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1.2017 Global semiconductor plant revenue rankings, Samsung surpassed Intel for the first time;
Set micro-grid news, IC Insights recently released 2017 global semiconductor manufacturers revenue rankings, statistics show that this year's global semiconductor plant will reshuffle the rankings, Samsung will squeeze long overlord Intel, made the throne; MediaTek in memory and The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) forces will be squeezed out of ten this year.
IC Insights this survey does not include a professional foundry foundry, TSMC, even if this year's revenue growth, has not yet appeared in the statistical rankings.
According to IC Insights survey, Samsung estimated revenue of 65.6 billion US dollars this year, the market share of 15%, will squeeze out Intel, becoming the world's largest semiconductor plant.This will be Intel from 19 Since 1933, the semiconductor industry has been the leading player for 24 years and surrendered to the champion for the first time.
IC Insights said Intel's revenue in the first quarter of this year is still larger than Samsung and dropped to second place in the second quarter. It is estimated that this year's annual revenue will reach 60 billion U.S. dollars with a market share of 10% Although the revenue was 3.9% more than last year's 57 billion U.S. dollars, it will grow by about 7% annually, but the market share will drop by 1.7%.
IC Insights believes that Intel's revenue growth is still on the scale, on behalf of Samsung can win, not because of Intel's own recession, but Samsung benefited from rising memory prices, driven by the simultaneous growth of revenue growth, and then rise in market share rose.
Memory industry in short supply, prices rose quarter by quarter, in addition to Samsung, the other two memory maker SK Hynix and Micron with the benefit, revenue growth significantly.
IC Insights pointed out that SK hynix estimated revenue this year up to 22.6 billion US dollars, ranking third in the world, compared with the fifth place in the last two places; Micron also because revenues up to 22 billion 400 million US dollars And into the fourth, the same two progress.
Global Netcom chip leader Broadcom revenue this year estimated at 176 billion US dollars, slightly higher than Qualcomm's 17.1 billion US dollars, the world's fifth and sixth largest producer; followed by Texas Instruments, Toshiba, Huida and NXP.
2. From the latest 'Silicon 60' look at the global IC industry trends;
If the 2016 version of 'Silicon 60' blows 'IoT', the main theme of 2017 is machine learning and open hardware ...
EE Times Latest Global 60 Potential Startups List - Silicon 18 18th Edition Released!
If the 2016 version of 'Silicon 60' was to blow 'The Internet of Things (IoT)', the main theme of 2017 is machine learning and open hardware. In addition, these lists also show that venture capital investors turn their target to hard New startups - which usually means a lot of money - and are ready for the next wave of computing architectures and capabilities. Many rising stars are eager to be the next Intel or ARM - though the two big companies are moving the 'food chain 'Development towards subsystems and systems.
Internet of Things, UAVs and autonomous driving technologies continue to be a hot topic in the industry. At the same time, entrepreneurs, global brand manufacturers and national legislatures are racked their brains to find ways to create wealth and people in response to these changes. The well-being of consumers and best practices in consumer protection that make the start-up candidates eligible for the Silicon 60 this year a particularly large number of candidates, from which the EE Times finally picks up 29 new companies that are worth highlighting List.
Some of these 29 new Silicon 60 companies appear to be much more mature than others and may be fortunate enough to see market opportunities come to an end; they include industry players active in wide-bandgap materials, specializing in analogy, mixing Designers of signal, RF and power management ICs / IPs, as well as processors for machine learning and RISC-V architectures, quantum computing, asynchronous logic and memory, lidar, biosensing, wireless power Transmission, energy harvesting, super capacitor and other technology manufacturers.
Regionally, these 29 newcomers remain the largest in the United States, with the rest of the United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland, and Estonia in Eastern Europe from China, Israel, India, Japan, and Western Europe, Northern Europe, Finland, Denmark, there is an industry from South Africa.
The rare South African company, Multifractal Semiconductor, is a leading 5G millimeter-wave millimeter-wave and Estonian rookie Skeleton Technologies, which specializes in supercapacitor technology, is among the top four Chinese companies to include the processor chip designer Phytium Technology, a developer of machine learning platforms DeePhi Technology, developer of AI chip Cambricon Technologies, and memory maker Yangtze Memory Technologies.
29 new and naturally 29 companies have dropped out of the Silicon 60 list; some of these 'graduates' have been acquired and some have certainly been outgrown because they have matured and are no longer suitable for rookies. Silicon 60 'companies still have the chance to meet the investor's dream of a successful IPO or can sell a good price.
The EE Times is an annual update of the Silicon 60 charter since April 2004. The selection criteria include its technical strength, target markets, financial and investment profiles, maturity, and the company's leadership team; we judge these rookies from these standards There are a number of reasons to watch for, and the ones in red are the newcomers to the list. If readers want to nominate a promising rookie, they are welcome to contact EE Times editors and give a brief description of your nomination.
For the latest version of 'Silicon 60' in 2017, please refer to this link.
Compile: Judith Cheng
(Reference text: EE Times Silicon 60: Startups to Watch, by Peter Clarke) eettaiwan
3. Artificial intelligence led ASIC design increased rapidly, product shipments will grow 10.1%;
According to Semico Research, in the coming years, artificial intelligence will appear in nearly every device and application in various forms such as pattern recognition, speech recognition and language translation.
According to a recent survey by Semico Research, artificial voice (AI) voice-activated ASIC designs are expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of nearly 20% until 2021, almost all of ASIC design growth between 2016 and 2021 Double the rate (10.1%).
With the popularity of voice-activated digital assistants such as Amazon Echo and Google Home and the widespread fanatical design of artificial intelligence (AI), startups and incumbents are aggressively developing wafers, adding voice-activated features to their products, and other AI features , Especially in the area of consumption.
According to Rich Wawrzyniak, senior research analyst for ASIC / SoC at Semico, artificial intelligence will appear in nearly every device and application in the coming years in a variety of forms, such as graphics recognition, speech recognition and language translation - these devices And applications have a processor, DSP or FPGA, and some degree of computing resources.
Wawrzyniak said: 'To a certain extent, these types of functions in every level and segment needs exist, we think these features will become a necessity anyway, and may lead to the next wave of semiconductor market growth. '
Semico's 2017 ASIC Design Project Report, written by Wawrzyniak, predicts ASIC product shipments will grow 10.1% between 2016 and 2021, driven primarily by industrial and consumer market growth.On the other hand, Last year, global ASIC shipments grew 7.7%.
According to the report, many traditional terminal applications began to slow down due to market saturation and demand reduction, while applications related to Internet of Things (IoT) are taking off.
Semico said that in addition to the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence, it is associated with smart grids, wearable electronics, solid state drives (SSDs), drones, industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and 5G infrastructures The ASIC product growth rate is also expected to be more rapid in the broader market.
According to Semico's predictions, by 2021, the SoC design project for consumer electronics will grow at 19% CAGR while the Industrial Internet of Things ASIC design project will grow 25%.
The report also predicts that next year, IoT ASIC unit shipments will exceed 1.8 billion units.
Compile: Susan Hong
(Reference text: AI to Spur Uptick in ASIC Design Starts, by Dylan McGrath) eettaiwan
4.NAND Flash fear into the off-season cycle next year;
According to the survey by TrendForce, the supply and demand gap between mobile phones and servers has expanded. In the third quarter, the sales revenue of NAND Flash brands increased 14.3% quarter-on-quarter. However, the industry will enter the off-season cycle in the first half of next year and the market situation will turn to oversupply.
The industry believes that the memory shortage situation will change, depending on Samsung, Toshiba and other manufacturers 3D-NAND expansion schedule may be.
According to the latest report from DRAMeXchange, the overall NAND Flash supply and demand gap expanded in the third quarter compared with the second quarter due to factors such as the rising demand for SSDs in smartphones and servers and data centers during the traditional peak season.
In the fourth quarter of 2010, the demand for smartphones was not significantly affected by the demand for terminals. In addition, the 64/72-layer 3D-NAND products were put into mass production one by one, which has been applied to the SSD product line in priority. As a result, the market gradually balances supply and demand The direction of change, the price of each product line showed the trend of flat to small.It is expected that NAND Flash factory in the case of price is still high, the fourth quarter revenue performance will be sustained and upscale.It is expected that after 2018, with the 64 / 72 layer 3D-NAND development has matured, into the off-season cycle in the first half, the market situation will be turned to oversupply.
However, because the price has gone through a series of long-term increases, the OEMs' acceptance of the upper limit and the contract price of each product line in the 3rd quarter are limited to 6%.
Wang Yanhui, secretary-general of China Mobile Alliance, believes mainland memory makers including Cheung Kong Storage, Jinhua, Fujian and Hexin will enter trial production next year, but many insiders predict that the memory industry may enter the next off-season , Mainland manufacturers not only face the technical update obstacles, but also face the industry off-season, many people in the industry predict that within three to five years the mainland memory industry is not enough to have a huge impact on the current global pattern
5. Intel hopes to conquer the AI market with the Nervana processor;
Despite its impressive chip technology, Intel has not been able to make any significant difference in the hottest artificial intelligence (AI) market in recent years.In order to reverse its weakness, Intel bought Nervana Systems, a maker of deep learning chips, And plans to introduce the first purpose-built Nervana Neural Network Processor (NNP) by the end of 2017.
According to Engadget, deep learning applications such as computer vision and speech recognition typically require matrix calculations on large arrays, which are not a long term for common chips such as Intel Core or Xeon. Intel expects to fill the AI gap with the upcoming NNP , And invited to engage in deep learning and AI exhibition Facebook involved in chip design.
In addition to Facebook's strong social media applications, Intel plans to roll out its AI chips to include healthcare, automotive and meteorology.
Nervana NNP is a purpose-built integrated circuit (ASIC) that enables training and execution of deep learning algorithms with extreme computational efficiency. Intel discards common caches on the CPU and uses special software chips for specific algorithms Memory management, hoping to take this chip computing density and performance to a new level.
Nervana NNP can also support a large number of bi-directional data transmission through high-speed interconnection inside and outside the chip, and if you connect multiple NNP chips, you can form a huge virtual chip to cope with the scale of the deep learning module.
It is worth mentioning that Nervana NNP uses a less accurate Flexpoint format.Naveen Rao, vice president of Intel AI, said neural networks have a fairly high level of tolerance for data-based noise and can even assist The neural network brings together new solutions, and the lower accuracy of Flexpoint helps to increase system parallelism, reduce latency and increase bandwidth.
Before Intel invested in AI development, NVIDIA took the first step through the parallel computing power of the GPU to capture the market, but the GPU was good at algorithmic training rather than execution.On the other hand, Intel's biggest rival, Qualcomm, AI program chip development.
Intel's NNP chip also targets training and execution of AI and will release new versions in succession, in addition to a new neuromorphic chip called Loihi, as well as the Myriad X R & D.
Just as Intel struggled to catch up, NVIDIA also introduced the V100 chip for AI apps and took Clement Farabet as vice president of AI Architecture, hoping to enhance the ability of its chips to execute deep learning programs.
In the meantime, Google has created a Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) chip for its data center application and IBM has released a neuromorphic chip called True North. DIGITIMES
6.SK hynix Q3 revenue growth of 15.4%, Q4 will be the introduction of mass production 72 layer 3D-NAND
According to the latest report by DRAMeXchange, the overall NAND Flash supply-demand gap in the third quarter of this year was affected by factors such as the rising demand for SSDs in smartphones, servers and data centers during the traditional peak season. In the second quarter, the contract price of each product line is limited to 0-6% in the third quarter due to the price has gone through a series of continuous increases in price for a long time. As a result, the price is close to the upper limit accepted by OEMs.
In the fourth quarter, we did not see any extraordinary growth in the demand for smart phones except for the 64-layer and 70-layer 3D-NAND devices, which have been preferentially applied to the SSD product line, making the market gradually move towards Changes in the direction of supply and demand balance, the price of each product line was flat to small up trend.It is expected that the NAND Flash factory in the case of price is still high, the fourth quarter revenue performance will continue to maintain high-end expected after 2018, with With 64/72 layer 3D-NAND gradually matured into the off-season cycle in the first half, the market situation will turn to oversupply.
Samsung Electronics
In the third quarter, Samsung benefited from the launch of new flagship machines by server-side and smartphone makers. The strong demand for high-volume applications reflected double-digit growth in bit shipments and the operating profitability to new highs Revenue rose 19.5% from the previous quarter to 5.62 billion U.S. dollars.
From the manufacturing process and capacity analysis, Samsung 64-layer NAND Flash has started to be used in mobile terminal demand and SSDs since the mass production in the third quarter, and will gradually expand the application of products. It is expected that the overall share of 3D-NAND chips will be reduced by the end of the year Breaking 50% .It is worth observing that, Samsung is reviewing the ongoing expansion of NAND Flash and DRAM production needs of the distribution, and consider the second floor of Pyeongtaek plant for use in the production of DRAM space, which may make NAND Flash future more Easy to return to the market in short supply, is conducive to Samsung's future market strategy.
SK Hynix
Q3 Thanks to the major dynamic effects such as the traditional high season effect, new iPhone 8 / X and China branded mobile phone demand, SK hynix overall bit shipments increased by 16% in the third quarter, but the trend of capacity increase Affected, the average selling price dropped slightly by 3%. In the third quarter, SK hynix revenue reached 1.5 billion USD, up 15.4% from the previous quarter.
Looking ahead to future capacity planning, SK hynix continued to focus on the 48/72 layer 3D-NAND expansion and introduced 72-layer 3D-NAND in Q4 to become the main growth driver in 2018.
Toshiba Semiconductor
In the third quarter, due to the widening supply and demand gap, Toshiba benefited from the rising demand for smartphones and the increase in SSD carrying capacity. Focusing on the supply of new Apple machines, the unit's unit shipments increased significantly. Despite the change in product configuration Resulting in a slight decline in average selling price. Toshiba still achieved a substantial growth of 18.1% over the previous quarter, reaching a level of 2.74 billion U.S. dollars.
In process technology, after 64-layer 3D-NAND Flash officially started mass production in the third quarter, Toshiba continued its efforts to increase its yield and put into production. By the end of 2017, the proportion of Toshiba's 3D-NAND chips will reach 30% %, Expected to see 50% by the end of 2018.
Western Digital
In the third quarter, Western Digital continued to experience significant growth in consumer devices as the traditional peak season and NAND Flash markets continued to be in short supply. On the other hand, the retail business benefited from the acquisition of the SanDisk brand and the original Western Digital branded products The market offers a wide range of options, but as the product mix shifts to higher capacity, the average unit sales price is slightly lower, with overall revenue reaching US $ 2.52 billion, up 8.9%.
From the aspect of manufacturing process, the 64-layer 3D-NAND is maturing under the efforts of Toshiba. The SSD using this process has been mass-produced in the third quarter and sent to major OEMs for testing. The 64-layer 3D -NAND will be gradually imported mobile terminal applications.
Micron
Benefit from the high growth SSD, mobile terminals and other needs, coupled with the market continued to be in short supply, making NAND Flash-related products revenue reached 1.84 billion US dollars, a 7.7% quarterly increase in process technology, Micron and Intel joint venture (IMF) put a lot of effort into the development and application of 3D-NAND. The 32-layer 3D-NAND yield yield is quite mature. The 64-layer 3D-NAND has also been put into mass production and steadily improving the yield.
Intel
Driven by the continued demand for enterprise SSDs, Intel's third quarter revenue reached 8.9 billion US dollars, up slightly from the previous quarter, up 2% in the same product configuration substantially unchanged situation, the average selling price is almost flat, bit out Volume showed a slight growth, the overall product line has been converted to 3D-NAND-based.
In product planning, Intel's development is still dominated by SSD, and accounted for more than 90% of the proportion of 3D-XPoint related applications as it has just started, and the price is still high, the user is still small, the future still need to observe the price Trend and Micron's related applications can be successfully rolled out, have the opportunity to get more OEM customers to use.And the enterprise-class SSD part, customers are gradually transferred to the Purley platform, the PCIe interface to mainstream, Intel and the first in the enterprise-class SSD The introduction of 64-layer 3D-NAND continues to grow revenue for the future through long-term contracts with customers.