In 2007, the big bet in the chip industry was on NAND. Prices were falling but the suppliers were building capacity like crazy. The Intel/Micron joint venture, IM Flash, was bringing up three 300mm fabs for NAND flash, and said it would start a new fab in 2007 in Singapore and that it would build one fab every year thereafter. ...

Korean semiconductor production in November shrank for a fourth straight month, falling 15% from a year earlier for the largest drop since 2009, according to Statistics Korea. The latest output figures showed chip production was also down 11% on a month-over-month basis, while semiconductor inventories climbed 20% from a year earlier in November, picking up from 12.9% in the previous ...

Nexperia has engaged US law firm Akin Gump to fight the UK government’s decision to block its purchase of Newport Wafer Fab. Akin Gump is to act for Nexperia in Nexperia’s application for a judicial review of the UK government’s decision to block the deal. The review could end in the decision being declared unlawful. Nexperia has also engaged the ...

Freetech Intelligent System, a Chinese self-driving car company, has raised nearly $100 million in a Series B funding round. Investors included:  Chaos Investment, Hengxu Capital, a unit of SAIC Motor, BAIC Capital and TCL Industries Holdings. The money will be used to refine its technology, R&D and to commercialise self-driving cars. “Autonomous driving is one of the most important technologies ...

One of the notable anniversaries of 2022 has been the 150th commemoration of the Iwakura Mission. Led by Ambassador Iwakura Tomomi, the mission consisted of 48 people including four vice ambassadors who were mostly scholars and statesmen plus an attachment of 53 students. The purpose was to study the scientific, cultural and economic progress of the US and Europe. After ...

Shortly after the invention of the transistor, Hughes Aircraft Company started research on transistor and diode development in Culver City, CA. In 1954, a group broke off from Hughes to form a startup specialising in diodes which soon became profitable thanks to technological leadership gained through its patented process of ‘glass-to-metal’ sealing. Later, an engineer at the company invented TTL. Moral: ...

Infineon is looking at buying companies, according to  CEO Jochen Hanebeck (pictured) speaking to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) newspaper. Areas where the company could be interested in M&A include power semiconductors, sensors, software and AI. Hanebeck said the size of potential target acquisitions is “in the range of up to a few billion”. Infineon bought Cypress for $10 billion in ...

Kyocera is more than doubling its capex and R&D budget to $9.78 billion over the three years March 2022-26, Kyocera’s President Hideo Tanimoto told the Nikkei. Capex is doubling to $6.8 billion and R&D is increasing 60% to $3 billion. To fund the programme, Kyocera will borrow $7.5 billion using its KDDI shares as collateral. Kyocera owns 15% of KDDI’s shares ...

Between 2022 and 2025, the YoY growth rate of NAND  bits will remain below 30%, says TrendForce. The average NAND Flash content of client SSDs has already passed 500GB this year. Quotes for 512GB SSDs have fallen sharply and come to a level that is roughly comparable to the quotes that were given for 256GB SSDs half-a-year ago. In fact, ...

Not for the first time, the DRAM business is trending bloody with Samsung adding capacity during a glut and expected to cut prices. Samsung is gearing up to deliver a triple whammy – an increase in capacity, a move to a smaller process and a cut in prices all of which, coming in the middle of a glut, looks like ...