01. The chip industry is more optimistic that Singapore will become a production center

Western large chip manufacturers and related suppliers are starting to increase their production in Singapore to meet the growth of medium and long-term demand and diversify supply chain risks.

Soitec, a French substrate manufacturer, will invest 400 million euros (US $430 million) to double the capacity of its wafer factory in Singapore, while Applied Materials, an American semiconductor manufacturing equipment manufacturer, has broken ground on its new factory in Singapore, which has invested 600 million Singapore dollars (US $450 million).

Soitec is expanding its factory in Pasir Ris Wafer Factory Park, an industrial park in the northeast of Singapore, which gathers manufacturers in the industry. Soitec's project is planned to be completed in 2024, which will increase the total construction area of 45000 square meters for the factory, including office space.

The Soitec factory in Singapore produces silicon on insulator (SOI) wafers. The expansion will double the production capacity of 300 mm SOI chips in the factory to 2 million chips per year. It is expected that the number of employees in the factory will more than double to more than 600 by 2026.

02. AMD expects to account for more than 20% of the server CPU market by 2023, and Arm will account for 8%

According to Frank Kung, AMD and ARM have been catching up with Intel in the server CPU market in the past few years, and AMD won a particularly large share in 2022, because data center operators and server brands began to find that the solutions of the second largest manufacturer are increasingly superior to those of long-term leaders. DIGITIMES Research predicts that AMD's share will exceed 20% in 2023, while Arm will reach 8%.

03. The medical equipment industry is still suffering from chip shortage

Smith&Nephew, a British medical equipment manufacturer, said recently that although the shortage of most chips was easing, medical equipment manufacturers were still affected by the shortage of chips.

Deepak Nath, CEO of Smith&Nephew, said that the order volume of medical equipment manufacturers was smaller than that of many other industries, so chip manufacturers did not give priority to the supply of chips in the medical equipment industry. There are still problems in the supply of chips in the medical industry.

04. Insider: MagnaChip will close the Korean factory for one week

On February 24, 2023, according to the insiders of the supply chain, MagnaChip's wafer factory located in Kuei, Gyeongseong Hokkaido, South Korea, will stop production for a week from the 25th of this month due to soaring inventory and sluggish demand.

MagnaChip is a manufacturer of organic light-emitting diode display driver chips. Its global market share in 2020 was 33.2%, second only to Samsung Electronics and ranking second in the world. The factory in Kamei mainly produces power semiconductors. Based on the 8-inch wafer input, the monthly production capacity is 40000 pieces.

According to the results announcement of magna chip in the fourth quarter of 2022 and the whole year of 2022, its revenue in the fourth quarter was US $61 million, down 44.7% year on year; The gross profit margin was 26.4%, down 35% from the same period in 2021; The operating loss was US $10.117 million, and the operating profit in the same period of 2021 was US $63.87 million. The company's annual revenue in 2022 was US $337.7 million, down 28.8% year on year, and its operating profit turned into a loss from US $83.4 million last year.

From a quarterly perspective, MagnaChip's profit declined significantly. The insider said that MagnaChip's suspension of production for one week should be due to the decline in performance.

05. Intel postponed the order of TSMC 3nm chip to 2024

With the recently implemented cost reduction plan, the continued weakness of the PC market and the aggressive offensive of AMD, the product roadmap of Intel (Intel) is also frequently revised, and the launch time of new products is inevitably delayed. As an important giant in the industry, Intel's every move has a great impact on the supply chain. According to a source, Intel has informed TSMC that it will postpone the 3nm order to the fourth quarter of 2024 for the GPU module required by Arrow Lake.

It has been reported that Meteor Lake will not have modules manufactured by TSMC N3 process, but will be replaced by N5 process, and the number of EU will also be reduced from the original planned 192 to 128. The N3 process will not be introduced until Arrow Lake, which is the 15th generation of Core. From the current situation, Intel may indeed change its original plan.

06. Delta Electronics shows the business prospects of electric vehicles and data centers

Delta Electronics said on February 23 that its electric vehicle business - car charger and battery management system - will become better this year after announcing the improvement of its financial performance last year. The chairman of the board, Hai Yingjun, said on the recent earnings conference call that "the availability of materials and components has been greatly restored", but "some MCUs and MOSFETs are still in short supply."

Hai Yingjun added that with the steady growth of order volume, he expected that the electric vehicle business would be profitable this year. He also pointed out that Delta's products "are used in most new models of major automobile manufacturers in the United States, Europe and Japan."

07. Baidu said that with the localization of the supply chain, the cost of AV vehicles will continue to decline

Baidu announced that it was integrating the AIGC service Ernie Bot into all Baidu operations to enhance the user experience. The company said on the latest earnings conference call on February 22 that it also plans to integrate Ernie Bot into Apollo smart house and small smart devices and services.

Baidu reported that its total annual revenue in fiscal year 2022 was 123.7 billion yuan ($17.9 billion), up 1% year on year. In the teleconference, the company said that it would continue to invest in expanding its robotaxi service Apollo Go and the artificial intelligence generated content (AIGC) service Ernie Bot.

By the end of January 2023, Apollo Go had accumulated more than 200 million orders. Li Zhenyu, general manager of Baidu Intelligent Driving Business Unit, said that in first-tier cities such as Beijing, Apollo Go provides more than 15 trips per car per day on average, which is equivalent to the number of taxis.

The company will continue to strive to obtain the green light to operate the robotaxi fleet in more and more cities in China and reduce vehicle costs.