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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.

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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.

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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.

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Big Tech begs Congress to pass $52bn chip subsidies bill

This silicon business ain't cheap, you know, say execs at Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, Nvidia etc

Dylan Martin Wed 15 Jun 2022 // 17:26 UTC

Big Tech in America has had enough of Congress' inability to pass pending legislation that includes tens of billions of dollars in subsidies to boost semiconductor manufacturing and R&D in the country.
In a letter [PDF] sent to Senate and House leaders Wednesday, the CEOs of Alphabet, Amazon, Dell, IBM, Microsoft, Salesforce, VMware, and dozens of other tech and tech-adjacent companies urged the two chambers of Congress to reach consensus on a long-stalled bill they believe will make the US more competitive against China and other countries.
"The rest of the world is not waiting for the US to act. Our global competitors are investing in their industry, their workers, and their economies, and it is imperative that Congress act to enhance US competitiveness," said the letter.

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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.

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Semiconductor industry growth to slow in 2022, warns IDC

Chip price hikes keeping sector healthy but new fabs could lead to 'overcapacity'

Dylan Martin Thu 9 Jun 2022 // 15:34 UTC

The global economy may be in a tenuous situation right now, but the semiconductor industry is likely to walk away from 2022 with a "healthy" boost in revenues, according to analysts at IDC. But beware oversupply, the analyst firm warns.
Semiconductor companies across the world are expected to grow collective revenues by 13.7 percent year-on-year to $661 billion, IDC said in research published Wednesday. Global semiconductor revenue last year was $582 billion.
"Overall, the semiconductor industry remains on track to deliver another healthy year of growth as the super cycle that began in 2020 continues this year," said Mario Morales, IDC group vice president of semiconductors.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Who's growing faster than Nvidia and AMD? Rising datacenter star Marvell

Of the top 10 fabless chip designers, the Big M soared in Q1 thanks to switch ASICs

Dylan Martin Tue 14 Jun 2022 // 19:00 UTC

In the world of fabless chip designers, AMD, Nvidia and Qualcomm usually soak up the most attention since their chips are fueling everything from top-end supercomputers to mobile devices.
This hunger for compute is what has allowed all three companies to grow revenue in the high double digits recently. But there's one fabless chip designer that is growing faster among the largest in the world and it's far from a household name: Marvell Technology.
Silicon Valley-based Marvell grew semiconductor revenue by 72 percent to $1.4 billion in the first quarter, which made it the fastest growing out of the top 10 largest fabless chip designers during that period, according to financials compiled by Taiwanese research firm TrendForce.

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