Components shortage has been troubling the PC sector for months. PC brand vendors, seeking to secure components supply, have moved to directly place orders with IC design houses, skipping their ODMs. Apple is expected to unveil two miniLED-backlit MacBook Pro devices later this year. As its present supplier of miniLED backlighting applications is unlikely to be able to fully support the production for the new devices, Apple reportedly has enlisted Osram Opto as a second supplier. Qualcomm is gearing up its deployment in the notebook processor market. Its 5G PC processors are targeting the high-end commercial segment and the lower-end consumer/education segment.
With AMD and Nvidia debuting their new gaming GPUs, the DIY PC market particularly the high-end segment is poised to grow in the second half of the year when the latest flagship graphics cards hit market shelves. In the handset market, Apple is keen on pushing 5G mmWave technology. Over 50% of the shipments for the next-generation iPhones to be launched later this year will come with mmWave support. And TSMC has unveiled its tech development in an online symposium.
The amounts of capex set by Korea's top-three telecom operators, SK Telecom (SKT), Korea Telecom (KT) and LG U+, in 2021 and 2022, respectively, will be higher than those seen in 2020, according to Digitimes Research.
The number of Chinese makers in Apple's top-200 supplier list for 2020 is comparable to that of Taiwanese firms. But industry observers believe Taiwanese suppliers' manufacturing flexibility still give them some advantage in the Apple supply chain over their Chinese competitors. GigaDevice, who in 2020 unseated Taiwan's Winbond Electronics as the sole NOR flash supplier for Apple's AirPods, is eyeing a bigger share in the TWS device market. The annual IT tradeshow Computex has kicked off its 2021 edition - a month-long virtual event.
Rising popularity of electric vehicles (EV) has grabbed global attention. Poised to replace internal combustion engines, EVs are considered the new trend in the era of sustainability. A storm of competition ignited by Tesla, is brewing in the EV market, with traditional US and European automakers are pushing into in-house battery development and manufacturing with an aim to secure bigger cost advantages in the coming decades.
As electric vehicle (EV) development becomes a global effort, batteries that play a vital role to EVs' cost-performance ratios are a focus to manufacturers with ambitions to expand in the EV market. Both traditional and new automakers have considered battery technology development and production capacity to be importance to their overall planning. Automakers across Europe, America, Japan, Korea and China are actively engaging in battery solution research and production line build-up.
The car industry, hit hard by chip shortages, has been scrambling for foundry capacity support. UMC's latest US$3.5 billion fab expansion project has already obtained pre-payment commitments from chip vendors, the latest reportedly being NXP. Notebook vendors do not expect demand to weaken much in 2020, with current notebook supply remaining far short of demand amid serious component shortages. For Acer, PC sales are booming, but its non-PC business has seen even stronger growth.
The COVID-19 pandemic has undersocred the world's over-reliance on China's manufacturing capacity, and accelerated the diversification of the global supply chain, with many firms seeking to building or already building more manufacturing plants in South East Asia. Such a "China+" production diversification strategy presents the nultinational corporations (MNC) with plenty of new opportunities and challenges - in terms of operation, compliance and environment.
Demand for ABF substrates from chip vendors has been strong, wiht new orders placed now unlikely to be delivered until 2023. Some chip vendors have offered higher prices trying to jump the queue, but ABF substrate suppliers have had to turn them down because of their tight capacity. Chipmakers are also striving to secure supply for aQFN leadframe, with the segment's order visibility already extending to February 2022. Memory prices are poised to rise in third-quarter 2021, with NAND flash pricing to climb faster than DRAM.
Globalization has changed the ways how supply chains are managed but has also increased risks. Southeast Asia is promising to be a major alternative for supply chains seeking to diversify their risks. But it will take time and a lot of investments for supply chains to reduce their reliance on production in China.
Chinese handset vendors are turning pessimistic about shipment prospects amid tumbling demand in India where COVID cases have been soaring. Chinese handset vendors have now further cut their overall shipment goals for 2021. In China, LCD panel makers are increasing capacity at their existing 8.6G and 10.5G lines, rasing concerns about oversupply. In Taiwan, Micron is set soon to ramp up production at a new fab for DRAM built using 1-alpha-nm node.
The US and China have been clearly in a standoff, sparring over tariffs and technologies. This has resulted in supply chain reshuffle for some industries. US president Joe Biden signed an executive order on February 24, 2021 mandating a review of critical product supply chains in the US with the aim of bringing manufacturing back the US and rebuilding localized supply chains. Taiwan-based manufacturers caught between the two giants may not afford to choose sides, but they can still find room for survival.
Apple's supply chain is gearing up for the upcoming iPhones. Apple is expected to adopt flexible AMOLED for all of its next-generation iPhones to be launched later this year and will outpace Samsung to become the top buyer of AMOLED smartphone displays this year. TSMC has kicked off production for the A15 processors. Meanwhile, chip shortages are expected to undermine server production at ODMs through the end of the year.
In view of intensifying US-China confrontation and Taiwan actively promoting its New Southbound Policy, many Taiwan-based suppliers intend to meet increasing capacity demand by relocating manufacturing to Southeast Asia and building new industrial clusters there to tap the demographic and geographic advantages as well as rapidly growing market demand in the region. They look to replicate their experiences in China and make Southeast Asia the next world factory that will support rising needs as the global supply chain makes transitions to accommodate "G2" (US vs China) developments.
Taiwan-based networking device assemblers continue to relocate their production lines from China back to Taiwan or to Southeast Asia, despite a recent surge in COVID-19 infections locally.
