Financial
• Urgent orders have boosted the utilisation of wafer foundries in the second quarter with the top 10 global foundry revenue climbing by 9,6%. A major contributor to this growth is the increase in demand for AI servers, which has seen the total revenue of the top 10 reach $32 billion in Q2 2024. The top five rankings remain unchanged with TSMC, Samsung, SMIC, UMC, and GlobalFoundries in those respective positions at the top.
• TSMC’s wafer shipments rose by 3,1% in Q2, driven by Apple’s restocking cycle, and strong demand for AI server-related HPC chips. The increased contribution from high-priced advanced processes led to a 10,5% increase in revenue to $20,82 billion, securing them a dominant market share of 62,3%. Samsung Foundry, benefiting from Apple’s restocking for the new iPhone and the ramp-up of related ICs such as Qualcomm’s 5/4 nm 5G modem and 28/22 nm OLED DDI, saw its revenue grow by 14,2% to $3,83 billion, holding steady at an 11,5% market share and ranking second.
• According to Berg Insight, the installed global base of digital signage reached 91,5 million units in 2023. Growing at a CAGR of 10,3%, this figure is expected to reach 149,4 million units in 2028. Market growth in this sector is driven by greater demand for digital signage in all market verticals, combined with a continued decline in prices.
• Memory module manufacturers have been aggressively increasing their DRAM inventories for the last four quarters, with inventory levels rising to between 11 and 17 weeks by end of Q2 2024. However, demand for consumer electronics has not rebounded as initially predicted, resulting in a weakening in spot prices for memory products, with Q2 prices dropping over 30% compared to Q1. The industry saw a significant 40% decline YoY in shipments of DRAM products destined for consumer electronics.
• NAND Flash prices continued to increase in Q2 2024 as AI drove demand for high-capacity storage products. The ASP increased by 15%, driving total revenue to a high of $16,796 billion, marking a 14,2% growth over the previous quarter. Despite this, however, shipments declined by 1% QoQ and are expected to remain muted for the third quarter.
• Enterprise SSD contract prices have also been driven by the demand for AI rising by 25% in the second quarter. The increase in demand for SSDs is due to the increased deployment of NVIDIA GPU platforms and rising storage needs driven by AI applications. This price increase has led to a revenue growth of over 50% for suppliers.
• TrendForce has reported that the market for battery metals such as nickel, cobalt, and lithium remained weak in August, with prices of these raw materials continuing to fall. Following a drop in the price of battery-grade lithium carbonate below ¥90 000 per ton in July, a new historic low, of ¥80 000 per ton was set in August. The continued drop in cobalt and nickel salts also triggered declines in the price of cathodes, electrolytes, and other battery components.
Companies
• NVIDIA’s data centre business is driving a surge in the company’s revenue, which has doubled in the second quarter of its current fiscal year to reach $30 billion. This growth is mainly due to the huge demand for its core Hopper GPU products. Demand for the newer H200 GPU is on the increase, and this GPU is likely to be NVIDIA’s primary shipment driver from Q3 2024 onwards. The company’s latest financial report reveals that its data centre business grew by 154% YoY.
• Mouser Electronics has received a 2024 Outstanding Online Distributor Award from NXP Semiconductors for the MCX new product introduction. The award was presented during the NXP Semiconductors EMEA Distribution Summit in June 2024. NXP highlighted Mouser’s outstanding performance in providing the best campaign in EMEA for the launch of its MCX industrial and IoT microcontrollers.
• News24 reported that a pilot project to test smart electricity meters, and which cost the eThekwini metro R500 million, has concluded that the devices do not work. An investigation has now been launched to determine what the problem may be, or if the meters, contracted out to Africa Utility Solutions (AUS), were in fact delivered at all. An internal review has already found that AUS should not have been awarded one of two contracts it received, as the company did not meet the technical specifications required by the tender. At the time, a bid adjudication committee recommended that a different company be appointed who did have the technical capabilities.
• Trinasolar reinforced its commitment to South Africa’s renewable energy future with an event in Cape Town. This event not only emphasised Trinasolar’s ongoing expansion in the region, but also highlighted its transformative impact on the country’s energy landscape.
Technologies
• According to Berg Insight, the number of patients being remotely monitored worldwide in 2023 totalled 76,7 million. This number excludes personal health tracking devices like smartwatches and fitness trackers. The company estimates that the number of remotely monitored patients will grow at a CAGR of 12,8% to reach 140,1 million by 2028. The three main applications are monitoring of patients with sleep therapy devices, glucose level monitoring of patients with diabetes, and monitoring of patients with implantable cardiac rhythm management devices, with sleep therapy being by far the most connected segment.
• The installed base of wireless devices in industrial automation reached 56,5 million in 2023, according to a new research report by IoT analyst firm Berg Insight. The annual shipments of wireless devices for industrial automation applications reached 10,7 million units worldwide in 2023, accounting for almost 9% of all new connected nodes. Growing at a CAGR of 12,3%, annual shipments are expected to reach 19,1 million by 2028.
• Anritsu has introduced a receiver test solution that supports USB4 version 2.0, with 80 Gbps data transmission speed. This was achieved by enhancing the functionality of the Signal Quality Analyzer-R MP1900A. The demand for this new USB standard is increasing as the high-capacity transmission of 4K/8K HD video and high-speed communication between AI-based IoT devices requires faster data transfer speeds.
• An international research team led by scientists at JILA, a joint institute of NIST and the University of Colarado, has demonstrated elements of a nuclear clock. This is a novel type of timekeeping where signals coming from the nucleus of an atom are used. Unlike atomic clocks which record time through the frequency of light emitted and absorbed by electrons moving between atomic levels, a nuclear clock taps into the energy shifts of protons and neutrons inside an atom’s nucleus. The team used a specially designed ultraviolet laser to precisely measure the frequency of an energy jump in thorium nuclei embedded in a solid crystal.
• In a ground-breaking move for South Africa’s climate strategy, the SA’s Minister of Mineral and Petroleum Resources, Gwede Mantashe, officially unveiled the country’s first pilot Carbon Capture, Utilisation, and Storage (CCUS) research site in Leandra, Mpumalanga. This landmark development follows the successful completion of a geological characterisation study, including the drilling of a 1800 m stratigraphic borehole at the Goedehoop site, confirming its suitability for safe and permanent CO2 storage. This site represents a crucial step towards deploying CCUS technology as a viable solution to mitigate CO2 emissions.
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