Texas Instruments to Acqure National Semiconductor

TI to acquire National Semiconductor Combination to strengthen analog portfolio and customer support Texas Instruments has signed a definitive agreement to purchase National Semiconductor in an all-cash transaction of about $6.5 billion. This merger will unite two industry leaders who have a common commitment to solving your analog needs. Both companies will operate independently pending close of the acquisition which is expected to take six to nine months. National's 12,000 products plus TI's 30,000 means more performance, power and packaging options when selecting the right ICs for your application. HK Snob

Japan Quake Aftermath

We Predicts Quake's Impact on Electronics Will Be Limited March 11 Japan earthquake and tsunami disasters will shave 1.5% from global GDP in 2011 and contribute to a slight softening in the semiconductor and electronics market. These short-term effects will be limited, however, and the market should quickly recover. The Japan disaster will help reduce worldwide GDP growth to approximately 3.4 % this year, compared with an earlier estimation of a 3.9% expansion. This will reduce the global economy by about $260 billion, assuming the Japanese economy declined by 5.2% in 2011. Taking the pessimistic situation of a 3.4% worldwide GDP growth rate in 2011 (as compared to our current forecast of 3.6% growth), and the associated $260 billion negative impact on worldwide GDP, and multiplying it by 2.2% yields an electronic systems sales loss of $5.7 billion. Subtracting $5.7 billion from current 2011 electronic system sales forecast of $1,348 billion would put electronic system sales at about $1,342 billion for this year, an 8.5% increase over 2010 compared to our current forecast of 9%. The forecasts may represent the best short-term outlook for the industry and the worldwide economy, assuming oil prices stay relatively stable at around $100 per barrel. We believe even a worst case scenario where the economy is more heavily affected would still not dramatically Ref. IC Insights HK Snob

Japan Quake Aftermath

March 11, 2011 14:49: Eastern Pacific coast earthquakes occurred

Epicenter : 373km (NE) of Tokyo, underground 24.4Km point

Magnitude : Earthquake close to 9 in the Richter scale occurred  (The largest earthquake ever in Japan, the fifth earthquake on Earth,

Summary of Damage Regions

East coast of Tohoku regions-Aomori, Iwate, Miyagi, Fukushima prefecture- and east coast of Kanto region -Ibaraki and Chiba prefecture were damaged directly (by earthquake and tsunami).

So far over 7,000 lives were lost, over 12000 person unfound, and 300,000 homeless

The loss of communication infrastructure (NTT Docomo, etc.), nuclear power plants, etc.  in the regions and all industrial manufacturing plants shutdown (temporary or provisional), disruptions occurred.

It appears that some infrastructures of the east coast of Tohoku region -Yamagata and Niigata Prefecture- were affected.

Miyagi Prefecture

- Sendai Airport flooding

- Costal towns damage by 10m tsunami

- Large-scale loss of life

- Onagawa nuclear plant , partly fire, partly driving ban

- Sony's 6 factories shutdown (4 factories in Miyagi, 2 factories in Fukushima, Tagajo chemical components (Sony Chemicals) 1st floor flooded

- Murata Manufacturing shutdown (Miyagi and Tochigi Prefecture)

- JX Nippon Oil Factory damage

- Toyota Motor, factory shutdown

Fukushima Prefecture

- Fukushima 1,2,3,4 nuclear plants shutdown and unstable (radioactive spill concern continued)

- Nissan Motor, 6 factories shutdown

- Panasonic factory disruption (Fukuyama Prefecture factory, Sendai factory in Miyagi Prefecture included)

Aomori Prefecture

- Power supply to 4.4 million households stopped

- Pioneer, factory damage (Aomori, Yamagata Prefecture)

- Renesas, factory shutdown

Chiba Prefecture

- JFE Holdings, steel factory fire

- Cosmo Oil, factory fire

Ibaraki Prefecture

-  JSR, factory production stop

- Tokyo Gas, gas supply stop

- Sumitomo Metal Industries, smelting furnace temporary stop

- Daikin Industries,  production stop

- Murata factory was destroyed and his component short ship after the Ipad Production in Foxconn China

Sharp LCD Panel factory shout down and affecting 20% world LCD panel output.

Mitsubishi Gas Chemical Inc. (MGC), Monday that two of its facilities, one in Fukushima prefecture and one in Ibaraki prefecture, shut down due to partial damage to equipment and buildings, Its major product bismaleimide triazine resin, an epoxy resin used in chip making is almost entirely produced by MGC

This shortage of BT would most impact programmable logic vendors Xilinx Inc. and Altera Corp., as well as Qualcomm Inc.  

Sanyo, Sharp and Panasonic have already suspended operations at several of their plants. The brand new multibillion dollar Sharp LED display plant in Sakai, which has been designed to handle earthquakes automatically shut down when the first earthquake, tremor was detected.

Sanyo, Sharp and Panasonic have already suspended operations at several of their plants. The brand new multibillion dollar Sharp LED display plant in Sakai, which has been designed to handle earthquakes automatically shut down when the first earthquake, tremor was detected.

The consequence is many sectors of the Japanese factories would be affected and it may take a few month 3-9 months to resume normal operation.

We foresee that this will force them to think a head seriously for overseas factory volume implementation. They will keep some of their high technology products manufacturing overseas whereas Japan used to keep them locally.

There will be more open opportunity for other overseas countries to gain more exposure for working with Japan to build more Hi end Electrnics and semiconductor products. Whereas more jelly bean products are loaded to overseas.

More Investor will shift more portion of their investment into Korean Electronics giants like Samsung and LG!

HK Snob

Semiconductor material Supplier Chain breakdown After Japan Quake

One of the potential problems for the semiconductor industry resulting from supply disruptions in the wake of last week's Japan earthquake could be shortages of bismaleimide triazine resin, an epoxy resin used in chip making. The resin is almost entirely produced by Mitsubishi Gas Chemical Inc. (MGC), Monday that two of its facilities, one in Fukushima prefecture and one in Ibaraki prefecture, shut down due to partial damage to equipment and buildings. The rolling blackouts currently in force in the region may affect future MGC operations, including operating at sites that were not damaged in the quake.

This shortage of BT would most impact programmable logic vendors Xilinx Inc. and Altera Corp., as well as Qualcomm Inc.  

Hitachi Chemical Co. Ltd. makes an alternative resin—MCL-E-679—that has been qualified by a few suppliers, but she said she has not been able to verify whether the production of that material was impacted by the quake. Several Hitachi manufacturing sites were damaged in the quake and remain idle. 

Matsumoto noted that MediaTek Inc. does not use BT in its packages, but that Spreadtrum Communications Co. Ltd. does. Matsumoto said Texas Instruments Inc. uses BT in its packages, but that since TI's Miho fab was damaged in the quake and won't return to full production until at least July, the BT issue should be resolved before it becomes a problem for TI.

Amkor Technology Inc. manufacturing facility in Kitakami, Japan, located about 260 miles northeast of Tokyo, has suffered relatively minor damage. The Kitakami facility is currently closed due to power supply interruptions and plans are underway to restore production capabilities at the site when power, gas and water supplies, and transportation systems are stabilized. 

The Kitakami facility is Amkor’s smallest operation in both units and revenue, generating approximately $10 million to $11 million of monthly sales prior to the earthquake. The Kitakami facility only provides services to a few Japan-based customers.  

Amkor is a major supplier of semiconductors, silicon wafers, specialty chemicals, substrates, equipment and other supplies to the electronics industry, and the industry is currently evaluating the potential effect of the earthquake on the overall supply chain for electronics. Since the earthquake, we have been in close communication with our customers, suppliers and OEMs to analyze the situation and evaluate alternative sources of supply where appropriate. Like many companies in the semiconductor industry supply chain, we operate with multiple suppliers from different geographic regions. This diversification is intended to help mitigate any potential disruptions from events such as these. However, it is too early to comment on the broader impact the earthquake may have on the electronics industry and our business and operations.'' 

Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc. (ASE) is also obtaining ''molding compound'' from Korea and China. This was after its suppliers in Japan were impacted by the quake.

Sources: Semiconductor packaging News.

HK Snob

Electronics Component Market after Japan Quake

In spite of the 9.0-magnitiute Japan earthquake and the ensuing devastating tsunami striking Japan on March 11, The Component supply chain has been serious disturbed in Japan. This include the NAND Rams that price has been surged up more than 7% since last Friday. Many of the components of the certain electronics devices are still made in Japan. There is a immediately need for Japan to re-construct and well plan their suppliers for souring the right component for their products, beside, the rise of Japanese Yen exchange would force to speed up their oversea production scale up plan. Counties like Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia and China will be the ones to be beneficiated by these move.

However on the other side, Japanese and most of the major Asian Cities would speed less on Electronics products, computer, iPad2, Note book in coming 2-3 quarters.

Some good news is Chairman Morris Chang of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) yesterday said his firm’s goal of achieving a 20% sales growth, denominated in the U.S. dollar, will remain unchanged.

Overall, people tends to spend less on luxury goods, electronics hand held product as such handphone, GPS systems, and RAM, LED, LED, IC CPU, Capacitors, RAMs and  Panel will be rising their price in the coming 6-9 months.

HK Snob

Japan after Quake

Japan has the world No. 1largest LED manufacturing Plant Nichia account for 18% of World LED production as the 2010 revenue data told us.

Japan accounts world’s 20% global Semiconductor Production.

Company Headquarters in Japan generated 63.3B in microchips revenues; representing 20.8% of the world wide market.

Japan Produced 10% of world’s DRAM in 2010.

Toshiba accounts 35% of global NAND flash products in terms of Revenues 2010.

Japan Headquarters companies are world No. 3 in Semiconductor production.

Japan is 14% of world total LCD TV panel Production.

More impact to Japan is that the component on the TV LCD Panel such as the Glass, Colour filter , polarizer , CCFL and LED are mostly made in Japan.

Sharp partly shut down their panel manufacturing for LCD TV... and Murata had shut down some of the component manufacturing which would affect the manufacturing at Foxconn for Ipad2!

There are a lot of electronics modules for Automobile is made in Japan and a lot are for export.

Many of the Automobile like Nissan, Toyota, Mazda and Honda has stopped some of their manufacturing due to shortage of Module supplied by their OEMs which were more or less damaged in the Tsunami.

Nissan Stopped Production and loss shipment of 23,000 cars, whereas Toyota for 40,000 cars, Honda for 16,600 cars a day, that is $14M loss a day just for Honda.

Japanese will not spend money on Luxury goods anymore, or at least less significantly comparing with last week and before.

For those Luxury Goods such as watches Rolex, Patek Philippe, IWC , Japan is one of the biggest market after Hong Kong. I think Japan is the world 2nd largest Export Country after Hong Kong.

Well, I find that these are Japan’s Market share on these big European luxury Brands.

Hermes 21%, Bvlgari 19%, Luis Vitton 8.8%, Coach 36%, Tiffany 19%, Gallaway 18%....

So we can see that these luxury good market will drop significantly for at least I year, they may switch to export more to other Countries like China and Hong Kong in Asia.

Gold may be the item that we can speculate that it can reach $1,700 an ounce soon.

This will trigger world threat in the stock market, especially the Libya situation is still tense and had no way to see when Col. Kaddafi would step down, Hong Kong Index Will drop in the coming weeks… down to 21,000 points…

More important point is more nuclear threat happens in Japan and Most of the people would flee to distant prefecture in Japan or to overseas countries such as Hong Kong, Singapore and Philippines.

I am thinking that it would be a great impact to Japan and  World’s Economy and it may take at least 12 months to recover… Provided there is no more serious Earth Quake happens anymore.

Further more, it triggers more safety measurement for plan of Nuclear Plant building,

It forces Japan Company to diversify their manufacturing facilities in overseas countries such as the Philippines, Thailand and Malaysia.

In Short the Stock In Tokyo, Singapore and Hong Kong will keep on falling. But this is only over-sensitiveness of the investors, in mid term starting August, the stock like iron ore, cement and steel in China will have tremendous momentum to gain as to support Japan on re-construction.

The foreign companies would not consider to put all egg in one bucket and to consider in future the headquarters not in Japan... may be better in Hong Kong or Singapore.

HK Snob

Semiconductor Capex Growth 20% in 2011

SEMI’s internal analysis of semiconductor manufacturers’ capital expenditure (capex) announcements used to update the fab. database predicts that total semiconductor capex will grow between 15 and 20% in 2011.  Attached Table compares investments on fab equipment and construction, and how those rates compare to the record high levels set in 2007.
We can see that there may be a drive for demand of End Of Line manufacturing equipment in 2011 that may happen in Q2.
We can see Discrete is rising from 4% to 7% in 2011 vs 2010
MPU and Logic rises from 16% to 23% in 2011  Vs 2010
Memory reduces from 36% from 645 in 2011.

Slow Down for LED Fabs
The largest segment for new fabs is the LED industry, with wafer sizes of 2-inch and 4-inch. Significantly fewer new LED fabs will begin construction in 2011 and 2012. SEMI’s World Fab. report lists 24 new LED fabs beginning construction in 2010, but only five new LED fab. projects are likely in 2011.  
This slowdown may be explained by recognition that in the near-term the industry has added too much capacity, coupled by changes to government subsidies in China.  For example, historically local governments in China supported the domestic LED industry with hefty subsidies.  Companies received up to 8-10M RMB for each MOCVD reactor. Some of these subsidies will expire this year, and others are expected to change.
On the other hand, LED per TV reduces dramatically with Disruptive Technology of LED. From Average 1000 LED in 2009 to 200 LED 2011. That was 5 times reduction rate.

We can see that IC will be experiencing a steady growth this year comparing with Last year with more significantly in Discrete Area. Were as LED will be slow down in the growth comparing with 2010.

PS
Data source  Source: SEMI World Fab Database Reports (February 25, 2011)

HK Snob

Automotive IC Market Would Expect to Grow 12% in 2011

According to the latest IC Market Drivers report, global shipments of new cars are expected to rise almost 5% in 2011 to 55.8 million units. Meanwhile, sales of new cars in China outpaced new car shipments in the U.S. by 50% in 2010; a trend that is expected to continue through 2015.

The new demand on Automotive markets in China, emerging Southern America along with recovering U.S. These new Automobile shipments, increased on-board-electronics would boost automotive IC sales up to as much as 12% in 2011, to estimated $17 billion.

This follows a 45% increase in automotive IC Sales in 2010, which halted a two year slide in this IC sector.

Automobiles are a fertile environment to implement new and innovative electronic systems and ICs. Many of these systems are competitive selling points for automakers. Growth drivers for ICs over the next several years include active safety and telematics systems, communications and entertainment convergence, and "green" initiatives such as energy savings and reduced emissions. These technologies are increasingly available as standard equipment on new cars across all price ranges.

In the area of safety and telematics, systems such as self parking, active cruise control, lane departure warning systems, road tracking system, Gear tooth sensor, speed sensor, temperature sensor, air bag sensor,  fuel injection control sensor, electronic stability control--ESC, etc…have been widely implemented in modern cars.

New trend for Luxury car would go for as many as 12 air bag and air belts that would incur a lot of additional electronics and control.

There is not much innovative changes in the basic engine design, the Hybrid car is still in very early stage of penetration, all it take at least 10 more years to see a reasonably number of cars running on road, starting in the congested cities of Asia, Europe and America.  In fact, relatively stable gasoline prices led to a decline in hybrid vehicles sales in 2010. Recent Middle East event would force for a rise of Gasoline price.  And urge for an early Hybrid Automotive market development. Shipments of hybrid and electric vehicles are forecast to increase a modest 5% in 2011.

However the electronics on board an automotive would becomes sophisticated.  There are at least 350 LEDs as an average compact car. Full LED head lamps is not a sales gadget for Luxury car, but for a better outlook design, power saving, long life time, faster response.  This involves a lot of associated electronics, control modules required including LED driving IC, dimming control IC, Switching mode control ICs for the power converter, and light control multiplex ICs.

Many of these systems will soon be required for all new cars sold in the U.S. An ESC system typically consists of three sensors--a gyroscope, an accelerometer, and a pressure sensor--all of which can be made using a microelectromechanical system (MEMS) process.

Automakers are testing systems that will allow smartphones to dock with a large display on the car's centre console allowing the driver to access the Internet, listen to his or her stored favourite music, and send text messages through a large, onboard touch-screen rather than using the phone itself, and essentially replacing radio/CD/nav systems on cars sold today. On board GPS is a standard accessory on a luxury car.

Through 2014, the automotive IC market is forecast to grow to $21 billion, representing an average annual increase of 14% per year from 2009 to 2014. That growth rate tops the IC growth rate in all other system markets including computer (12%), communications (8%), and consumer (10%) systems, and the total worldwide IC market (10%) over the same time frame.

In Short, the ICs demand for Automotive would increase 12% in 2011.

HK Snob

Intel Enters the Smart Phone Processor market

According to Paul Otellini, CEO of Intel, tablets and smartphones will live alongside PCs, and this will allow them to ship even more processors than the hundreds of millions it currently ships.  As he sees the emergence of the smartphone and tablet device categories as an opportunity for Intel and not a challenge to its commanding lead in the CPU market "We don't see an environment where one machines satisfies all needs. At least for the next four to five years, we're likely to see multiple devices and multiple form factors simply because people want to do multiple things," Otellini said. 

Otellini said during a keynote at Mobile World Congress that a number of smartphone models would be launched this year using Intel’s processors. The company seems very optimistic about its upcoming smartphone core, dubbed Medfield, but so far remains tight-lipped on possible partners or any further information besides saying that it is a “exciting" moment for them. 

Intel has been virtually absent from the fast growing smartphone market so far, but the company is hoping to change that with its upcoming Medfield chips, which are supposedly posed to outclass ARM in processing and power efficiency. The company will have to prove its bold claims with actual products, and with ARM currently holding close to 90% of the mobile market through licensing agreements, convincing hardware manufacturers to embrace Medfield won't be easy.

HK Snob

Apple New Iphone5 and Iphone Mini

There are so many rumour about the new product from Apple.
After almost 4 years, Apple shall launch a high end Iphone5 and Iphone Mini in July 2011.

Iphone5
4G
A new, sleeker body design, thin shiny glass back piece - 9.0 mm thick.

Face Recognition Security

Face Time (Video Chat) access on 3G AND 4G

Custom SMS tones

Custom E-mail alerts with ability to assign different tones to each email address

OLED Display to save more juice

Wireless sync with iTunes

32G and 64G of built in memory

14 hours talk time on 3G and 7 hours on 4G. Standby 500 hours.

Hi Definition audio.

Messaging indicator light.

True GPS built in.

Low Cost Iphone Mini
Apple hopes the low-cost device would help rival the success of Google Android, which as well as targeting the high-end smartphone market.
Mini will be around a two thirds of the size of the existing iPhone and does not feature a 'home' key. It is likely to cost around $199.00 in the US.
16G memory
An "universal" SIM that allows users to switch between networks without having to remove on SIM and insert another.

It is likely to be made available on a Pay As You Go (PAYG) basis rather than signing any contracts.
Exact Model name yet to released, no way to see the picture of the Phone design!
Let's wait for some one to lose the Prototype Iphone in a bar or restaurant!

HK Snob