The Source – Top 5 News 14th August 2023

The source is our latest offering to support our clients and visitors. You can read our Top 5 news for week commencing 07th August 2023 below.

1. Taiwanese companies continue to hold largest wafer manufacturing capacity, followed by South Korea

Four Taiwan companies – TMSC, UMC, Vanguard, and Powership collectively held a global foundry market share of 69% in the first quarter of 2023.

Taiwan companies lead by TSMC, account for most of the global capacity, especially for leading-edge technology at the smallest process nodes on 300-mm wafers. At the <10 process node, Taiwan holds the largest manufacturing capacity at 63% and South Korea at 37%. TSMC and South Korea’s Samsung are the only companies globally that are mass producing 5nm or less.

Taiwan holds a concentration of both capacity and know-how. In 2022, the country was the second-largest destination for semiconductor investment further boosting its leading position in manufacturing.

2. TSMC is positioned to build government-backed 10-billion Euro semiconductor Wafer Fab in Dresden, Germany that will create around 2,000 direct jobs.

TSMC will lead the 300mm manufacturing facility to meet the future capacity needs of the fast-growing automotive and industrial sectors as part of the joint venture with Bosch, NXP, and Infineon.

The 10-billion-euro investment is to be made up of equity, debt and subsidies from the European Union and the German government. The German federal government will support the project with about 5 billion euros.

The construction of the joint factory in Dresden is expected to start in the second half of 2024 with production targeted to commence by the end of 2027.

3. Vietnam plans to train thousands of Semiconductor Industry Engineers and Experts in Semiconductor manufacturing

The Prime Minister of Vietnam has assigned four government bodies to collaborate in developing a plan to train about 50,000 engineers and 100 experts in digital transformation and semiconductor Manufacturing.

The Southeast Asian country is becoming the rising star in the world of semiconductor manufacturing as several global semiconductor manufacturers continue to grow their presence in Vietnam.

One of the world-class leading semiconductor equipment manufacturers, Hanmi Semiconductor, began officially operating its new factory in the northern province of Vietnam last May.

4. Two newly opened research and design facilities in Upstate New York will generate up to 165 new jobs until 2025

Advanced Micro Devices, a California-based designer of high-performance semiconductor has opened two research and design facilities in Dutchess County and Rochester.

The facilities are now operational and focused on design and validation of mixed-signal integrated circuits and packaging for processors used in cloud computing, data centres, gaming, and PCs.

5. NVIDIA beefs up new AI chip configuration with new GPUs for inference

NVIDIA, a Sta Clara, California-based integrated circuits developer announced new configuration designed to perform AI inference functions that effectively power generative AI applications such as ChatGPT. The new version of the Grace Hopper Superchip boosts the amount of high-bandwidth memory, which will increase the performance of GPU.

The company plans to sell two variety: a version that has two chips that customers can integrate into systems, and a complete server system that combines two Grace Hopper designs.