat of balcklisting SMIC materializes, which would shake up the foundry scene
Apple raises datacenter server component purchases: Apple has been stepping up its purchases of datacenter server components since second-quarter 2020 with related shipments in full-year 2020 expected to double on year and to continue to grow in 2021, according to sources from Taiwan's server upstream supply chain.
UMC likely to raise foundry quotes for 2021: United Microelectronics (UMC) has seen its fabs particularly 8-inch ones reach full capacity utilization, and is mulling raising its foundry quotes for 2021, according to industry sources.
Possible SMIC blacklisting may reshape pure-play foundry landscape: The potential blacklisting of SMIC, China's largest pure-play foundry, by the US government may shake up the second-tier pure-play foundry market segment.
