Financial
• According to TrendForce’s latest survey, global NB shipment will remain inhibited due to geopolitics and high interest rates throughout 2024. Annual shipment is projected at 173.45 million units at a YoY growth of 3,6% in 2024. The penetration rate of AI NBs is projected to surge from 1% in 2024 to 20% in 2025.
• Berg Insight has reported that the installed base of fleet management systems in commercial vehicle fleets in South Africa will surge to 3,8 million units by 2028. This relates to CAGR of 10,3%. South Africa is a relatively mature telematics market, and the penetration rate is comparably high from an international perspective.
• The top 10 global foundries saw a combined 4,3% QoQ drop in Q1 2024 revenue. These foundries generated a total revenue of $29,2 billion during this period. SMIC climbed to third spot in the ranking, overtaking GlobalFoundries and UMC. TSMC’s shares, however, saw another jump, extending the company’s rally for this year to more than 75%, and moving the company near to a $1 trillion valuation.
• The price of lithium in June reached a new low for 2024 due to the downstream battery sector concentrating on reduction of inventory. Weak demand for lithium salts and lithium carbonate, compounded by oversupply, also contributed to the low price.
• TrendForce revealed that the DRAM industry experienced a 5,1% revenue increase in Q1 2024 compared to the previous quarter. This growth, reaching $18,35 billion, was driven by rising contract prices for mainstream products, with the price increase being more significant than in Q4 2023. As a result, most companies in the industry continued to see revenue growth. Mobile DRAM saw the highest price increase out of all applications, thanks to strong sales of Chinese smartphones. On the other hand, the price increase for consumer DRAM was the lowest among all applications, as manufacturers still need to clear their inventories.
• STMicroelectronics has maintained its first place in the SiC power devices market with a 32,6% share, driven primarily by the demand for BEVs. However, a noticeable slowdown in the sales growth for BEVs, and a reduction in industrial applications, will disrupt the supply chain, with the forecast that revenue for SiC power devices will significantly decelerate in the latter half of 2024.
• Eskom is set to publish figures for its annual financial report, showing a loss of R15 billion, an improvement over the R23 billion loss reported for the same period last year. This loss is largely attributed to the R33 billion spent on diesel used to keep the open-cycle gas turbines running.
Companies
• ST is currently building a full-process SiC factory in Catania, Italy, that is expected to be operational by 2026. This joint venture between ST and Sanan Optoelectronics will allow ST to achieve vertical integration in the 8-inch SiC market.
• Mouser Electronics announced it has received two major distribution awards from Vishay Intertechnology. Vishay named Mouser its 2023 High Service Distributor of the Year, and 2023 Semiconductor High Service Distributor of the Year. The annual awards are based on a scoring system for key performance metrics, including sales revenue, new product introductions, and total stocked parts. Mouser has received a long list of awards from Vishay throughout the years, and this is the third consecutive year that Vishay has awarded Mouser these top awards.
• Mouser has also been named 2023 Distributor of the Year by Carlo Gavazzi, an industrial automation company that designs, manufactures, and markets electronic equipment for global supply. In delivering the award, the company cited Mouser’s commitment to POS and a greater increase in customer base than any other channel partner.
• NVIDIA has become the most expensive stock in the S&P 500 Index, with its shares trading for approximately 23 times the company’s projected sales over the next 12 months. The surge in demand for the company’s chips over the last two years is largely due to the frenzy surrounding AI that is currently gripping the technology world. With the hype, NVIDIA also briefly overtook Microsoft as the world’s most valuable company, but soon after settled back into third place behind Microsoft and Apple. The top four companies are Microsoft ($3,327 trillion), Apple ($3,191 trillion), NVIDIA ($2,905 trillion), and Alphabet ($2,223 trillion).
• SolarAfrica Energy has started construction on a R5 billion project in the Northern Cape which is set to produce 1000 MW of solar power into the national grid. The first phase of the project known as SunCentral will see the generation of 342 MW, and will already eclipse the country’s current largest solar plant by 160 MW. SolarAfrica Energy said SunCentral will provide power on a one-to-many basis, allowing businesses to access cheaper, cleaner energy through wheeling, an initiative first announced by former CEO, Andre de Ruyter, in September 2022.
• Nordic Semiconductor has been named by TIME magazine as one of the ‘World’s Most Sustainable Companies’. Nordic is a provider of low-power wireless IoT connectivity solutions.
• TrinaSolar has been recognised as a ‘Top Performer’ for the 10th consecutive year in nearly every category among PV module manufacturers. The recognition was given by Kiwa PV Evolution Labs, a third-party reliability testing laboratory, in its 2024 Reliability Scorecard for the outstanding performance of TrinaSolar’s Vertex N modules, especially the Vertex N 720W series.
• Eskom has announced that the National Nuclear Regulator has granted Koeberg Unit 1 an operating licence for the next 20 years, allowing it to remain active until July 2044. The unit, which contributes 930 MW to the national grid, is scheduled to undergo a maintenance outage in January 2025, when it will also be refuelled. This operating extension sees Koeberg joining 120 reactors worldwide that are also in operation past their initial 40-year design lifespan.
• MyBroadband Insights has released its Mobile Network Quality Report for Q2 2024, which shows that MTN has the best network in SA. The big mover of the group was Cell C which leap-frogged Telkom and Rain to claim third spot. The average download speed reported for SA across all networks was 70,4 Mbps.
Technologies
• Arm has released a statement notifying the shutdown of the Mbed platform and OS. The once-popular OS used on microcontrollers will see its end-of-life in July 2026 when the Mbed website will be archived, and will no longer be accessible for compiling of online projects. The device software, Mbed OS, is open source and will remain publicly available, but will no longer be actively maintained by Arm.
• SA’s new Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, Dion George, has said that his focus will be on renewable energy and that not enough has been done to build renewable energy plants in the country. He maintains that his ministry’s focus will be on implementing the $9,3 billion made available through the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP). In the last three years, South Africa has yet to shut down any of the coal-fired plants it said it would do, and has only added 150 MW of renewable energy to the grid, with members of the JETP expressing frustration about the slow pace of implementation.
• After six months of testing, Kusile Unit 5 has now begun contributing 800 MW of power to the national grid, increasing Kusile’s total capacity to 4 GW. Unit 5 was first synchronised to the grid on 31 December 2023, but has spent the first half of this year undergoing testing and optimisation. This handover marks a significant milestone in the efforts to stabilise SA’s power system. One more unit at Kusile is still to be implemented, which will eventually bring the power station up to full capacity of 4,8 GW.
• South Africa’s energy minister, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, is working on securing funding for a 2,5 GW nuclear power plant. The process has reached an advanced stage with a team finalising the procurement structure for the project. It is hoped that the national treasury will sign off on the plan in the next month. The site for the erection of the plant has yet to be announced.
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