1. Liandian won the order of Infineon's MCUs for vehicles and built products with a 40nm manufacturing process
According to the Taiwan, China Industry and Commerce Times, Infineon and United Power announced on the 7th that they had signed a long-term cooperation agreement on automotive MCU to expand the capacity of Infineon MCU in United Power to serve the rapidly expanding automotive market. This high-performance MCU product uses Infineon's proprietary embedded nonvolatile memory (eNVM) technology, and is manufactured in Fab 12i, a 12-inch factory of Unicom Singapore, with a 40-nanometer process.
In 2022, the business volume of Unicom's automotive chips will increase by 82% annually and reach 9% of the overall business. In recent years, Liandian has expanded cooperation with international IDM factories such as Infineon and TI in the field of automotive chips. In 2022, it will also cooperate with Japan Electric Equipment Co., Ltd. The two sides will jointly build the first IGBT production line with 12-inch wafers in the USJC factory of Liandian Japan.
2. Infineon will buy GaN Systems, a GaN start-up, for US $830 million
According to foreign media reports quoted by TechWeb, Infineon will buy GaN Systems, a GaN start-up, for US $830 million in full cash, and both parties have signed a final agreement. Infineon said that the funds for the acquisition will come from the existing working capital, and the transaction needs to be approved by the regulatory authorities. GaN Systems is a start-up company developing GaN-based power conversion solutions, headquartered in Ottawa, Canada.
The deal will strengthen Infineon's gallium nitride (GaN) product portfolio and enable it to provide a complete range of power solutions. One of the key areas that Infineon hopes to benefit from this acquisition is automobile. The company has been investing in the development of on-board charging technology for electric vehicles.
3. IDM industry: the imbalance between supply and demand of automotive chips has improved a lot
According to the Taiwan, China Electronic Times quoted by the Science and Innovation Daily, although the market has been rumored that the momentum of vehicle chips to pull goods has weakened, IDM operators in Europe and the United States are still highly optimistic about the automobile chip market, and generally emphasize that the imbalance between supply and demand of vehicle chips has improved a lot, but the general direction of tightening has not changed, and some products may not reach a real balance until the next year or two.
With regard to the uneven temperature of the market, people familiar with the automotive IC market pointed out that on the one hand, the IDM industry has an absolute advantage in the supply of key high-specification products, on the other hand, it has a higher voice in the design of automotive electronics. These thresholds allow the IDM industry to benefit from the new product opportunities of automotive chips for a long time.
4. The price war for OEM of mature manufacturing process is heating up, and it is said that some wafers will be discounted by 20%
According to the Taiwan, China Economic Daily quoted by IT Home, the price cutting storm in the mature foundry process has expanded, and even the industry has heard that some wafer manufacturers are willing to discount 10% - 20% for customer orders. According to the industry, under the influence of weak market demand and the traditional off-season, the impact on mature processes, especially 8-inch plants, is the biggest. The capacity utilization rate of 8-inch plants in this quarter is generally only 50% to 60%. Because the 12-inch factory can support the advanced process capacity, the machine can be deployed, and there is still demand support for vehicle and 5G communication, the price decline is small.The industry revealed that the mature wafer foundry process manufacturers currently aim to increase the capacity utilization rate. Now if there is a "big order" on the client, the bargaining space is more flexible than before, and the price discount range is up to 20%, but whether the price reduction strategy works is still unknown.
5. IDC: Worldwide PC and tablet shipments are expected to decline by 11.2% in 2023
According to the latest forecast of IDC, the global shipment of personal computers and tablets will fall to 403.1 million units in 2023, down 11.2% year on year, and also lower than the 429.5 million units predicted by IDC's global quarterly personal computing device tracking report in December 2022.As consumers are no longer restricted by the epidemic, the commercial orders for personal computers are basically completed. The market has sent a clear signal in the second half of 2022: endpoint devices are no longer the focus, and 2023 will be the time to clear inventory and adjust priorities. However, IDC predicts that 2024 will be the year of recovery of growth, and the shipment volume of personal computers and tablets will increase by 3.6% to 417.7 million units compared with 2023, exceeding the level before the epidemic.
