Japan-based Nichia recorded the highest revenues among all main LED packaging service providers worldwide in first-half 2017, with sales reaching JPY132.79 billion (US$1.142 billion), up 4.9% on year, according to Digitimes Research

With regard to the development of smartphone-use panels, Taiwan's top-three TFT LCD panel makers all have been focusing on all-screen displays with an 18:9 aspect ratio recently. The new 6G LTPS fabs of AU Optronics (AUO) and Innolux in Taiwan have entered volume production recently, and a new 6G line of Chunghua Picture Tubes (CPT) in China is expected to come online shortly. CPT's 6G line also plans to develop IGZO panels later

The global smart home market is bracing for fierce competition. Apple is likely to optimize some features of iPhone X for smart home applications; Amazon has launched an additional of five Echo-series products to enhance its Alexa platform; and Nest has unveiled a number of new smart home devices as Google seeks to further expand its partnerships, according to Digitimes Research's latest survey on the smart home market

Global production value for high-brightness LED chips in 2017 is estimated at US$13.179 billion, growing 2.8% on year, and the production value will increase 2-5% annually during 2018-2022, Digitimes Research estimates

With competition in the TV panel market gradually mounting in the above 55-inch segment, some makers have been aggressively establishing new 10.5G production lines, including: China's BOE and CSOT; Japan's Sakai Display Products (SDP); and Korea's LG Display

The production value of the global foundry industry is expected to grow by a CAGR of 6% to reach US$74.66 billion in 2022, the final year of a five-year forecast period, driven by the still growing - albeit at a slower pace - smartphone industry, an increase in the number of ICs used in each smartphones and rising demand for advanced processes

While Nvidia is currently a leading player in the deep learning inference chip market, powered by its GPGPU (general-purpose computing on graphics processing unit) processors, other vendors are offering FPGA-based solutions to contest for market shares

Google has been regarded as the leading force for the development of artificial intelligence (AI) technology thanks to its AlphaGo AI computer program. While Google still holds the advantage in the cloud-AI sector, Apple appears to have outraced Google in the development of on-device AI products with the launch of its iPhone X and iPhone 8 devices

Worldwide top-5 notebook brand vendors' combined shipments grew on month, but decline on year in August. With the consumer notebook sector continuing to lack new innovations to stimulate demand, the overall notebook market may see difficulties growing further by only relying on the contribution from the enterprise area

Despite the fact that Japan Display (JDI) has been operating in the red for a long time, the Japan government is unlikely to let JDI go simply because Japan's automotive electronics industry still dominates the global market, and maintaining its own panel production capacity will continue to be a market niche for Japan's electronics industry, according to Digitimes Research

August 2017 average retail price for 7W LED light bulbs (40W incandescent equivalents) in the China market decreased 6.0% from June 2017 to CNY25.1 (US$3.8), while 9W models (60W incandescent equivalents) increased 0.3% to CNY32.3, according to Digitimes Research

Allocated for use in short-range high-resolution automotive radar at the 2015 World Radiocommunication Conference organized by the International Telecommunication Union, 79GHz (77.5-78.0GHz) frequency band units are expected to gradually replace 24GHz, which is currently widely adopted for automotive millimeter-wave radar sensors, according to Digitimes Research