$1.77522 billion! Softbank plans to sell 51% of ARM's subsidiary in China;
According to the micro-message news, according to the Financial Times on June 5th, Beijing time, the chip design company ARM of Softbank said that it will sell US$775.52 million to sell a majority stake in China's semiconductor design department.
ARM said it will sell its 51% stake in ARM Technology China to its financial investors and its partners to establish a joint venture company to operate ARM's semiconductor technology business in China.
Two years ago, Softbank acquired British chip design firm ARM for £24.3 billion and signed an agreement to sell the latter’s 25% stake to the Saudi-backed vision fund, and is expected to re-launch ARM.
Softbank Group stated that about 95% of all advanced chips designed in China last year were based on ARM technology, and the Chinese sector contributed 20% of ARM's total sales.
Softbank said that after the completion of the transaction, Arm will continue to obtain a large share of all licensing, patent, software and service revenues from Arm China's authorized production of Arm semiconductor products.
Softbank also stated that it expects to record revenue for the transaction in the quarter ending in June. Details will be announced once it is confirmed.
2. MediaTek 5G chip M70 debut next year;
The 5G generation is approaching. MediaTek (2454) announced yesterday (5th) that it will launch the first 5G baseband chip M70 next year. Chen Guanzhou, general manager of MediaTek, stated that MediaTek started a lot more in 5G than the previous 4G generation. Currently, it is at 5G. Generations are definitely the leading group. It is expected that more news will be released in the second half of this year.
MediaTek held a press conference on the first day of the day at Computex in Taipei. The leaders of MediaTek, led by Cai Lixing, Chen Guanzhou, Zhou Yujun, Chief Technology Officer, Deputy General Manager Gao Jie, and Chief Financial Officer Gu Dawei attended the first-line business team. , Share MediaTek in 5G, Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology layout.
Cai Lixing stated that MediaTek has a vast number of outstanding silicon intellectual property (IP). In the future, the company will use 5G, and AI will gradually expand its application area. Whether in the areas of mobile phones or smart homes, it will use 5G, AI and other products with the best The form brings the best user experience.
For MediaTek's layout planning of data technology, Chen Guanzhou pointed out that MediaTek's 4G baseband chip has been certified by local operators in Europe, the United States, and China. This is actually quite difficult. Because each operator's specifications are not the same, it is necessary to spend With many technologies and capabilities for online field testing, 4G technology is already a world leader and can compete with competitors.
In the 5G layout, Chen Guanzhou stated that MediaTek expects to launch the first 5G baseband chip M70 next year. The initial phase will be a separate design. The future competitive products will fall on single-chip products integrated with the application processor (AP).
Zhou Yujun added that MediaTek's 5G layout was different from the 4G generation at that time. This time, 5G is a leading group and actively participates in the 3GPP meeting for standardization of 5G standards. It is working with NOKIA, NTT Docomo, China Mobile and Huawei. And other equipment providers and operators.
The legal person stated that MediaTek is not lagging behind in the 5G generation, and is located in the leading ethnic group. It is expected that the 5G baseband chip M70 introduced next year will use TSMC's 7nm process. However, whether or not EUV technology is used to view Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. What's the progress?
In addition, TSMC chairman Zhang Zhongmou officially retired after yesterday's regular shareholders meeting. Cai Lixing said that Zhang Zhongmou’s contribution to the semiconductor industry at home and abroad is beyond doubt. He believes that TSMC’s new chairman Liu Deyin and president Wei Zhejia will make TSMC better. Business Times
3. Cai Lixing debuted Computex How did he lead MediaTek to counterattack?
Cai Lixing, executive director of MediaTek, who has attracted a lot of attention, made his debut on the anniversary of his official career. He also presented 5G and AI dishes. However, facing the enemy's new wave of offensive on Qualcomm, how to stabilize the position is what the industry and shareholders care about most.
Taiwan’s Chief Executive of IC Design Leading MediaTek, Cai Lixing, held the first anniversary of his job. Today (5th) debuted at Computex in Taipei. Compared to last year, there was no exhibition area and there was no opening event. This year, MediaTek organised a media and analysis. The division's annual event ', invites the media and foreign capital to participate, and the location is also selected in the W Hotel as the media activities of Qualcomm.
Cai Lixing emphasized that the company is doing well today with 'well on the way'. He stated, 'Today's theme will focus on 5G and AI. MediaTek will use 5G and AI to bring everyone the best experience and bring it to everyone's daily life! He stressed that the most important thing for MediaTek is to have a vast array of superior technologies, IP and product portfolios. Now it is necessary to expand from the application side. He has great confidence that MediaTek will have significant growth in North America and China.
MediaTek emphasizes high CP value How to stabilize gross profit?
The smart phone market has always been regarded as the main force of MediaTek. Mediatek released a 12-nanometer AI mobile phone chip Helio P60 earlier this year. In China, India and Southeast Asia markets have been adopted by customers such as OPPO and VIVO. Mediatek also announced low power consumption two weeks ago. The Helio P22, which is known as TSMC's 12nm FinFET process, features the main AI (Edge AI) technology and will 'bring more consumers at a reasonable price'.
Today, the general manager of MediaTek Chen Guanzhou reiterated that before the mobile phone was expensive, but MediaTek allowed everyone to use 100 US dollars to buy a mobile phone and go online, completely changing the lives of many people, 'MediaTek believes that the user needs the function, want to pursue the experience should not stay In high-end, expensive mobile phones, the mobile experience should be universal value!'
Mobile phone brands such as OPPO R15, OPPO F7, Note4, VIVO X21, VIVO Y83, and Realme1 all use MediaTek's mobile phone chips. However, it is worth noting that only U.S. and Japanese foreign companies have issued their latest reports, pointing out that MediaTek and Qualcomm There was fierce competition. Qualcomm president Cristiano Amon went to Shenzhen to visit OPPO, which is a customer of MediaTek. He also showed a positive attitude in pricing strategy. MediaTek is bound to face price pressure and how the company can find a balance between product mix and pricing strategy. Whether to stabilize the performance of the key.
Yao Jiayang, an analyst at TrendForce's Tuobai Industrial Research Institute, said that major handset makers have a conservative attitude towards the market in 2018, which will affect Qualcomm and MediaTek’s two major mobile phone chip plants in the first quarter of this year.
MediaTek’s revenue has declined in the fourth quarter compared to the same period last year. The future customer layout and gross profit will be the focus. We expect MediaTek to strengthen the positive layout of the P60 on the client without affecting the gross margin.
MediaTek 5G Ready Experts Will Be Worried Next Year: Qualcomm Has Faster Steps
In addition to smart phones, Cai Lixing’s AI and 5G are the key to MediaTek’s ability to maintain its position in the next generation. It’s reported that MediaTek’s family entertainment group was renamed the smart device business group in March this year and MediaTek’s smart device business group general manager The visitors announced today that the 5G MediaTek Helio M70 will be ready in 2019. The company is cooperating with Huawei, NTT DOCOMO, and Nokia.
'The future is aimed at smart phones, smart homes, self-driving cars and other areas, to make users more comfortable at home, more secure at home, more audio and video entertainment.' Visitors Jie pointed to a variety of applications on the slide.
MediaTek today announced the 'Neuropilot artificial intelligence platform' that was announced at the beginning of the year and promoted the AI operation and application of terminal devices. Zhou Yujun, chief technology officer at MediaTek explained that the platform will be CPU, GPU and APU (AI processing unit) heterogeneous The computational functions are built into the SoC (system-on-a-chip), allowing high performance and low power consumption when using AI products in the future.
Yao Jiayang believes that Qualcomm released a 5G modem-related message in 2016 and was a pioneer in technology. However, MediaTek could not see a clear time point for the terminal market in 5G. Qualcomm will use Qualcomm 5G in 2019. The chip's product launch, but MediaTek will only come out with 5G modem chips in 2019. This is a conservative estimate that there will be a half-year gap, and it seems that MediaTek is somewhat conservative about the status of its customers.
In the AI section, Qualcomm provided support for AI software frameworks such as TensorFlow, Caffee, and ONNX earlier than MediaTek. However, MediaTek's P60 also found many partners this year, indicating that MediaTek intends to catch up with Qualcomm and that both parties are leading each other and MediaTek is not falling behind. , 'But AI still needs the ecosystem and application fermentation. The two sides are currently in the layout stage. I think the clear competition will not be clear until the end of the year and early next year.' Yao Jiayang said.
Cai Lixing is still reluctant to comment on competitor Qualcomm today, but he pointed out that the development of MediaTek is focused on finding a balance point in market competition and product mix. AI technology will generate many new applications, new installations, 'We are very confident in the layout of AI. , I see very large markets and applications, whether China or North America, I expect can get a good market share, 'I will not miss any possible opportunities'.
MediaTek today announced new products at the same venue as Qualcomm. Now that AI and 5G are surging, competition can be heated up. Can MediaTek, led by Cai Lixing, break through the new technology generation? This is exactly what the Taiwanese IC design industry is most concerned about. Editor: Wu Kailin) World Magazine 4. Eat the Intel notebook market. How can the Qualcomm Snapdragon 850 withstand?
Gathering micro-messages (text / Xiaobei) Today, Qualcomm officially announced the Xiaolong 850 processor, which is another processor built for notebooks after Xiaolong 835. Qualcomm said that compared to the previous generation of Xiaolong 835, The performance of Xiaolong 850 is increased by 30%, battery life is increased by 20%, 4G LTE speed is increased by 20%, and AI performance is improved by three times.
The Snapdragon 850 is based on the Snapdragon 845 platform, which can be called the 'Variety' of the Snapdragon 845 for Windows 10 PC.
The Snapdragon 850 uses the same second-generation 10nm process technology as the Snapdragon 845. It is also equipped with eight Kryo 385 cores. However, it is worth noting that the Snapdragon 850 has a frequency up to 2.96GHz, which is higher than that of the Snapdragon 845. GHz. Therefore, people in the industry called the Snapdragon 850 an 'overclocked version' of the Snapdragon 845. Qualcomm's operation was upgraded to the Snapdragon 801 with the Snapdragon 800, and the Snapdragon 820 was upgraded to the Snapdragon 821.
In theory, the increase in frequency will result in increased power consumption. Given that the Snapdragon 850 is used on Windows 10 laptops with a large battery capacity, the battery life does not need to worry too much. In terms of battery life, Qualcomm official data show that the Xiaolong 850 is the most Length can be used continuously for 25 hours.
Although it is a processor specially designed for notebooks, the Snapdragon 850 is still equipped with the same X20 baseband as the Snapdragon 845. The downlink network speed can reach 1.2Gbps, which is higher than the 1Gbps connection rate that the X16 can provide in the Snapdragon 835.
Xiaolong 850 integrated Adreno 630 GPU, support 4K ultra high definition video playback and up to 1080p/120fps HEVC video encoding, etc.; integrated Spectra 280 image signal processor, supports 4K/30fps video recording, but Xiaolong 845 can support 4K/60fps Video recording.
Qualcomm said that the Xiaolong 850 processor will be debuted by Samsung PC. According to insiders, the Xiaolong 850 processor will also be made by Samsung.
However, from the point of view of GeekBench, the performance of the Snapdragon 850 does not seem particularly strong. It remains to be seen whether the Snapdragon 850 can grab a portion of the notebook market from Intel.
ASUS released a ROG game phone yesterday, saying that this phone is equipped with a special optimized Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 top CPU, clocked at up to 2.96GHz, running points will be disdain for almost all phones in the market, and GPU Adreno 630 is also optimized through the game. , ROG game phone is likely to carry the dragon 850 processor. (proofreading / Xiaobei)
5. Guo Tai Chen Taiming: MLCC, chip resistors out of stock until 2019 no solution;
Leading manufacturer of passive components Guo Jujin (5th) held a regular meeting of shareholders. Chairman Chen Taiming stated that the (2017) year was the year in which the country’s giant transformation began. The company’s revenue, gross profit, net operating profit, pre-tax/post-tax profit, Both companies and EPS have set record highs. This is in line with Guoge's forward-looking layout and focus on the industry, its expansion of niche products and optimization of its customer portfolio. Looking ahead this year, he stated that Guoda’s current MLCC’s order shipping ratio (BB) is 2 times, the chip resistance is 3 times, and the current situation is still to the customer's distribution. It is expected that the situation of out of stock will not be solved until 2019. As for the outside acquisitions, he said that after the merger and acquisition of Puth, there will be opportunities for the future. The source is design in. The future also hopes to combine such companies, and combine more manufacturers in Taiwan to play the World Cup.
Chen Taiming personally presided over the shareholders’ meeting at 9 pm on time. In the face of the small shareholders' speeches for each motion, Chen Taiming strongly urged the minority shareholders to refer to the proceedings, and voted on a case-by-case basis, admitting EPS 15.64 last year and passing a cash dividend of 15 yuan. , Stock dividends were 2 yuan, a total of 17 yuan.
After the meeting, Chen Taiming and the media tea party said that last year the shareholders’ meeting explained to everyone that the market phenomenon was that demand was greater than supply. This situation has not improved so far. From the BB value of the company, the MLCC’s demand is more than double the supply. The chip resistance is 3 times. The status of the industry still has no solution by 2019. There is a big gap between supply and demand. There is no way to balance.
He further pointed out that in the past, the passive component industry was unhealthy for a long time, and the price of Japanese high-end products was very high. Only high-end products made money, while the middle- and high-end products did not make money because they wanted to compete with their peers. For example, Chen Taiming, if high-end products 100 Yuan, Reasonable high-end products should be at 6, 70 yuan, but in the past it was only a few yuan, which is unreasonable. Today, after the price adjustment, the price has returned to 2,30 yuan. The market conditions are a little more reasonable.
Chen Taiming said that this gap is due to the shift from Japanese to automotive, industrial and other high-end fields. Japanese companies will stop orders for 2,500 items in 2019 and formally stop shipments in 2020. Japanese manufacturers’ total production capacity is 30%, of which only 5% will be transferred to the small size, so the relevant orders will be transferred to Taiwan. As for the land system, due to the high threshold of MLCC, the proportion of land plants coming in is small, accounting for less than the global 6%, even if the expansion of production, does not affect the market.
He also believes that when Japanese manufacturers switch to higher-priced markets with better prices, they will not return to mid-market when investing in new capital expenditures. Therefore, on the next wave day, the expansion of Taiwanese and Korean manufacturers is quite equivalent. Self-discipline.
Regarding outsiders that the country’s huge gross profit rate is over 50 percent, and whether it is profitable, Chen Taiming emphasized that Guo Ju has the world’s most extensive and best sales channels. The structure of its customers, currently among European and American customers, accounts for 40% of high-level orders, while Lu Among the customers, the higher-order share accounted for 50% higher. This is the reason why the national giant's gross profit margin can go higher. He also pointed out that Guoju’s distribution in Europe and the United States is dominated by direct sales, and direct sales to Taiwanese factories in the Greater China region. The original principle of the distribution was the main distribution. In this wave of supply shortage, the proportion of Guo Ju’s sales has not changed. It is the company’s new, high-end application development, and favorable profit performance.
Finally, I talked about mergers and acquisitions. Chen Taiming said that everyone can see that PSU is designing in the big factories like Google, Amazon, Cisco, and TESLA. The giants of China must play in the World Cup. They must be designed from the source. In Taiwan, There are many companies in Taiwan that have good technology in their own fields, and they have been doing OEM for a long time. Therefore, Guoju hopes to combine more and better companies to provide more and more complete products and services. To provide a global gateway, a niche-type customer, to look beyond the world, and to regard the world as our market. We believe that the giant's global path can be very effective.
6. Taiwan’s IC exports have reached record highs by an average of 8.9% annually;
Taiwan's 'Ministry of Economic Affairs' announced the export statistics of integrated circuits today. From 2011 to 2017, the export value has hit record highs, with an average annual increase of 8.9%. Last year, the proportion of total exports accounted for nearly 30%, and the market share in all major markets also ranked second. one.
Thanks to the popularization of mobile devices and the continuous upgrading of specifications, the emerging applications such as the Internet of Things and high-speed computing for automotive applications have increased. The export volume of ICs in Taiwan has increased to US$92.3 billion last year, accounting for 29.1% of the total exports. In the integrated circuit manufacturing industry, Taiwan is dominated by wafer foundry. Last year, the output value accounted for 80% of the total, and DRAM was 11.2%.
According to IC insights, a market research organization, the global foundry revenue was US$62.31 billion in revenue last year, TSMC revenue was US$32.16 billion, and the market share was as high as 51.6%. The second-ranked GlobalFoundries accounted for only 9.7%, showing that Taiwan foundry is quite competitive in the global market.
Taiwan’s primary export markets for ICs were mainland China and Hong Kong. Last year, it exported US$51.2 billion, a record high, accounting for 55.5% of total exports, an increase of 4.4 percentage points over 2011, and other orders for Singapore, Japan, South Korea and Malaysia.
Observe the market share of Taiwan's ICs in major import countries. Last year, the market share in China and Hong Kong was 36.7%, which was 7.8 percentage points higher than the 28.9% in 2011. In Japan, major countries such as Singapore maintained the import market. In the first place, in Malaysia, it rose from the third place in 2011 to the first place last year, and its market share in all countries has grown.