Global silicon wafer shipments are expected to shrink 6.3 percent this year after peaking last year, which would be the first annual decline since 2012, international trade group SEMI said yesterday.
Demand for silicon wafers is expected to drop to 11.757 billion square inches this year, compared with 12.541 billion square inches last year, the US-based organization said in a report.
“Silicon shipment volumes are expected to decline this year as the industry works through accumulated inventory and weaker demand,” SEMI analyst Clark Tseng (曾瑞榆) said in the report. “The industry is expected to stabilize in 2020 and regain growth momentum in 2021 and 2022.”
By the end of this year, excess inventory, sluggish electronics demand and unresolved trade tensions between the US and China as well as between Japan and South Korea would continue to curtail demand for silicon wafers and reduce wafer prices, Tseng said last month.
Silicon wafers are the fundamental building material for semiconductors, which are vital components of all electronic goods including computers, telecommunications products and consumer electronics, SEMI said.
Silicon wafer demand is expected to inch up 1.9 percent annually to 11.977 billion square inches next year, as inventory digestion is to carry into the end of this year before returning to a healthy level early next year, it said.
Growth in demand is expected to gather pace in the following two years, it added.
Silicon wafer demand is expected to expand 3.5 percent annually to 12.390 billion square inches in 2021 and to increase 3.2 percent annually to a record 12.785 billion square inches in 2022, SEMI said.
Global silicon wafer revenue is expected to contract 2.15 percent to US$11.84 billion this year from US$12.1 billion last year, it said.
As certain silicon-wafer makers have inked supply contracts at fixed prices, silicon wafer prices are expected to hold steady in the second half of this year, Tseng said.
Sino-American Silicon Products Inc (SAS, 中美晶), which sells silicon wafers on long-term supply agreements, earlier this year said that demand was much weaker this year than last year, with the weakest demand coming from memory chipmakers.
However, the worst is over and customer demand is recovering in the second half of the year, the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier said.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six