While semiconductor manufacturing technology in China continues to lag behind its firms' main rivals, global semiconductor vendors must include China as part of their global strategy for better competitiveness, IDC said yesterday.
Framingham, Massachusetts-based research house IDC estimated in a press release that the output of China's semiconductor market would surpass US$28 billion in 2011 because of rising demand in computing and consumer electronics.
Global chip sales may reach US$280.6 billion this year from US$257.2 billion last year, San Jose, California-based industry association World Semiconductor Trade Statistics Inc said in November on its Web site.
China's semiconductor manufacturing technology lags behind Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and the US, said Patrick Liao (廖光河), a research manager at IDC's Asia/Pacific Semiconductors division, in the study Chinese Semiconductor Technology Assessment, 2007.
"To be successful, semiconductor vendors must keep in mind the dynamic characteristics of the Chinese market and the strong influence of the local government on business practices and policies," Liao said.
"Local support and expertise, appropriate partnerships with leading domestic OEMs, and workforce localization will give semiconductor vendors an advantage in competing for future business," he said.
China's semiconductor manufacturing industry began to attract the world's attention following the establishment of Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯) in 2001 by chief executive officer Richard Chang (張汝京) and Chinese investors.
Chang is a former vice president of Texas Instruments Inc and once served as chief executive of Taiwan's Worldwide Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (世大半導體), later acquired by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) in 2000. TSMC is the world's largest made-to-order chipmaker.
As the largest chipmaker in China, SMIC in December announced a tie-up with IBM Corp on producing CMOS logic chips using 45 nanometer technology, but it remains a tier-two foundry in this line of foundry business, analysts said.
Citigroup Global Markets analyst Andrew Lu (陸行之) said in a client note on Jan. 30 following a SMIC conference call that he did not expect SMIC to ramp up 45nm technology until the second half of next year.
On Dec. 31, Rick Hsu (
In comparison, TSMC is migrating to 65nm technology aggressively while United Microelectronics Corp's (UMC, 聯電) 45/65nm technology is ramping up faster than expected, Lu said, adding that SMIC's 90/65nm technology was not so impressive.
The IDC study also found that the largest capacity distribution of China fabs was represented by 8-inch wafer lines, followed by the 6-inch and 12-inch capacities respectively. It also noted that industry consolidation may emerge among Chinese IC companies.
Other key findings in the study were that portable PC and server semiconductors will boost the computing semiconductor segment so that it will account for more than 62 percent of the total semiconductor market in China by 2011, while demand for digital TVs, digital set-top boxes, game consoles and handheld gaming devices will maintain healthy growth in the digital consumer semiconductor segment.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day