Financials
• The surge in prices of lithium is seemingly unstoppable, being driven by the demand for batteries used for renewable energy storage and EVs. Lithium carbonate recently reached a new record of R1,3 million per ton in China. The past year has seen prices for the now-valuable alkali-metal triple in price, thereby inflating the cost of batteries utilising this chemistry.
• According to Semiconductor Intelligence LLC, several signs point to an easing of the shortages of semiconductors for automotive applications. However, the production of light vehicles will likely remain below full potential until the end of 2023. This shortage in semiconductors was as a direct result of manufacturers cutting back on semiconductor orders at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020.
• IC Insights has reported that the CMOS image sensor market is set to suffer its first decline in 13 years, with sales expected to fall 7% to $18,6 billion, causing global shipments to decline by 11%. This is in stark contrast to the strong growth over the past two decades, which has seen CMOS image sensors at the top of the opto-electronics market generating over 40% of the total opto-electronic annual revenues.
• In addition to weak demand in mainstream consumer and industrial devices, CMOS image sensors have been negatively impacted by deteriorating economic conditions. However, a slow–but-steady recovery in CMOS image sensors is forecast to be driven by a new upgrade buying cycle of smartphones and more embedded cameras being added in other systems, especially for automotive automation capabilities, medical applications, and intelligent security networks.
• Sales of power transistors, however, are set to continue its upward trend. After climbing 26% in 2021, the forecast is for power transistors to grow 11% in 2022, a reduction over the previous year, but still a healthy growth figure. This growth will result in a six-straight record high level totalling $24,5 billion. The news is not all good, though, as the forecast for next year is for the string of record-high sales in power transistors to end, caused by a slowdown in global economic growth and a 4% drop in the average selling prices of devices.
• The automotive IC market share has again seen an increase to reach 7,4% of total IC sales. Market share gains are forecast to continue for the automotive segment. At the centre of this growth are the number of new sensors, analog devices, and opto-electronics being incorporated into new vehicles, including the surge in manufacturing and sales of electric vehicles globally.
• A move by the US Biden administration to restrict China’s access to US semiconductor technology has seen a marked selloff that has wiped out more than $240 billion from the sector’s global market value. Chip-related stocks in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan slumped on the back of the announcement on 7 October. Samsung Electronics had the biggest drop in a year and TSMC plunged more than 7%. Tokyo Electron lost 5,8%. The monetary exchanges for these countries also took a hit as South Korea’s won dropped 1,6% and the Taiwan dollar dropped 0,7% against the US dollar.
Companies
• Samsung Electronics has unveiled plans for 1,4 nm process technology at Samsung Foundry Forum 2022. The company will be targeting mass production of 2 nm process technology by 2025 and 1,4 nm by 2027. Plans to expand its production capacity by more than three times by 2027 were also announced. Samsung also announced that its next version of gate-all-around (GAA) technology will shrink transistors about 20%, while increasing speed and power.
• Anglo American, together with Electricite de France, have signed an agreement to form Envusa Energy, a jointly owned entity to develop both wind and solar projects in South Africa. In a statement, Envusa said it will develop more than 600 MW of renewable energy as a first step. Construction of the projects is due to begin in 2023. The signed MoU between Anglo and EDF will hopefully see the proposed 3-5 GW of green energy being generated by 2030.
• STMicroelectronics has announced plans to build an integrated Silicon Carbide (SiC) substrate manufacturing facility in Italy. The first-of-its-kind SiC epitaxial substrate facility will reinforce substrate supply for SiC devices, enabling automotive and industrial customers to shift to higher efficiency components used for electrification solutions. Silicon Carbide is widely used in semiconductor electronics devices that operate at high temperatures and high voltages.
• Renesas has announced a partnership with Jariet Technologies which will help to bolster its wireless transceiver solutions portfolio. The partnership will see Renesas obtaining access to Jariet’s IP, including a range of ultra-high-speed ADCs and DACs. The devices, with sampling rates that exceed 100 GSPS, are suitable for direct-sampling RF and microwave transceivers.
• In line with its strategy to provide customers with comprehensive solutions, Altron Arrow recently signed a new supplier agreement with HOPERF. The company is actively involved in the development of IoT chipsets and modules, and its sub-1 GHz, Bluetooth and LoRa modules provide an exceptional addition to Altron Arrow’s current technology portfolio.
• Indium Corporation has been recognised via a leadership category award from Electronics Maker for ‘Best electronics assembly materials manufacturer of the year’ during a recent ceremony. The Electronics Maker’s best of industry awards, now in its eighth year, aims to honour and recognise the leading performers and innovators in the electronics industry.
• Indium Corporation has also announced the addition of two members to its Engineered Solder Materials team: Igor Faleichik as senior product specialist, and Jim McCoy as product specialist. Faleichik assumed responsibility for creating and supporting initiatives to grow the product lines with a focus on the connector and RF infrastructure markets for ESM. McCoy is responsible for researching and aligning customer needs with product capabilities to facilitate current and prospective business within the engineered solder materials segment.
• Panasonic Industry Europe and Panasonic Electric Works Europe have merged to create a stronger business partner for its customers. The announcement comes after the merger took place on 1 October 2022. The strategic corporate re-organisation will seek to strengthen the position of Panasonic Industry Europe in the market, and customers will benefit from the combined experience, high-quality capabilities, and unified portfolios of products and services.
• Pulsonix, a provider of electronic design automation (EDA) software delivering PCB design solutions, has announced that it was awarded the ‘Best PC Design Software’ at the EM Best Awards 2022. The EM Best Awards celebrates excellence and achievements of true pioneers in the electronic fields. Pulsonix’s EDA technology suite has been designed to meet the ever-changing needs of PCB design in the 21st century and sets the new standard for the electronics industry with easy-to-use schematic capture and PCB layout programs.
• To keep up with rivals Amazon Web Services and Microsoft, Google has announced that it will be establishing cloud infrastructure in South Africa, and that it will be building interconnect sites on the continent linked to its new Equiano subsea fibre cable. The South Africa cloud region is set to contribute R37 billion to the country’s GDP by 2030.
Technologies
• The move to USB-C standard on all electronic devices is seemingly not happening fast enough for the EU Parliament, as a newly passed law states that almost all portable electronics will need to be charged via USB-C by 2026. One exception to this law is for laptops that require more than 100 W of power for charging, which covers most of the high-end graphics machines. This move will likely finally force Apple to abandon its Lightning connector, and will, in estimates, help consumers save up to €250 million a year on new chargers.
• Neo Semiconductor has recently announced an update to its existing high-performance X-NAND memory cell and architecture first introduced in 2020. The second-generation update achieves 20 times the performance of conventional QLC 3D NAND memories, which is achieved through an enhanced architecture that allows the 3D NAND flash data writes to occur in parallel using fewer planes. Furthermore, power consumption is reduced by between 25 and 90%, which will significantly increase the battery life of devices.
• AMD has announced that the lifecycle of its Xilinx 7 Series family of FPGAs and SoCs has been extended through at least 2035. This includes all speed and temperature grades for Spartan-7, Artix-7, Kintex-7, and Virtex-7 FPGAs, as well as Zynq-7000 SoCs. This will allow customers to design products knowing that they will available and supported well into the future.
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