Samsung won’t spend fewer wafers or halt production lines in its chip production despite the recent downturn of the global memory chip market, the company said on Tuesday.The company’s chip business reported an operating income of 270 billion won for the fourth quarter of 2022, its lowest in ten yea

The market for chillers used in semiconductor production is expected to change racially in the next two to three years.This is because the world’s largest coolant producer 3M has announced that it will end production by 2025 from environmental regulations.Chillers are used to absorb heat inside cham

South Korean chip foundries are continuing to record lower operation rates in their production facilities, a trend that is expected to continue up to at least the second quarter.South Korea is home to foundries, or contract chip makers, such as Samsung, DB Hitek, Key Foundry, Magnachip, and SK Hynix

SK Hynix has reshuffled its CMOS image sensor (CIS) team in a bid to shift focus from expanding market share to developing high-end products, TheElec has learned.Its CIS team was a singular organization prior to the changes, but the company has now created sub-teams that focus on specific functions

SK Hynix said on Wednesday that it has launched a new mobile LPDDR5 DRAM with a speed of 9.6Gbps.Called LPDDR5T, or LPDDR5 Turbo, it is 13% faster than its predecessor LPDDR5X launched two months ago. LPDDR5X had a speed of 8.5Gbps.The South Korean chip giant said it aims to continue serving custome

Helium gas used in chip production is increasing in South Korea. This is expected to pressure local chipmakers that are already hard hit by global inflation.Helium gas prices have already been increasing since the pandemic __ it increased by over 40% from 2020 to 2022.A further price increase of 30%

SK Hynix has created a new high-level position for its maintenance department.The chipmaker said on Monday that the area will now have a position called Master, the highest career level for those in the field.Masters, the top position for equipment maintenance in wafer fabrication, will aim to leave

South Korean chipmakers Samsung and SK Hynix are planning to procure fewer silicon wafers used in chip production than they initially planned going forward, TheElec has learned.The chipmakers discussed the issue with their respective wafer suppliers sometime during the fourth quarter, sources said.S

Samsung has recently begun procuring ammonium hydroxide, more commonly known as ammonium water, from ENF, TheElec has learned.SK Hynix was also considering procuring the water from a global supplier, likely Germany’s BASF, sources said.These moves by the South Korean chipmakers threatens the positio

The price of neon gas used in wafer fabrication, or semiconductor production, is beginning to drop.The precious gas used in excimer laser gas for lithography at one time saw a price jump of 20 times last year.This was due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine which burdened supply chains and customers beg

Chip gas firm TEMC has won Samsung as a customer for its neon gas, which is used in chip production, TheElec has learned.Neon gas prices have skyrocketed since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine started.TEMC succeeded in producing the rare gas on its own, allowing Samsung to add them as their supplier tim

South Korean chip foundries are seeing the operation rate of their fabs drop steeply, TheElec has learned.With the exception of Samsung, which is still seeing high demand from advanced nodes, local foundry companies such as DB Hitek, Key Foundry, Magnachip, and SK Hynix System IC are seeing their op

Outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) Winpac company recorded 40.5 billion won in revenue during the third quarter, a jump of 76% year-on-year.The company also recorded an operating profit of 1.2 billion won __ a return to black from last year’s operating loss.Winpac CEO Lee Han-gyu told

SK On has started installing equipment into its planned new EV battery factory in Hungary, TheElec has learned.The factory at Ivancsa will be its third factory in Europe. It plans to build two at Ivancsa and the equipment are being placed for the first one.The first factory will have an annual outpu

South Korean chipmakers Samsung and SK Hynix are expected to showcase their latest technologies at ISSCC 2023 being held in San Francisco in February of next year.ISSCC, or the International Solid-State Circuits Conference, is called the semiconductor design Olympics by South Korean the chip industr

Memory module printed circuit board (PCB) maker TLB saw its operating profit for the third quarter more than double from a year ago.The company said it recorded 56.8 billion won in revenue and 12 billion won in operating profit in the quarter, an increase of 28% and 151% from a year ago.As of the th

ASML’s highly anticipated high-NA EUV equipment will begin shipping in 2024 and cost between 300 to 350 million euros per unit, CEO Peter Wennink said in a conference in Seoul on Tuesday.High-numerical aperture (NA) extreme ultraviolet (EUV) is an upgraded version of the Dutch company’s prior EUV eq

SK Hynix was developing a new CMOS image sensor (CIS) that uses neural network technology, TheElec has learned.The South Korean memory giant is planning to embed an AI accelerator into the CIS, sources said.The accelerator itself is based on SRAM combined with a microprocessor __ also called in-memo

LG Display’s plan to invest in OLED on silicon (OLEDoS) production is facing delays.The company was originally expected to place orders for the equipment needed for production sometime in the third quarter.But LG Display is yet to do so and a decision is unlikely until December, sources said.OLEDoS

Samsung said on Monday that it has begun production of 1Tb Gen 8 V-NAND.The chip has 236 layers, more than those of Micron’s with 232 layers that launched early this year.Samsung used its double stack method as it did for Gen 7 V-NAND, sources said.The tech giant said its 1Tb TLC(triple level cell)