Before the Lunar New Year, HTC disclosed that a portion of its extended reality (XR) research and development team would be incorporated into Google during the first quarter of 2025. Furthermore, Google will acquire non-exclusive licensing rights to HTC's XR intellectual property for a sum of US$250 million.

Amid uncertainties in the Chinese market and reduced spending by automotive chip and power semiconductor manufacturers, Japanese semiconductor equipment makers have revised their sales forecast for fiscal year 2025 (April 2025 - March 2026). Nevertheless, demand for advanced process chips, especially those needed for artificial intelligence (AI), is anticipated to lead to a 5% year-over-year sales growth in 2025.

China's Changxin Memory Technologies (CXMT) has reportedly adopted the 1z process for its 10nm-class DDR5 production, prompting heightened concern at Samsung Electronics, which is now closely monitoring the status of advanced DRAM production in China.

During the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, China's Vice Premier Xuexiang Ding stated that there are "no winners" in a trade war while acknowledging the numerous difficulties and challenges currently facing the Chinese economy.

Japanese semiconductor cleaning equipment manufacturer Screen plans to increase its semiconductor manufacturing equipment production capacity to 120% of the 2023 level by fiscal year 2026 (April 2026–March 2027), aiming for annual revenue of approximately JPY600 billion (approx. US$3.9 billion) to meet growing demand in semiconductor manufacturing.

Since the discovery of graphene in 2004, research over the past two decades has advanced the use of 2D materials in semiconductor manufacturing, with academia playing a crucial role in driving their integration into advanced processes—a trend likely to continue.

China's wafer foundry industry will generate US$13.22 billion in revenue in 2024, representing a 16% year-on-year growth, slightly exceeding the global growth rate of 14%. The revenue momentum of China's wafer foundry industry stabilized in 2024, supported by the availability of new production capacities and sustained customer demand driven by geopolitical factors and the ramp-up of inventory stocking for the consumer electronics supply chain in preparation for the shopping season in the second half of 2024, according to DIGITIMES.

As TSMC's Arizona semiconductor fab prepares to begin mass production, the local semiconductor supply chain continues to strengthen. Industry experts suggest that if Trump promotes semiconductor production in the US through measures like increased tariffs, the trend of semiconductor supply chains concentrating in key places like Arizona will accelerate further.

As Samsung Electronics gears up to release its fourth-quarter 2024 financial results, industry observers are closely monitoring the company's progress in meeting its high bandwidth memory (HBM) business targets for the year. However, according to recent reports from South Korean media, Samsung's HBM shipments for the quarter are projected to exceed 20 billion gigabytes (GB), significantly below the company's original goal of 30 billion GB.

The global IC design market is expanding rapidly, driven by the growth of AI. However, South Korea's system semiconductor sector, which currently holds a modest 2% market share, faces further decline due to inadequate government support. Projections indicate that the country's share could shrink to approximately 1% by 2027.

GigaDevice, a Chinese manufacturer of NOR flash memory and MCUs, recently disclosed its performance forecast for 2024. The company projects a net profit jump of over fivefold.