The top five fab equipment companies all recorded double digit growth in the first quarter of 2021.Applied Materials recorded sales of US$5.582 billion for its fiscal first quarter (February to April), an increase of 41% year-on-year.Net income for the quarter was US$1.33 billion, an increase of 76%

Nextchip will supplying its advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) system-on-a-chip (SoC) to a Japanese tier-1 supplier.The company was preparing to manufacture the Apache 4 for supply, Nextchip chief marketing officer (CMO) Yoo Young-jun told TheElec.It marks the first time that the company is su

Pixelplus is expected to supply more of its surround view monitor (SVM) total solution for automobiles going forward, a company executive said.The company has secured the technologies for the system-on-a-chip (SoC), image signal processor (ISP), image sensor and transmission IC that are required for

Arm said on Thursday that South Korean design house SemiFive has joined the Arm Ecosytem.SemiFive will now have access to Arm’s Cortex-A, Cortex-R, Cortex-M CPUm Mali GPU, Ethos NPU and other architecture Ips.The Korean firm plans to use Arm’s IP to deisgn custom system-on-a-chip and application-spe

South Korean equipment makers recorded mixed results in the first quarter of 2021.Fab equipment vendors posted high growth, while display equipment firms underperformed.Fab equipment makers benefited from aggressive spending by semiconductor companies.Semes, Samsung Electronics’ fab equipment subsid

Qualcomm on Wednesday unveiled its latest mobile application processor, the Snapdragon 778.The AP is aimed at mid- to high-tier smartphones. It will power phones by Honor, Oppo, Realme, Xiaomi and Motorola launching in the second quarter.Snapdragon 778 was made with 6-nanometer FinFET process by TSM

Dongwoon Anatech was developing 3D gesture controller technology with a supplier, a company executive told TheElec.The controller is aimed the automobile market, company CTO Lee Jae-shik said.The technology will be sued by the driver to use hand gestures to control the automobile’s navigation, infot

Biolog Device said it has acquired a 58.75% stake in OLED driver IC firm Hivics for 4.48 billion won.Hivics was founded in 2014 and is a fabless firm that designs system semiconductors. It recorded 8.7 billion won in sales last year.The firm also uses TSMC, UMC and MLMC to manufacture application sp

Thermal imaging sensor will play a larger role in advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) in future autonomous cars, according to an executive at camera module maker Mcnex.Jung Young-hyun, director of auto-component product development at Mcnex, said while thermal imaging sensor and thermal infrare

Mcnex said on Monday that it has won an order from Hyundai Motor to supply camera modules for 30 car models that will launch from 2023 onward.The camera module maker will supply its goods for use in surround view monitoring and advanced driver assistance systems.Mcnex was registered as a tier-1 supp

TSMC said on Thursday that the recent power outage in Taiwan has not affected its chip production.According to the local Central News Agency, equipment malfunction at an electrical substation in Kaohsiung City has caused electricity produced at a nearby thermal power plant to be cutoff, at around 2p

System semiconductor company Coasia has recorded 112.8 billion won in sales and 2.7 billion won in operating income in the first quarter.Sales increased 11% from a year prior. The company turned a profit compared to the same time period in 2020.Coasia said high sales from its IT component business,

ASML will start supplying pellicles used in extreme ultraviolet (EUV) systems with transmittance of over 90% this year.ASML Korea marketing manager MyoungKuy Lee said at an SMC Korea seminar that the company will begin production of pellicles with over 90.6% transmittance rate.The pellicles have sec

Samsung Electronics said on Tuesday that it has developed a new DRAM based on the Compute Express Link (CXL) interface.The DDR5 module has been verified on Intel’s platform. Samsung said it will collaborate on the launch of the chip with other data center and cloud companies.CXL interface allows CPU

South Korean fabless firm Telechips have recently finished development of its vehicle microcontroller unit (MCU), TheElec has learned.The firm is currently promoting an engineering sample version to customers, people familiar with the matter said.It is Telechips’ first MCU. The company previously fo

Chip and display equipment maker STI said on Thursday that it will be supplying its central chemical supply system (CCSS) to chip giant Micron.The deal is worth S$47.9 million, or around 40 billion won. The CCSS will be used in Micron’s PH2 of Singapore Fab 1.A STI spokesperson said the worldwide ch

Wireless chip supplier RFHIC has chosen as a vendor for a national project to develop gallium nitride (GaN) semiconductor, the company said on Monday.The project is overseen by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and Ministry of National Defense.It aims to develop an X-band GaN semiconductor

Solus Advanced Materials said on Monday that it will expand the production capacity of its copper foil factory in Luxembourg to meet rising demand from 5G.Its subsidiary there, Circuit Foil Luxembourg, will expand its production capacity from 12,000 metric tonnes a year to 15,000 metric tonnes a yea

SK Innovation said on Friday that it will collaborate with affiliate SK Rent-a-Car to develop a battery usage data analysis system.The system will be used predict battery life and potential overheating in battery for electric cars.The system will be trialed in electric cars that are rented out by SK

LG Energy Solution was considering procuring lamination equipment from South Korean equipment maker DSK, TheElec has learned.The South Korean battery maker has previously secured the equipment from Shinjin Mtec and Naintec.LG is the only company to apply the lamination process to battery production.