1. Pass MLCC leader Murata to negotiate with customers and increase the price by 2 to 30%;
Gathering micro-network news, Reuters cited a foreign investment report that Murata, the global leader in laminated ceramic capacitors (MLCC), has started negotiating price increases with clients, requesting an increase of 20% to 30%, and that profit will be greatly improved.
Reuters cited a foreign investment report and pointed out that after interviewing large MLCC customers, the Japanese MLCC supplier has started negotiating with customers for price increases and requested an increase of 20% to 30%. Therefore, Murata’s rating is based on the original “ "Neutral" was upgraded to "Outperform" and simultaneously escalated the target price of another Japanese solar company.
Murata only announced last week that in order to respond to increased MLCC demand, its production subsidiary, Fukui Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd. has already acquired land for construction. It plans to invest 29 billion yen to build a new MLCC plant. The new plant is scheduled to start construction in September this year. Finished.
Earlier, Murata also announced that it would expand production at the "Izumo Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd." and a factory located in the suburbs of Manila, the Philippines. It is estimated that by the end of March 2020, Murata's MLCC production capacity will increase by 20%.
Murata’s plan to start a large-scale plant construction was mainly due to the increase in demand for future vehicles and fifth-generation mobile communications (5G). However, before the completion of construction, the MLCC shortage trend did not change and customer orders continued to flow in, so the market repeatedly transmitted Out Murata may increase the selling price to the client.
2. Connected cars will become the strongest growth engine of the Internet of Things in 2018?
Abstract: IC Insights pointed out in its 'IC Market Drivers in 2018' report that the total sales of the Internet of Things market in 2018 are expected to reach 93.9 billion US dollars. Connected cars will become the most robust growth market in the Internet of Things, with an increase of up to 21.6%.
Gathering micro-messages (Wen/Xiaobei) IC Insights pointed out in its report “Driven in IC Markets in 2018” that the total sales volume of the Internet of Things market in 2018 is expected to reach US$90.9 billion. Among them, the Internet of Things products for industrial Internet applications are expected to be realized. 17.7% increase in sales to $35.9 billion; Internet of Things products for smart cities, including intelligent transportation, smart street lights, security monitoring, environmental monitoring, etc., are expected to achieve a sales growth of 7.0% to $38.8 billion; for connected homes IoT products are expected to achieve sales growth of 16.0%, reaching US$2.9 billion; wearable IoT products are expected to achieve sales growth of 12.4%, reaching US$ 11.8 billion.
The report lowered the expected value of the compound annual growth rate for the Industrial Internet, Connected Home and Wearable Markets from 18.7%, 16.8, 12.8%, to 17.8%, 14.8%, 11.9%. The average annual growth rate has slightly increased from 6.3% to 6.5%, as shown in the figure below.
IC Insights predicts that connected cars will become the most growth market in the Internet of Things, with an increase of up to 21.6% and sales of $4.5 billion. The CAGR of 2016 to 2021 will reach 22.9%. Capabilities are seen as an important factor in improving vehicle safety and enhancing the infotainment experience, such as positioning, road condition alerts, driver assistance functions, and shop floor communications. As a result, car manufacturers are very active in the introduction of connected technologies. (proofreading/small north)
3. The rise and fall of semi-conductive semiconductors in Japan for the past half century
The Toshiba Semiconductor sales case that lasted for more than eight months finally settled. This was seen by Japanese media as another landmark event of the decline of the Japanese semiconductor industry. The Japanese semiconductor industry once had a golden age and had a pivotal position in the world. What is happening behind this embarrassing rise and fall?
The Toshiba Semiconductor sale that lasted more than eight months finally settled.
On June 1, Toshiba announced that it had completed the sale of its semiconductor company (TMC) and sold it to Pangea, the acquisition company formed by the Bain Capital led Japanese-American-Korean consortium. Although Toshiba owns 40.2% shares in Pangea, its major shareholder has already Easy Lord Bain Capital.
This was seen by Japanese media as another landmark event in the decline of Japan's semiconductor industry. According to IC Insights' list of the top fifteen largest global semiconductor companies (in terms of sales) released in the first quarter of 2018, Toshiba Semiconductor is the only remaining Japanese company. In the heyday of 1993, IC Insights released six of the top ten semiconductor companies in Japan.
What happened to the embarrassing rise and fall of the Japanese semiconductor industry?
Starting: From dependence on imports to independent research and development
The history of Japan’s Sony Corporation’s official website has been hung so far. One of the company's founders, Seo Shenda, conducted a three-month investigation tour in the United States in 1952. During this period, he heard that Western Electric Company (WE) intends to transfer transistor patents. But the price is as high as 25,000 US dollars, which is equivalent to 10% of the total assets of Japan's Tokyo Telecommunications Industry Corporation (Sony’s predecessor). Despite his longing for love, Jingshen eventually returned home with regrets. Another founder of Sony, Morita Shif, later in 1953 In the United States to negotiate, eventually won the technology.
However, they did not adopt the suggestion of WE to use the transistor as a hearing aid but to explore a brand-new application field. In 1955, Sony developed the world's first transistor radio. In 1959, Sony radio sales amounted to 2.5 million US dollars. .
Japanese companies followed suit. By 1965, Japan’s radio exports had reached 24.21 million units. In addition, electronic calculators and TVs have shaken the door to the US market.
The success of Japanese consumer electronics in the U.S. market is not only due to its product innovation and cost-effectiveness, but also related to U.S. policy. At that time, the U.S. shifted the focus of the electronics industry to military use, which provided Japan with opportunities for civilian electronic products.
By the 1960s, the Japanese semiconductor industry continued to catch up with the United States. At that time, the Japanese government adopted the tariff barriers and trade protection policies as the starting point for the industry's “escort.” But foreign capitals began to “fell” the door, and finally in 1968, the United States Texas Instruments joint venture. The model entered the Japanese market, but it must comply with strict technology transfer restrictions.
At that time, the localization rate of domestic semiconductor manufacturing equipment in Japan was only 20%. The countermeasures in the United States made the Japanese semiconductor industry aware of its own passiveness. First, IBM announced in 1970 that it would use semiconductor memory in its newly introduced mainframe computer. Semiconductor memory has begun to replace magnetic cores, and DRAM memory chips occupying an important position in semiconductor memory have become a large market with unlimited potential. Overnight the industry has changed the rules of the game. Second, the United States has refused to provide IC integrated circuits to Japan, so that Japanese electronics The market share of calculators in the United States fell from 80% in the boom period to 27% in 1974.
As a result, Japan began to conduct its own research and development with the “power of the nation.” An R&D project for government-industry research has completely changed the status of the Japanese semiconductor industry. This project is a VLSI joint research initiated by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (Premier of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry) of Japan. The slogan "Super LSI technology research portfolio" and "Made-in-a-Chip LSI" are also showing Japan's great ambitions. MITI will be the major competitors in the market (Fujitsu, Hitachi, The R&D personnel of Mitsubishi Electric, Toshiba and NEC gathered together and invested a total of 70 billion yen. The government invested 29 billion yen (almost half of the subsidy expenditure of the then-produced province).
After the expiry of the above four years, more than 1,000 patents were obtained. The director of the VLSI Joint Research Institute, the principle set by Tsuikai Yasuu, known as the father of the Japanese semiconductor industry, may summarize the secret of success: Can competitors compete with each other? Is a big problem, then we will be based on a 'basic, common' approach, from the common ground of all companies, to R & D, to develop the future of large-scale integrated circuit technology.
In the 1970s, Japan’s dependence on foreign key process equipment and production materials such as the United States reached 80%. By the early 1980s, the localization rate of semiconductor manufacturing equipment in Japan reached more than 70%, laying the foundation for surpassing the United States to become the dominant semiconductor industry in the future. .
As a result, the Japanese semiconductor industry opened its 'golden age' and its global market share has continued to rise. It has begun to play a pivotal role in the world. Take the 64K DRAM that was put into the market in 1980 as an example. In 1981, Hitachi’s market share was the highest in the world. 40% share; Fujitsu second, 20%, NEC 9%. After that, NEC dominated the 256K era, Toshiba dominated the 1MB era. By 1986, the Japanese semiconductor companies in the global DRAM market share reached 80%, beyond the United States.
Japan's industrial development during this period relied mainly on exports. During the 15 years between 1970 and 1985, the output value of Japan's industry increased five-fold, and exports increased 11-fold.
The Turning Point: Behind Failing to Grasp the Scale of Opportunity
The blessings and blessings are the blessings, the blessings and the evils of life.
In the late 1980s, Japan’s DRAM market share began to decline sharply. The fundamental reason is that the DRAM market structure has undergone tremendous changes. Frequent trade frictions have also hindered the development of the industry to some extent.
Japanese companies have technical advantages in the memory used in early large-scale computers, and they value the quality of memory. But in the late 1980s, as the personal computer market thrived, the reliability and life expectancy of memory were lower, and more emphasis was placed on low prices. However, Japan was still using high reliability as a production standard and failed to adapt well to market changes.
Insiders pointed out that even though Japanese companies saw the trend of the personal computer market at the time, they were still clinging to the yield rate and were relatively lacking in cost reduction. Compared with Japanese and South Korean semiconductor companies, they found that Korean companies are significantly ahead of Japanese companies in terms of cost. , To produce the same components, the number of equipment used by Japanese companies was twice that of South Korea, and the production process was too long to reduce costs.
Another analysis pointed out that this is also related to the fact that Japanese manufacturers do not adopt the Fabless model. This development mode of the horizontal division of labor can enable specialized companies to focus on the design, OEMs focus on production, can respond quickly to market changes, and depreciate machines. The cost disadvantage is reduced to very low.
Most of Japan's semiconductor manufacturing is still a sub-department under a large group. Although individual products have good results, after the brand share reaches a certain level, the model can no longer effectively promote its semiconductor components to a next milestone. The Fabless model is the inevitable trend of the semiconductor industry under the development of economies of scale. Looking at the development model of Japan, it is not so much a market change as to say that semiconductor development has strong economies of scale as an operating support, while Japan has made Businesses have not been able to develop companies with corresponding business models and economies of scale, which has caused their competitiveness to be weakened. 'Lin Jianhong, research manager of Jibang Tuobei Industrial Research Institute, told the 21st Century Business Herald reporter.
In addition, Japan’s semiconductor industry has also been affected by external trade frictions. The continued rise of the Japanese semiconductor industry has increased the sense of crisis among American counterparts. This can be seen from media reports. In 1978, “Fortune” magazine published “Japan in Silicon Valley” The "Spy" report; In March and December 1981, two more reports published sounded the alarm bell for the US semiconductor industry. In 1983, "Business Weekly" magazine published an 11-page "Chip War: The Japanese Threat." Topics.
With the massive production capacity of Japanese manufacturers entering the market, a serious supply surplus has caused the global DRAM prices to plummet. In June 1985, the United States Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Trade Representative’s office for dumping semiconductor products in Japan; The U.S. Department of Commerce filed a 64K DRAM dumping lawsuit in Japan. The 'Japan-US Semiconductor Warfare' officially opened.
The war finally ended with the 'Japan-US Semiconductor Agreement.' The contents of the agreement mainly included improving access to the Japanese market and ending dumping. The United States accelerated its research and development efforts and successfully recaptured its throne. By 1993, U.S. semiconductor company’s share of the world returned to the world’s number one. One, and remain so far.
Due to the intensification of external trade frictions, Japanese companies began to transform their growth models driven by domestic demand. During the 15 years between 1985 and 2000, Japan’s electronics industry’s output value and exports increased 1.5 times, while domestic demand increased by more than two times.
In the early 1990s, Japan experienced a collapse of the bubble economy and entered the 'lost 20 years'. After 2000, Japan's GDP growth stagnated and the electronics industry in Japan experienced a general recession. In 2013, the output value of the Japanese electronics industry was 11 trillion yen. Less than half of the peak (26 trillion yen).
At the end of the 1980s, the Japanese economy reached the second largest in the world. The United States used the Plaza Accord and the Japan-US Semiconductor Agreement to exert pressure, which significantly weighed on the profitability of Japanese companies. And South Korea has taken the national power to develop the semiconductor industry. After Japan’s economic bubble burst, subsidy could hardly be maintained. “Display and semiconductor industry consulting firm CINNO deputy general manager Yang Wende told 21st Century Business Herald that the development of the semiconductor industry is closely related to the macroeconomic situation of a country because it is extremely capital intensive. The industry needs to be sustained and large-scale capital investment will be successful. When the overall economy of a country is sluggish, it will be difficult to support its development.
Reinvigoration: Structural Reform and Relaunch 'Official Production and Research' Project
Japan's semiconductor industry tried to reinvigorate it with structural reforms and restart of the 'Obstetrics and Industry' project.
Under the guidance of Japan’s Ministry of International Trade and Industry, in 1999, the DRAM divisions of Hitachi and NEC incorporated Elpida, Mitsubishi Electric subsequently participated, while other Japanese semiconductor manufacturers withdrew from the general DRAM field. The resources are concentrated in fields such as system integration chips with high added value. Elpida is the Greek word for 'hope' and this company name reflects the high hopes of the Japanese semiconductor industry for this last DRAM maker.
Helplessly, the 'outside world' is changing rapidly. After the financial crisis in 2008, global demand plummeted and DRAM supply was severely oversupplied. 2GB of DRAM was priced above $20 in 2008 and below $1 in 2012. Global DRAM Producers are falling into a serious deficit, and Elpida is no exception. The Japanese government extended a helping hand in 2009 and injected funds to secure Japanese policy investment banks for its guarantees.
But after all, it was hard to come by. Elpida's unbearable debt finally declared bankruptcy at the end of February 2012, and was acquired by Micron in July 2012.
A Japanese semiconductor practitioner told a 21st Century Business Herald reporter that natural disasters have a certain impact on the development of the semiconductor industry in Japan. The 3·11 earthquake has accelerated the decline in the competitiveness of Japan’s semiconductor industry.
'Our company also suffered heavy losses in the earthquake, the stock price has been falling all the way, until the first two years of reorganization and reconstruction of the factory to restore normal production. Stock prices have also tripled. Semiconductor production is environmentally demanding, to clean and stable environment Can produce excellent products. ' The Japanese semiconductor industry said.
However, some analysts pointed out that Elpida's failure is the same mistake that Japan's semiconductor industry made, which cannot keep up with changes in the industry. The last time it failed to keep pace with the rise of the personal computer market, this time it was unable to keep up with computers and smart phones and tablets. Turn to.
'Japanese companies are generally skilled in delving into technology, but they are less responsive to changes in the outside world because they are generally more bureaucratic and have slow decision-making processes. The results of the past 30 years have actually been achieved without external rivals. When faced with more competitors, this kind of focus but slow response weakness will be amplified. 'Yang Wende said.
Japan initiated a number of government-produced programs, including the Asuka program, future plans MIRAI, HALCA, etc. In 2006, Japan introduced a new five-year plan, which is considered as a continuation of the ASUKA program. The new five-year plan is divided into two parts. : First, SELETE five-year R&D project, with an annual investment budget of 10 billion yen, exploring actual application processes at 45 and 32 nanometers. The other part is STARC's five-year research and development plan with an annual investment budget of 5 billion yen for the development of the DFM design platform. .
Although the glory of the Japanese semiconductor industry has become history, and the current global market share has been less than 10%, it still plays an important role in some segments.
'Japan's scientific capabilities and manufacturers in materials, precision machinery, basic physical chemistry mathematics, etc. are still influential. Accumulated patents and professionals in history are still very strong. As long as the capital and the company's operating model are correct, if we can grasp By the next wave of major commodity shifts, Japan’s semiconductor industry will still be very competitive. ' Lin Jianhong said.
'Semiconductor is an integrated industry. The production of a chip requires the workload of nearly 10,000 people. At the same time, it takes many years of experience to accumulate innovation. The Japanese semiconductor is very deep and may currently develop slowly, but its foundation is still , to look over the country after the investment in the semiconductor industry. 'The above semiconductor industry in Japan said. 21st Century Business Herald
4. Japanese storage duo: Elpida's final road Toshiba's retreat;
On June 1, Toshiba announced the formal completion of the sale of its semiconductor business unit. Eight months later, the sale of the world's third-largest NAND manufacturer finally came to an end.
As the last Japanese element in the world's top ten semiconductor manufacturers, storage is already Toshiba's most profitable business unit of the 143-year-old Japanese company. However, Toshiba, which is deeply immersed in the financial quagmire, has to resort to a decisive gesture.
However, compared with the collapse of DRAM a few years ago, Japan’s semiconductor industry still has a face in the NAND field: Toshiba’s 2 trillion yen (about US$ 18 billion) through the transaction will greatly improve its financial position; In addition, Toshiba also retained 40.2% of Toshiba’s shares through reinvestment.
And just in 2012, Elpida, another business card once used by the Japanese semiconductor industry, filed for bankruptcy protection in February of that year. In July of the same year, American semiconductor company Micron Technology announced the acquisition of a US$2.5 billion 'cabbage price'. Elpida, Japan's last DRAM maker looms.
Staying in Castle Peak, the future can still be expected
The story of Elpida and Toshiba Storage is quite representative of the decline of the semiconductor industry in Japan: The former is the product of the separation of its memory chip business by several Japanese electrical giants, and its establishment itself has a strong sense of government protection; At the beginning of flash memory, the NOR and NAND flash types invented by Toshiba employees now account for 45% of the total storage market.
However, the sale will be a good one for Toshiba and Toshiba storage to some extent: The former will have broken wrists to keep the Castle Peak, keep the Japanese-made gold signboards, in order to continue to exert force in other areas in the future; the latter can be backed by Bain. The financial support maximizes its technical advantages and further competes with Samsung and other vendors in the storage market.
When Toshiba and Bain announced successively that they had passed all the necessary anti-monopoly reviews, South Korea's Samsung analyst Hwang Min-seong had stated that Toshiba is Samsung Electronics’ only current competitor in terms of related technology, with Toshiba. Subsequent readjustment and reorganization of semiconductors after the sale, the industry will face many strategic adjustments.
'Toshiba is indeed the only one capable of competing with Samsung. It may be possible to use a combination of Micron and Intel, but they will be separated later and it is uncertain whether the current R&D strength will be dispersed or not.' Chen Yan, chief analyst, said to the 21st Century Business Herald reporter.
Chen Hao pointed out that at present, Toshiba’s development progress of 96-layer NAND Flash is similar to that of Samsung. Both of the planned mass production time are placed in the fourth quarter of this year. 'Bein Capital's input, Toshiba will be stored in future investment plans. , will no longer be the same as before due to the poor performance of other parts of the parent company, Bain's joining is positive. 'He said.
'Big business'
Gu Wenjun, Chief Analyst of Core Research, pointed out to 21st Century Business Herald reporter that exploring the decline of Japan's semiconductor industry, 'big corporate disease' is the key. The story of Toshiba's storage is precisely the 'big business' disease.
In 1993, 2000, 2006 and 2016, Toshiba ranked third, second, fourth and eighth respectively among the world's top ten semiconductor manufacturers. It was the only Japanese semiconductor company still in leadership position.
However, the acquisition of Westinghouse by the parent company in 2006 laid a groundwork for a serious financial crisis in the future. In 2011, the accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan triggered a global war on nuclear power construction plans, and many projects began to re-evaluate. Nuclear power business suffered a serious dilemma.
In fiscal 2016, Toshiba’s net loss was as high as 965.7 billion yen, which was the third year in a row. It was at risk of being delisted by the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The sale of Toshiba storage became the company’s choice to survive.
In comparison, Japanese DRAM maker Elpida is even more embarrassed. Although it still maintains a 12% market share in the DRAM market in the fourth quarter of 2011, Elpida, which has struggled for many years to survive the loss, remains in 2012. He filed for bankruptcy protection in February and was delisted by the Tokyo Stock Exchange in March.
In July 2012, Micron Technology announced the acquisition of Elpida. In June 2013, Elpida officially became a subsidiary of Micron Technology. Its final market share statistics was fixed at 15.2% in the second quarter of 2013. .
'These Japanese companies operate a wide range of products and businesses, and resources are also very fragmented. If any business unit is underperforming, it is likely to be abandoned. ' Gu Wenjun said, 'Semiconductor business is relatively small in terms of output value, it is difficult to become The core business of a Japanese company. '
The establishment of Elpida is an example. In 1999, DRAM prices caused by the economic recession drastically declined. NEC and Hitachi Stripped their respective storage chip businesses and established a new DRAM company, Elpida. In 2003, Elpida continued. Merged into Mitsubishi Electric's DRAM business unit.
Since then, it has ranked second in IC Insights' list of the world's top ten semiconductor manufacturers in 1993, and the DRAM business of the three Japanese semiconductor manufacturers in the fifth and eighth have been brought together. In 2004, Elpida was in Tokyo Securities. Listed on the exchange. After undergoing an early large-scale expansion, Elpida's market share and production capacity have increased significantly, and in 2006 entered the top 20 semi-conductors.
However, since 2007, due to overcapacity, DRAM market prices have begun to decline sharply. The 2008 financial crisis has led to a sharp reduction in global DRAM demand, and product prices have further declined. IC Insights data show that in 2008, DRAM particle prices from 2007 The 2.57 US dollar fell sharply to 1.83 US dollars, a decline of nearly 30%. In 2009, it further dropped to 1.74 US dollars.
Although the Japanese government passed an amendment to the “Industrial Recycling Act” in 2009, it provided a total of 130 billion yen to Elpida. However, under the influence of the strong rise of Korean companies and the continuous appreciation of the yen, Elpida After all, he failed to get out of the woods.
The financial report released before its bankruptcy in February 2012 showed that the company’s loss from April to December 2011 was 98.9 billion yen, and by the end of March 2012, the total debt was 448 billion yen.
Refinement does not change
Elpida also once had a chance to seize the straw. As the only DRAM company in the US and Europe, Micron Technology has been striving for more industrial cooperation to compete with Korean manufacturers. Before and after January 2012, Micron The cooperation with Elpida has basically been negotiated.
However, when the house leaked, it was raining overnight. At the time of Micron CEO Steve Appleton was suddenly killed in a plane crash. Micron and Elpida needed to revisit the most critical price issue and negotiations were forced to postpone. Shortly thereafter, Elpida announced that Bankruptcy.
But Gu Wenjun believes that the decline of Japanese semiconductor manufacturers can not be simply attributed to the poor management of enterprises, there are many deep reasons. The flow of people under Japan's unique corporate culture is less or one of them. one.
'This lifetime employment pattern from entry to retirement, and the hierarchical outlook that exists in Japanese companies, to a certain extent, suppressed the growth of young people.' Gu Wenjun said, 'The semiconductor industry is changing very fast, and this phenomenon is obviously not conducive to fresh blood.' The supplement will also affect the company's innovation and technological progress.
In addition, the two major Japanese storage vendors failed to capture market trends in a timely manner and were all stuck in the dilemma of 'pursuing refinement and no change': Toshiba failed to grasp the technology's first-mover advantage and took the lead; Is to continue to focus on DRAM, hopes to simply win the competition through technological advancement.
Fujio Masuoka, head of research and development at Toshiba Semiconductor, successfully invented both NOR and NAND flash memory in 1984 and 1987, respectively. But NOR did not attract the attention of the Japanese industry, research and development community at that time. Instead, Intel was far behind in Silicon Valley. Toshiba signed a cross license agreement and successfully launched the world's first commercial flash memory chip in 1988.
When Toshiba made NAND, Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. and Toshiba, which is suffering from cash flow, were negotiating the joint development proposal. The former again misjudged the prospects of NAND flash memory and believed that this would not bring benefits in the short term, and cooperation with Samsung could immediately expand production. Scale, to reduce costs, expand the market.
Samsung achieved a post-competition, long-term suppression of Toshiba in the NAND market, and sat in the throne of the largest NAND manufacturer. In the first quarter of 2018, Samsung and Toshiba ranked first in the NAND market, and second, the share was 37%. And 19.3%.
Elpida ignored the growth of the flash memory market. In the first quarter of 2011, the DRAM market size was 8.29 billion U.S. dollars. By the first quarter of 2018, the market grew to 23.08 billion U.S. dollars. In the same period, the NAND market scaled from 5.363 billion U.S. dollars. The U.S. dollar increased to US$15.741 billion, and the growth rate was also rapid. In addition, data released by SEMI in 2015 showed that the global 3D NAND market size reached 5.2 billion U.S. dollars, and by 2022 this figure will reach 39 billion U.S. dollars.
Analysts pointed out that with the rise of smart phones and tablet devices, NAND flash memory is impacting the demand for traditional memory, and Elpida has long insisted on a relatively simple business model of selling storage particles, which limits the improvement of profitability.
In March 2008, Elpida CEO Yukio Sakamoto also said that the company's investment in technology research and development will enable Elpida to take a leading position in the DRAM market. He believes that the company can use Samsung in 2010. The leader in the DRAM market squeezed down. At that time, Elpida was still actively investing in production expansion and said that it will maintain the expansion rate of two 12-inch plants each year for the next three years.
After that, Elpida announced in 2010 that it successfully developed the world's first 4-gigabit DDR3 memory based on the 40nm process, and in 2011 announced the world’s first DRAM manufacturer to master the 25nm process. In February 2012, Before applying for bankruptcy protection, Sakamoto Yukio also said that it is Elbita's technologically capable company that can survive in the DRAM market.
21st Century Business Herald
5.8-inch wafer production capacity is in short supply, this battle is worth seeing
The cross-strait 8-inch wafer foundry quotation is set to rise in the third quarter, and the price of 6-inch wafer foundry is just around the corner. Taiwan-based IC design companies that are forced to accept price increases indicate that they can get 8-inch slots and 6 inches in the second half of 2018. The inch of mature process capacity is the key point. Recently, the cross-strait 8-inch wafer fab began to experience a long-lost trend in the human resources. It has been learned through the relationship between seniors, younger brothers, past colleagues, and superiors and affiliates. The goal is to hope that when wafer production capacity is in short supply, it will be able to win more production capacity to help the company to open up its products, markets and customer channels, and to drive the company's business growth. Facing the obvious shortage of 8-inch wafer production capacity, In addition to automotive electronics, IoT-related chip orders continue to surge, and 8-inch wafer foundry capacity is facing difficult to buy, difficult to expand the bottleneck, making the 8-inch wafer capacity shortage has gradually pulled from the short-term pressure. For the medium-term trend, the increase in wafer foundry prices is not an urgent consideration for chip manufacturers. At this stage, it is more important to have sufficient production capacity to be the key to success in the terminal chip market. The IC design maker admitted frankly that at present, when customers consider the conditions for chip purchase, there are no goods is the prerequisite. In the past, the global semiconductor development process has repeatedly proved that when the chip is out of stock, new suppliers to the market can make a difference. In the face of the current shortage of upstream foundry production capacity, IC design companies that can deliver goods will naturally have orders. At the moment when there is a stock or a winner, the industry expects that the cross-strait semiconductor supply chain can compete with others through human resources. The Bureau will continue to work. Taiwan-based MCU suppliers emphasize that although the entire chip cost only accounts for about 20 to 30% of the end product, and several chips are subdivided into it, even if the cost-effectiveness of their own MCU is comparable to that of foreign investors, there is a 20% spread. For customers, the cost change is only about 1%. Unless the last minute, customers are usually less interested in purchasing new chip solutions. However, when the chip is out of stock, or the customer is pushing down the original chip supplier. Quotation, strategy to diversify chip sources, it is possible to adopt new chip solutions, in which, if the customer wants to strategically disperse the source of the chip, it is usually the day when the chip is abandoned. It will become a chess piece for the customer, and it will be manipulated. However, if the chip is out of stock, then there will be no need to worry about the customer's deliberate picking, and the interference from competitors. Even the customer will escort in person to ensure that there is sufficient chip capacity. With the rising production capacity of 8-inch wafers on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, chip suppliers have the capacity to dare to solicit orders. The chip makers are extremely smart and not only send personnel to queue at the fabs of TSMC and the world's advanced fabs. , Including UMC, SMIC, and Hua Hong, etc. are also promising, and now even Powerchip, MOS, and Han Lei are also seeing a long queue of people, highlighting the fact that wafer production capacity is king's industrial reality. Face 2018 The pressure on the production capacity of the 8-inch wafers in the second half of the year, including the joint ventures, Lianyang, Lianjie, Zhiyuan, and the former equal-junction IC design companies, is expected to have the potential to pursue chasing momentum. The design company, as well as the new Tangtang invested by Winbond, have also had the power of mother-to-child, and in the crucial moment of winning more wafers, it is equal to the market share of more chips. The cross-strait semiconductor industry has been able to grab capacity through human connections. Sheng In addition, it will continue to emerge in the short term. DIGITIMES
6. The supply of silicon wafers is tight, the world advanced: adequate supply
The world’s leading wafer foundry giants held a shareholders’ meeting on the 14th. In the face of tight supply and price increases for silicon wafers, UMC’s rivals have for the first time said that they will pass on the increase in costs caused by silicon wafer price increases to customers. After taking a step-up strategy, Chairman of the Board of Directors said that the world's advanced suppliers and customers have a good relationship of cooperation over the years. At present, there is no shortage of silicon wafers, and the issue of silicon wafer price increases will continue. Customer communication will adopt a maneuvering strategy and respond to costs in a timely manner. According to the strategy, global GDP growth in 2018 is better than that in 2017, with an estimated 3.7%. The overall output value of the semiconductor industry can grow by approximately 4% to reach US$427 billion. In the foundry industry, driven by the advanced process requirements, it grew by approximately 3% to US$59 billion, of which 16.2 billion US dollars came from the contribution of 8-inch foundry, with an annual growth rate of approximately 2%. Overall, the overall economic situation is stable, plus the world's advanced orders are booming, 8-inch production capacity is fully loaded, and music is expected to be operated in the second half of the year. In addition, the world’s advanced display-related driver ICs, power management ICs and discrete power components The camp has seen performance. In order to diversify product and market concentration and further reduce operational risks, it is actively working in the high-margin market. In addition to existing high-voltage simulations, BCD (Bipolar-CMOS-DMOS), ultra-high pressure process, it also continues to accelerate. Sensing components, fingerprint identification ICs, high-power power management ICs and embedded memory platforms and other programs to meet the needs of the era of energy-saving and carbon reduction and meet the automotive electronics and Internet of things market demand. At the same time also fully introduce more IDM customers The plan to increase the proportion of foreign customers will also continue. We hope to deepen our long-term partnership with customers to ensure the leading position of special foundry companies and become a leader in high-voltage and power semiconductor manufacturing processes in the global foundry industry. One of them. For the recent cooling of mining demand, Strategy said that the world's advanced focus on special foundry areas, providing various types of process and customer design and production of power management IC and LCD panel driver IC and other applications, and continued The customer cooperates in the development of BCD and high-pressure/ultra-high-pressure processes. The application-specific chip (ASIC) for mining is mainly based on advanced processes. Counting chips, the world’s advanced technology has not been infiltrated too much, so there is no impact on demand. Only the world’s most advanced 8-inch wafer fabs have continuous production capacity. Based on customer needs and future growth, the strategy has been actively evaluated. In terms of growth direction, in addition to the existing three 8-inch wafer fabs that will continue to increase production capacity by adopting efficiency escalation, the creation or purchase of 12-inch plants is also one of the assessment options, but it has not yet been determined. In terms of operating conditions in 2017, Affected by changes in the exchange rate of the Taiwan dollar, the world’s advanced consolidated revenue was NT$24.91 billion, a 3.6% decrease from the 25.38 billion yuan in 2016. In addition, the annual average gross profit margin was approximately 32%, and net profit after tax was approximately RMB 4.5 billion. After-tax EPS (EPS) was RMB 2.73, which was less than RMB 3.35 in 2016. The capital expenditure in 2017 was about NT$ 1.8 billion. The annual production capacity was about 2.342 million pieces, an increase of 4% year-on-year, and the capacity utilization rate was 89%. Shipment volume of wafers reached 2.09 million. To continue to increase process technology and increase production capacity, capital expenditures in 2018 were estimated to increase slightly to NT$2.1 billion. The estimated production capacity in 2018 was 2.392 million pieces, an increase of 2% year-on-year. Received power management IC customer inventory adjustment and new Taiwan Affected by appreciation, the world’s advanced revenue in the first quarter of 2018 was approximately RMB 6.425 billion, a slight increase of 0.8% from the fourth quarter of 2017, a slight increase of 2.6% compared to the same period in 2017, and a gross margin of 32.2%, compared to 2017. In the fourth quarter, 33.9% decreased by 1.7 percentage points, and net profit after tax was 1.148 billion yuan, which represented a decrease of 5.7% quarter-on-quarter and a decrease of 0.2% year-on-year. EPS was 0.7 yuan, slightly lower than the fourth quarter of 2007, which was 0.74%, which was the same level as in the same period in 2017. In the second quarter, as the power supply IC customer inventory adjustment was completed, demand gradually recovered, and the IT panel benefited from the growth in eSports demand, the driver IC was relatively stable, and the world’s advanced forecasted consolidated revenue was approximately between RMB6.7 billion and RMB7.1 billion. The gross profit margin is about 31.5~33.5%, and the operating profit rate is between 21~23%. The production capacity in the second quarter will increase by 6% from the first quarter, and about 198,000 in a single month. The overall technology development, the development of display driver chip technology Parts, 0.2 micron, 0.18 micron, 0.15 micron, 0.11 micron high-voltage process, and high-pressure processes for 0.16 micron and 0.18 micron additional embedded non-volatile memory dedicated to touch panels have been introduced into mass production; BCD for power management ICs Process sections, 0.5 micron, 0.4 micron, 0.35 micron, 0.25 micron, 0.15 micron and 0.11 micron BCD process Mass production has been introduced. The second-generation ultra-low 0.5-micron on-resistance value has been updated, and the streamlined ultra-high pressure and 0.25-micron SOI processes have also been developed. The product design and mass production are completed with specific customers. In addition, 0.5/ The 0.4-micron SOI process has also been verified by automotive electronics. The accumulated shipment volume has reached a certain scale, and the benefits of the deep-pumping automotive electronics market have become more apparent. Another 0.18um/0.15um IC process for capacitive fingerprinting has been introduced into mass production. , The 0.18um IC process for optical fingerprint identification has been developed by customers and successfully integrated into smart phones. It successfully demonstrated the latest optical fingerprint recognition function. Another concern is that the high frequency characteristics of 5G let nitrogen GaN semiconductor process has become the mainstream technology in the power amplifier (PA) market, and GaN power components have also begun to be used in the networking of cars and electric vehicles. It is understood that the world's advanced technology began to develop GaN technology in 2015, with equipment and materials plant Kyma , Invested in QQ silicon substrate factory QROMIS cooperation, by the end of 2017 has been successfully trial production of 8-inch GaN wafers, but there are still new materials and costs and other issues to be overcome, it is expected that in 2019 will be apparent volume. In terms of foundry revenue and rankings, according to research firm Gartner, global chip foundry (including Pure Play and IDM) accounted for TSMC in 2017, revenue growth was 9%, and market share declined slightly to 53.8%. GlobalFoundries ranked second with 8.9%, followed by Ubisoft with 8.2%, Samsung Electronics and SMIC with 4 or 5, and TowerJazz was optimized through merger and acquisition capacity and product mix. Revenue growth rate was 14% for sixth place, Powerchip Technology ranked seventh with 1.9% market share, advanced world ranked ninth, with a market share of approximately 1.4%. The world’s advanced shareholders meeting passed on the 14th Annual earnings and surplus distribution case, EPS is 2.75 yuan, and dividends of 3 yuan per share are allotted. DIGITIMES