Chip supply relief coming in 2024 when wafer plants open • The Register Forums

User topics

Article topics

Log in Sign up

Other stories you might like

To Washington's relief, GlobalWafers to spend $5 billion on Texas plant

Cash had been burning a hole in company's pocket after deal to buy Siltronic fell through

Laura Dobberstein Tue 28 Jun 2022 // 05:45 UTC

Taiwan's GlobalWafers announced on Monday a new use for the $5 billion it first earmarked for a purchase of Germany's Siltronics: building a 300-millimeter semiconductor wafer plant in the US state of Texas.
Construction on the facility – which will eventually span 3.2 million square feet – is expected to commence later this year, with chip production commencing by 2025. The plant will sit in the city of Sherman, near the Texas-Oklahoma border, where it is slated to bring in 1,500 jobs as production climbs towards 1.2 million wafers per month.
GlobalWafers is the world's third largest producer of silicon wafers and Sherman is already home to its subsidiary, GlobiTech.

Continue reading
Semiconductor market to be hit by fresh wave of rising component costs

Chemicals supplier warns it expects to raise prices, may cut some product lines

Dan Robinson Tue 5 Jul 2022 // 13:00 UTC

More red flags about the semiconductor market are being raised with the news that a key supplier to chipmakers such as TSMC is planning to hike prices, which will likely have a knock-on effect on chip prices.
Japan-based chemicals company Showa Denko has warned it expects to raise prices and may have to cut back some of its unprofitable product lines. The company is a major supplier of chemicals and gases that are used in the semiconductor manufacturing industry for the creation of silicon wafers and in the etching process to create chips.
In an interview with Bloomberg, Showa Denko chief financial officer Hideki Somemiya said the company had already raised prices at least a dozen times this year, citing issues such as COVID-19 lockdowns, increasing energy costs and other factors. However, he confirmed "the current market moves require us to ask twice the amount we had previously calculated."

Continue reading
Rise in Taiwanese energy prices may hit global chip production

National provider considering cost increase of 15%, which could be passed on to tech customers

Dan Robinson Mon 27 Jun 2022 // 13:30 UTC

Taiwan's state-owned energy company is looking to raise prices for industrial users, a move likely to impact chipmakers such as TSMC, which may well have a knock-on effect on the semiconductor supply chain.
According to Bloomberg, the Taiwan Power Company, which produces electricity for the island nation, has proposed increasing electricity costs by 15 percent for industrial users, the first increase in four years.
The power company has itself been hit by the rising costs of fuel, including the imported coal and natural gas it uses to generate electricity. At the same time, the country is experiencing record demand for power because of increasing industrial requirements and because of high temperatures driving the use of air conditioning, as reported by the local Taipei Times.

Continue reading
Semiconductor boom could be coming to an end – analysts

Record revenues buoyed by surge in demand over the last couple of years, but nothing lasts forever

Dan Robinson Fri 24 Jun 2022 // 13:00 UTC

The semiconductor market is flattening out after a period of record revenues, according to research outfit Omdia.
The report joins a growing list of warnings that the chip industry is heading for a slowdown because of companies stockpiling components and global economic effects such as inflation.
Omdia's latest analysis of the worldwide semiconductor market shows that it reached a plateau in the first quarter of 2022 following five straight quarters of record revenues and continual growth in demand.

Continue reading
TSMC may surpass Intel in quarterly revenue for first time

Fab frenemies: x86 giant set to give Taiwanese chipmaker more money as it revitalizes foundry business

Dylan Martin Mon 27 Jun 2022 // 17:01 UTC

In yet another sign of how fortunes have changed in the semiconductor industry, Taiwanese foundry giant TSMC is expected to surpass Intel in quarterly revenue for the first time.
Wall Street analysts estimate TSMC will grow second-quarter revenue 43 percent quarter-over-quarter to $18.1 billion. Intel, on the other hand, is expected to see sales decline 2 percent sequentially to $17.98 billion in the same period, according to estimates collected by Yahoo Finance.
The potential for TSMC to surpass Intel in quarterly revenue is indicative of how demand has grown for contract chip manufacturing, fueled by companies like Qualcomm, Nvidia, AMD, and Apple who design their own chips and outsource manufacturing to foundries like TSMC.

Continue reading
Bipolar transistors made from organic materials for the first time

Move over silicon – digital circuits have a flexible new friend

Lindsay Clark Thu 23 Jun 2022 // 07:33 UTC

Scientists in Germany claim to have developed bipolar transistors from organic materials, opening a path for flexible and transparent electronics.
The study, led by Shu-Jen Wang, post-doctoral researcher Technische Universität Dresden, built an organic bipolar junction transistor using doped rubrene. That could help the semiconductor industry to make the switch to organic materials, increasing access to a wide library of materials for building electronic devices.
Transistors are the basis of today's digital circuits and, at a simple level, allow one signal to control another. They can amplify a signal, or switch between 'on' and 'off' states, through control of a current of charge carriers – which are either electrons or their positive counterpart (holes), or both.

Continue reading
Intel’s CEO shouldn’t be surprised America can’t get CHIPS Act together

Silicon supremo warns he could prioritize expansion in Europe if Congress doesn’t approve subsidies

Dylan Martin Wed 29 Jun 2022 // 19:57 UTC

Comment How serious is Intel about delaying the build-out of its planned $20 billion mega-fab site in Ohio?
It turns out very serious, as Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger made clear on Tuesday, less than a week after his x86 giant delayed the groundbreaking ceremony for the Ohio site to show its displeasure over Congress' inability to pass $52 billion in subsidies to fund American semiconductor manufacturing.
In comments at the Aspen Ideas Festival yesterday, Gelsinger warned Intel would prioritize building factories in Europe over the US if Congress fails to act on the long-stalled chip subsidies bill.

Continue reading
Intel withholds Ohio fab ceremony over US chip subsidies inaction

$20b factory construction start date unchanged – but the x86 giant is not happy

Dylan Martin Thu 23 Jun 2022 // 23:19 UTC

Intel has found a new way to voice its displeasure over Congress' inability to pass $52 billion in subsidies to expand US semiconductor manufacturing: withholding a planned groundbreaking ceremony for its $20 billion fab mega-site in Ohio that stands to benefit from the federal funding.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Intel was tentatively scheduled to hold a groundbreaking ceremony for the Ohio manufacturing site with state and federal bigwigs on July 22. But, in an email seen by the newspaper, the x86 giant told officials Wednesday it was indefinitely delaying the festivities "due in part to uncertainty around" the stalled Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) for America Act.
That proposed law authorizes the aforementioned subsidies for Intel and others, and so its delay is holding back funding for the chipmakers.

Continue reading
Samsung beats TSMC to be first to produce 3nm chips

Lower power consumption, improved performance, and a second generation of the technology on the way

Dan Robinson Thu 30 Jun 2022 // 13:00 UTC

Samsung has started production of chips using its 3nm fabrication process, beating rival TSMC, which expects to begin making chips with its N3 node generation later this year.
The resultant chips are claimed to reduce power consumption by up to 45 percent and improve performance by up to 23 percent, with further gains promised in a second generation of the process.
Korea's electronics giant said it has started initial production with its 3nm process node, which introduces what the firm calls Multi-Bridge-Channel FET (MBCFET) technology. This is Samsung's version of the Gate-All-Around (GAA) transistor architecture, where the gate material wraps around the conducting channel.

Continue reading
Intel demos multi-wavelength laser array integrated on silicon wafer

Next stop – on-chip optical interconnects?

Dan Robinson Wed 29 Jun 2022 // 14:40 UTC

Intel is claiming a significant advancement in its photonics research with an eight-wavelength laser array that is integrated on a silicon wafer, marking another step on the road to on-chip optical interconnects.
This development from Intel Labs will enable the production of an optical source with the required performance for future high-volume applications, the chip giant claimed. These include co-packaged optics, where the optical components are combined in the same chip package as other components such as network switch silicon, and optical interconnects between processors.
According to Intel Labs, its demonstration laser array was built using the company's "300-millimetre silicon photonics manufacturing process," which is already used to make optical transceivers, paving the way for high-volume manufacturing in future. The eight-wavelength array uses distributed feedback (DFB) laser diodes, which apparently refers to the use of a periodically structured element or diffraction grating inside the laser to generate a single frequency output.

Continue reading

ABOUT US

MORE CONTENT

SITUATION PUBLISHING

The Register - Independent news and views for the tech community. Part of Situation Publishing

SIGN UP TO OUR DAILY NEWSLETTER

Biting the hand that feeds IT © 1998–2022

Do not sell my personal information Cookies Privacy Ts&Cs