Set micro-grid reported on March 3 foreign media sources, is now headquartered in Singapore's Broadcom company plans to complete the headquarters in mid-May from the transfer of Singapore to the United States.
Broadcom said in a tender offer to Qualcomm in November that it relocated its headquarters to the United States but did not give any details of the time, and in a letter a few days ago to Qualcomm shareholders, Broadcom emphasized moving headquarters to United States.
In the event of a successful transfer, CFIUS will no longer review the merger on the grounds that cybersecurity provided by the foreign company's mergers and acquisitions.
May 6, Broadcom will hold a general meeting of shareholders, shareholders will vote on the transfer of the headquarters of the 'once voted, the relocation of headquarters will be implemented quickly, as soon as the mid-May will be completed.' Informed sources said.
If Broadcom successfully moved back to the United States, it will evade regulatory obstacles caused by the mergers and acquisitions by foreign companies, including the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense and the Energy Bureau and other departments have made CFIUS recommendations to mergers and acquisitions will affect the United States Security, I hope CFIUS intervention and strict review.
The U.S. Foreign Investment Commission (CFIUS) is a federal government committee comprising the heads of 11 government agencies and five observers, and the U.S. Treasury Secretary serving as chair of the committee. The CFIUS is comprised of members from the Department of Defense, the Department of State, and the Department of Homeland Security Wait.
Prior to this, CFIUS was optimistic about the merger in spite of various prompting, and the U.S. Treasury Secretary said he was not sure whether CFIUS will have the authority to review because the acquisition has not really taken place so far. However, for Broadcom Of the six directors, CFIUS will be audited, because these shareholders may control the Qualcomm board of directors.
Broadcom believes that CFIUS fears a bit redundant, Broadcom can not and is not willing to control Qualcomm's board of directors.
In addition, Broadcom said in a statement released on Friday reiterating its confidence in the release of regulatory authorities within 12 months of the announcement of the deal after it reached an agreement with Qualcomm on the takeover. Zhang Yi group)
2.MIC Analyst: Huawei sells mobile phone AI chip;
Huawei Mate 10 Series smartphones were officially released in Munich, Germany in October last year. The Mate series is dominated by business customers and the hardware and software are the highest specifications of Huawei mobile phones. The Mate product launch was most notable The Kirin 970, a processing chip with artificial intelligence (AI) computing capabilities, accelerates the core with AI operations, providing camera mode optimization and communication quality enhancements.
The Kirin 970, a SoC developed by Huawei, is based on the quad-core ARM Cortex-A73 with the quad-core Cortex-A53 processor and the ARM-developed GAL 12 core processor from the previous generation Kirin 960 Compared with 16nm FinFET, the use of TSMC's 10nm process to make the area reduced by 40%.
In the camera shooting quality, the resolution maintains 12 million pixel RGB lens and 20 million pixel black and white camera, and enhance cooperation with Leica dual lens aperture to f / 1.6 outside, the use of dual ISP (Image Signal Processor) chip, enhanced motion detection , Low-light photography and other modes.And through the ISP's functional enhancements, focusing on hybrid areas, for flat areas, monochrome objects and other difficult to focus scenes to enhance speed and face tracking focus strategy to improve the face to face focus.Huawei The test found that the Mate 10 boosts image sensor capability by 25% and speeds up the shooting process by 15%.
In recent years, the focus of smart phone marketing has shifted to camera photography, music quality and call quality, etc. The overall performance of Huawei Mate 10 no longer emphasizes the processor operation speed, but the camera quality and audio experience. Enhancements, mobile phone developers can not rely on chip manufacturers to provide solutions, their own hardware and software also need to have the ability to integrate due to the complexity of the AI computing model, the image recognition in addition to extending the focusing time, will significantly increase cell phone energy consumption will shorten the phone Of the use of time, it is bound to have the overall structure of the hardware specifications adjustment, in order to meet the needs of AI applications.
In addition to integrating the TensorFlow Lite platform, the Huawei Kirin AI platform also provides its own HiAI platform that enables developers to optimize their performance for the Kirin 970 hardware architecture. However, the HiAI platform can only be used on the Kirin 970 chipset, and currently Models are limited, so the third-party providers, for the development of intelligent machine software less attractive.
Qualcomm also integrates its own components such as Hexagon DSP, Adreno GPU and Kryo CPU and introduces the Snapdragon Neural Processing Engine platform to provide an SDK approach that enables AI application developers to speed up their software operations with the Snapdragon processor The writer is a senior industrial analyst at the Policy Committee MIC
3. The global chip industry under the wave of mergers and acquisitions, 'China Core' counter-attack how long?
Under the pressure of slowdown and rising costs, the chip industry has caused a wave of "mergers and acquisitions" since 2015 in order to simplify the organizational structure and product line.
On March 2, according to Reuters, chipmaker Microchip Technology Inc. announced that it will acquire Microsemi Corp. in cash for US $ 68.78 at a total of 8.35 billion U.S. dollars, A premium of 7% over the closing price of the acquired company on March 1 of $ 64.3.
Currently, the deal is awaiting the consent of the shareholders of Micronesia, which is expected to be completed in the second quarter of this year JP Morgan Chase as financial adviser to Microchip Technology (91.29, 2.27, 2.55%), Will provide $ 5.6 billion for Microchip Technology acquisition financing.
Public information shows that Microsem is a California-based Aliso Viejo company that provides high-performance analog and mixed-signal integrated circuits for aerospace, defense, communications, data center and industrial applications. Semiconductors .
Microchip manufactures a variety of chips, Gartner's data show that Microchip microcontrollers shipped the world's first 8-bit microcontrollers ranked first in the world with a total of 45 sales offices, three factories, with 4,500 employees this time Trading will enhance Microchip's strength in the areas of computers, communications and the like.
However, this is only the latest case of chip industry restructuring, the chip industry mergers and acquisitions, Baotuan heating has lasted for a long time.
Data from financial data provider Dealogic show that in 2014, the global chip industry acquired 369 full-year mergers and acquisitions with a transaction volume of 37.7 billion U.S. dollars.
The figure continues to rise by 2015. According to a report released by the International Semiconductor Industry Association, in 2015, the global chip industry's M & A transactions exceeded 600 billion U.S. dollars at the time, and it was estimated that it would be 116 billion U.S. dollars in 2016 and 930 yuan in 2017 respectively One hundred million U.S. dollars.
The Broadcom acquisition of Qualcomm was also proposed in 2017, Qualcomm asked Broadcom the offer price to 160 billion US dollars, and covers Qualcomm 25 billion US dollars in debt, once the transaction is successful, this Will become the semiconductor industry's largest mergers and acquisitions history.
Although China's chip industry has made some progress in recent years, under the tide of global chip industry consolidation, Chinese enterprises are also under tremendous pressure.
Global chip industry mergers march
Dealogic data show that the number of chip companies since 2015, the number of mergers and acquisitions was 276 cases, compared with 369 cases in 2014, the number of chip companies mergers and acquisitions is on the decline, but the scale of a single merger transaction is even greater.
All-weather science and technology statistics found that in 2015, the world's largest mergers and acquisitions chip industry is Avago Technologies acquisition of Broadcom 37 billion US dollars in the transaction, the cash amounted to 17 billion US dollars, the stock value of about 200 billion US dollars.After the merger, the new company's Corporate value will reach 77 billion US dollars.
In July 2016, Softbank acquired ARM for 23.4 billion pounds (about 31 billion U.S. dollars) in one fell swoop, making it the # 2 semiconductor acquisition in the history of the semiconductor industry.
In just three months, the record was broken by Qualcomm.In October 2016, in order to expand the chip category, expand the scope of business, Qualcomm announced the acquisition of NXP for 47 billion USdollars, set a new record in the size of the chip M & A transactions.
In 2017, the size of individual acquisitions continued to rise, and in November last year Broadcom proposed a $ 103 billion acquisition of its peer Qualcomm at $ 70 a share, including $ 60 in cash and a $ 10 Broadcom stock.
Subsequently, Qualcomm rejected Broadcom's acquisition, saying the offer is too low, 'seriously underestimated' the value of Qualcomm some Qualcomm investors said Broadcom need to raise the purchase price to at least $ 80 per share. The acquisition of the tug of war between the commencement .
Recently, the Financial Times said Qualcomm has given up its intention to oppose being acquired by Broadcom, and is willing to reach an agreement on the chip business. Qualcomm also requires Broadcom to increase its offer to 160 billion U.S. dollars, and covers Qualcomm's 25 billion U.S. dollars of debt Once the transaction is successful, it will become the largest M & A deal in the history of semiconductors and the new company will become a super giant, changing the existing pattern of the entire chip industry and making Broadcom the third-largest in the industry after Intel (48.98, 1.14, 2.38%) and Samsung Electronics, in the field of wireless communications chip will be in an absolute monopoly position.
Why blow up the wave of M & A?
For a long time, due to the slowdown in growth, rising costs and other pressures, chip makers through mergers and acquisitions, on the one hand access to new technologies, on the other hand to cut manufacturing, sales and development costs.
In 2015, Gartner predicted that the global semiconductor industry will see a decline of 0.8% in revenue in the same year, the first decline since 2012. According to the data of 2016, the revenue of the semiconductor industry was $ 339.7 billion, a decrease of 1.5% from 2015 The total revenue of the 25 largest semiconductor manufacturers increased by nearly 7.9% .This environment of low growth or even decline of the chip industry will not be improved until 2017.
But many of the chipmakers are high capital outflows but can not get high returns. Samsung, for example, spent roughly two-thirds of its capital expenditures in 2017 on semiconductors and nearly a third on display As S & P Global Market Intelligence data show, Samsung's investment in new facilities or existing facilities that make semiconductors, displays and other products has nearly doubled, so its capital expenditures in 2017 surpass those of PetroChina US dollar) and China Mobile (27 billion US dollars), topped the top 10 list of 2017 capital expenditures.
Samsung's profit growth has shown a 'weak' status.According to Samsung's 2017 fourth quarter earnings report, its operating profit of 15.1 trillion won (about 92.1 billion yuan), lower than the average Reuters survey of analysts expected Value (97 billion yuan).
In November 2017, Morgan Stanley (54.74, 0.25, 0.46%) still pointed out in its research report that due to the falling prices of flash memory chips, the chip industry has been nearing its peak.
Aware of this trend, chip companies are using mergers and acquisitions to reduce costs.Anwar high technology was then expected, after its successful acquisition of Broadcom, from 2017 onwards can save $ 750 million cost.
There are even industry experts who say the reduction in the number of chip makers is expected to ease price competition and industry survivors could integrate complementary product lines, a situation that can cut sales channel inputs and manufacturers can sell large quantities for better synergy Working chip products.
On the other hand, for the acquirer, to a large extent it can help them expand their business scope, access to new technologies, and even to some extent against competitors.For example, through the acquisition of Cosemi, Broadcom can find a gap to further open the domestic chip market , At the same time, photodetector chips can make Broadcom fiber communications services in the further strengthening of Intel's acquisition of Altera gained the latter's FPGA technology, which can block ARM in the data center.
The International Semiconductor Industry Association also predicts that in the next ten years, the semiconductor industry is likely to enter the vertical integration stage from the horizontal integration to the vertical integration. From the horizontal to the vertical, the overall strength of chip manufacturers is getting stronger and the industry concentration is getting higher and higher , The pattern of oligopoly may be further strengthened.
China core or counter-attack
The worldwide tide of mergers and acquisitions has a far-reaching impact on the development of China's chip industry.
From the point of view of smartphones, IDC data shows that Huawei, OPPO and Xiaomi rush into the top five smart phone sales in 2017, except for Huawei. Other manufacturers' chip supply chains are highly dependent on foreign companies such as Qualcomm.
In January of this year, Qualcomm also announced that it has signed agreements with Lenovo, OpOpp, Vivo and Mi respectively MoU, the four companies said they intend to purchase Qualcomm value of not less than 2 billion US dollars RF front-end components within three years.
In the future, supply chain enterprises in the event of unexpected (such as mergers and acquisitions, product prices), China's major mobile phone manufacturers will be under attack even if Chinese companies can make some favorable conditions for the development of the domestic industry through mergers and acquisitions review, it is still difficult to stop the merger itself .
In recent years, with the double support of policies and funds, the development of China's chip companies has achieved some success.
In June 2014, the State Council promulgated the "Outline for Promoting the Development of the National Integrated Circuit Industry", which set a strategic target for realizing the leap-forward development of China's chip industry in a relatively short period of time.
Only two months later, 15 state-owned funds (hereinafter referred to as "big funds"), such as CDB Finance, China Tobacco and China Mobile, jointly set up a national fund for the design, testing and testing of the chip industry chain Wafer manufacturing and other key areas to provide financial support.
The initial plan of the fund is 120 billion yuan, and the actual fund-raising is nearly 140 billion yuan. At the same time, the total scale of the IC development fund set up by local governments at all levels has exceeded 300 billion yuan. In less than a year, the 'big fund' The project invested 40 billion yuan, including a number of leading companies in the domestic chip field, such as Ziguang, SMIC (6.66, 0.10, 1.52%), ZTE, Changjiang Electronics, etc. By the end of 2017, the National Integrated Circuit Industrial investment funds have invested over 70 billion yuan, of which about 60% of the funds to invest in semiconductor manufacturing.
According to statistics from the China Semiconductor Industry Association, China's IC industry achieved sales revenue of 433.55 billion yuan in 2016, up 20.1% over the same period of 2007. Among them, the chip design industry at the high end of the industrial chain continued its rapid growth with sales of 164.43 billion yuan, up Up by 24.1%.
The IC Insights report shows that among the top 50 global pure chip design companies, only one Chinese company, Huawei, is a Chinese company in 2009. In 2016, the number of Chinese companies entering the list increased to 11, including Hass, Spreadtrum, ZTE, Datang, NARI, Huawei, RDA, ISSI, Rockchip, All winner, Montage.
In 2017, China's chip industry also achieved some dazzling achievements: Huawei Haisi released the world's first 10-nanometer technology AI chips; equipped with a domestic chip supercomputer 'God of the Taihu Lake Light' won the world's super-field Three consecutive years; purple and Hass one of the top ten chip design companies in the world ranks among the top 50 chip design in the world, Chinese enterprises accounted for 11 seats; Huawei also successfully used in high-end models a large number of HiSilicon Kirin chips, No longer controlled by people.
Compared with the international advanced chip technology, China's chip industry still has a certain level of development gap.With the advent of 5G era, China's chip industry in 2020 to completely get rid of dependence on foreign companies there are some difficulties.
According to an article from People's Daily on March 1, 'China Chip' is still facing many challenges if it wants a true counter-attack, one of which is the technology gap and the other is the weakness of the production level, but the article thinks 2018 will become China 5G chip key years of development, I believe that with strong policy support, coupled with the tireless efforts of domestic manufacturers, China 5G is bound to truly lead the world in the near future.
4.Dialog CEO: Our cooperation with Apple can last at least until 2020;
According to foreign media reports, Jalal Bagherli, chief executive of Apple supplier Dialog Semiconductor, told a German newspaper interview that the company expects a large part of Apple's 2019 and 2020 devices will be Continue to use its chip.
"The Eurozone newspaper quoted Bahri on Saturday in an interview as saying:" Apple commissioned the chip design for many of our devices in 2019 and 2020 earlier this year. "Dialog Semiconductor is Apple's power source Management chip (PMIC) supplier, its largest customer is Apple.
Since the touch screen supplier Taiwan Shenghua Technology, image processor supplier Imagination Technologies and other suppliers have been abandoned by Apple, many suppliers in the Apple supply chain has been uneasy worried about the same fate.
For these suppliers, Apple is their largest customer, once the loss of this big client, these companies immediately into financial difficulties, the share price has plummeted, eventually even reduced to the brink of bankruptcy.
Earlier, the industry frequently heard that Apple may abandon rumors of cooperation with Dialog.Recently known investment website www.fool.com article said that Apple released a new recruitment notice on February 28, intended to recruit a PMIC Engineering Project manager, this may imply that Dialog Apple abandoned the day not far away.
Apple wrote in a job opening that the project manager must have strong technical leadership to ensure that 'our power management intellectual property and chip design meet Apple's technical, quality and schedule requirements.'
It's a well-deserved position as the engineering project manager responsible for working with analog and mixed-signal design engineering, construction, packaging, power conformance, systems power engineering and Apple product teams to drive power management and IP / IC development.
This is a terrible deal for Dialog, whose investors expect Apple to say goodbye to Dialog sooner or later. By then, Dialog's revenues will surely drop rapidly and it is unclear whether the company will find enough business to sustain Its independent business.
Its ultimate fate may be very similar to Imagination Technologies, the third party to buy a relatively low price.
Investors are concerned that Apple may have been developing its own battery of energy storage chips for the iPhone, and that the price of Dialog has plunged more than half in the past year.
Analysts estimate that more than half of Dialog's revenue comes from power management chips for Apple.
Dialog acknowledged in December that Apple may indeed be developing its own power chip, but the company said at the time that the supply agreement between the company and Apple would not be at risk in 2018 and the company is working with Apple to design 2019 products , The two sides may sign a commercial agreement in the same month.
Bahrory said: 'The negotiations on the chip is still underway, but we expect to deliver the chip design in the second half of this year for testing in customer systems.'
He also said he does not think Dialog needs to set a protec- tion mechanism for hostile takeovers that could take place after the company's market value declines.
He said: 'It is not in the interest of listed companies to put some protection mechanisms in place to scare up potential buyers, such as setting up anchor shareholders or poison pill programs (diluted anti-takeover measures).'
According to Thomson Reuters, nearly 89% of Dialog's stock is free-flowing, with its largest shareholder being Qinghua Ziguang, China's largest maker of silicon chips, which holds 9% of the company's voting rights.