News & Events

As we enter the end of 2023, the semiconductor industry has experienced a difficult period in the first half of the year due to factors such as economic headwinds and sluggish demand for consumer electronics. However, in the second half of the year, the market continues to release positive news, with original memory manufacturers reducing production effectively and related product prices rebounding; Smartphones and laptops have achieved growth in shipments driven by seasonal demand; Driven by artificial intelligence, there is a strong demand for high-performance chips; The automotive semiconductor market continues to grow... How will the semiconductor market develop in the future? Recently, three major companies, TSMC, NXP, and Renesas, have provided answers.

In practical applications, the most popular and common electronic components are Bipolar Junction Transistors (BJT) and MOSFETs.

IGBT Physical Diagram + Circuit Symbol Diagram
You can think of IGBT as a fusion of BJT and MOSFET. IGBT has the input characteristics of BJT and the output characteristics of MOSFET.
Compared to BJT or MOSFET, the advantage of Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor (IGBT) is that it provides greater power gain than standard bipolar transistors, as well as higher operating voltage and lower MOS...

Static electricity from the human body, environment, and even inside electronic devices can cause various damages to delicate semiconductor chips, such as penetrating the thin insulating layer inside components; damaging the gates of MOSFET and CMOS components; latch-up in CMOS devices; short-circuiting reverse-biased PN junctions; short-circuiting forward-biased PN junctions; melting bonding wires or aluminum wires inside active devices. To eliminate the interference and damage caused by electrostatic discharge (ESD) to electronic devices, various technical means need to be taken for prevention.










In PCB board design, it can be achieved through layering...

According to China Times News on December 10th, Zhang Minggang, Deputy General Manager of Huawei France, revealed that Huawei's first overseas factory has been confirmed to be located in France, covering an area of about 8 hectares, and is expected to start production by the end of 2025. According to reports, Huawei's project is expected to invest 200 million euros, with an annual output value of up to 1 billion euros. This factory is expected to produce 1 billion units of equipment annually, but not smartphones, but rather chipsets, motherboards, and other components required for 4G and 5G base stations, which can supply the entire European market. According to reports, Huawei entered France in 2003 and currently has 6 research and development centers and 1 global design center in Paris. Huawei announced in 2019 that it would set up a factory in France, originally planned to start production in early 2023, but due to various environmental reasons, it was delayed for a long time.

Source: High Chip Circle
Not only for EVs and hybrid vehicles, but also for pure fuel vehicles, semiconductors are essential components. This is a fact that people have witnessed.

Take recent clean diesel vehicles (Clean Diesel Vehicle) as an example, their mode is as follows: each combustion cycle injects fuel about five times, effectively using fuel, extracting torque, although fuel consumption increases, but can discharge clean gas as much as possible.


 


Although controlled in milliseconds, for computers...

Source: Global Semiconductor Watch On November 28th, the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics Organization (WSTS) released its latest forecast for the semiconductor market. Due to the widespread adoption of generative AI and the rapid increase in demand for related semiconductor products, as well as the expected significant recovery in storage demand, the estimated global semiconductor sales for 2024 have been revised upwards from the previous estimate of $575.997 billion on June 6 to $588.364 billion, an annual increase of 13.1%, surpassing the historical high of $574.084 billion in 2022.

Source: Sina Weibo, Global Semiconductor Observer Due to the decline in demand, the memory market is under pressure from oversupply and price decline in 2023. However, with the arrival of the fourth quarter, the prices of storage chip products are gradually rising, and the storage chip market is expected to overcome the trough. The latest financial reports of the world's top five original manufacturers also confirm the above viewpoint.

On November 14th, Great Wall Motors announced that the IGBT independently developed and produced by Xindong Semiconductor, a subsidiary of Great Wall Holdings, has achieved mass production and installation. The project took only 14 months from project initiation and development to installation. At present, the construction of Xindong Semiconductor Wuxi factory has been completed. Since the foundation was laid in February this year, it has taken 8 months for the main body of the factory to be capped, and the first module production line was successfully put into operation on October 28th. The factory has a first-class testing environment in China, which can meet the strict quality management requirements of IGBT power modules, quickly respond to vehicle requirements, and develop products in a targeted manner. In addition, it is reported that in October this year, Great Wall Motors sold 131300 vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 31.04%. The cumulative sales for this year reached 995400 vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 10.29%. Among them, Euler brand cars sold 10800 units in October, a year-on-year increase of 94.29%; The sales of new energy vehicles reached 30551 units, with a cumulative sales of 200897 units from January to October.

Source: Science and Technology News Recently, foreign media Wccftech reported that one of the popular trends for 2024 is terminal AI, which is now built into multiple chipsets such as Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, Dimensity 9300, and Exynos2400. There is new news suggesting that smartphones with AI capabilities require more memory, and Android phones with built-in AI capabilities will have a minimum memory capacity of 20GB RAM as the standard. Although 8GB RAM is still the standard for Android smartphones, it has been seen that phones with higher memory than most laptops or PCs have not yet become standard. In order to ensure the smooth execution of AI imaging functions on future devices, Android phones require at least 12GB of RAM, as AI applications and other functions require over 20GB of RAM to operate smoothly. There have been smartphones with over 20GB RAM in the market, and OnePlus has also released high-capacity memory devices, but at that time there was no AI function. If we expect AI functionality to run smoothly, smartphones in 2024 will require higher RAM. It is not yet certain that all Android phone manufacturers will follow suit, considering that multiple Android phone manufacturers are continuously investing in AI, AI will become a key focus for devices in 2024. Therefore, the industry believes that with higher RAM requirements, hardware specifications are more important for modern AI devices than ever before.