The recent hike in prices of helium gas is likely to negatively affect the profitability of semiconductor companies.According to the Korea Customs Service on Friday, helium gas import price was US$82,200 per a metric tonne in 2020, a 44% rise from 2019.Helium gas are used as coolers during semicondu

SK Group chairman Chey Tae-won on Friday stressed the collaboration between the industry and academia for innovation in battery technology.The chairman also said the collaboration is critical for the growth of the battery ecosystem.Chey credited the recent success in the battery industry to the coll

ON Semiconductor said it has offered its custom hybrid circuit for an ultra-small radio transmitter that was used to track hornets to prevent them from wiping out honeybee colonies.NanoPin, a radio transmitter developed by Canada-based telemetry technology company Lotek which uses ON Semiconductor’s

Samsung Electronics is planing to send technicians to its semiconductor plant in Austin, Texas which recently halted production to prepare for a quick restart when possible.Samsung will send company staff and those of partners to the plant within the week. Dozens are planning to travel to Austin aft

Coasia said on Wednesday had the most number of engineers among its competitors within Samsung Foundry’s ecosystem.The company, combined with its subsidiary Coasia Semi, had 210 engineers, a Coasia spokesperson said.By contrast, Samsung Foundry’s other design house partners Hanatec, Alpha Holdings,

Chips&Media will launch its new high-resolution video IP product called Wave6 Series in March, TheElec has learned.The first product in the series, called Wave627 (encoder IP), will support AV1 and VVC(H.266) standards.The company will launch Wave637 (codec IP) in August and Wave617 (decoder IP) wit

Samsung Electronics’ semiconductor plant in Austin has halted due to cold weather there, according to local media.The Austin American-Statesman reported that the chip plant halted operation on Tuesday. Local electric utility Austin Energy shut off the power due to the shortage caused by the color we

Horiba Stec Korea said on Wednesday that it will start manufacturing pressure insensitive mass flow module (MFC) in South Korea in June.The company, part of Japan’s Horiba Group, said the decision to begin manufacturing D500 series was to participate in South Korea’s move to strengthen its semicondu

The South Korean government has kicked off a program to offer semiconductor IP at discounted price to fabless companies.The Ministry of Trade. Industry and Energy said the program, called semiconductor IP usage support program, will give global semiconductor IP at discounted prices, build a semicond

DS Hi-Metal may face difficulty in procuring raw material due to the military coup at Myanmar.The company is the world’s second largest solder ball maker. It set up its subsidiary DS Myanmar at Yangon on June 2019 through a 100% direct investment to procure tins used to make solder balls. A DS Hi-Me

Silfex, Lam Research’s subsidiary in South Korea, is facing problems with producing silicon (Si) rings, TheElec has learned.This is due to the COVID-19 pandemic that is preventing production staff from going to work normally.Lam Research was considering procuring Si rings from Hana Materials as an a

South Korean display equipment manufacturer SFA was developing technologies for the production for next-generation display panels, the company CEO said.SFA was actively developing transfer, bonding, inspection and repair technologies as competition between MiniLED, quantum dot organic light emitting

Auros Technology’s share price for its upcoming IPO has been set at 21,000 won, the company said on Monday.It will aim to secure 39.9 billion won from its listing on KOSDAQ on February 24. The price was set after its demand forecast in which 1,413 institutional investors participated in.Auros Techno

Samsung Electronics’ injunction lawsuit filed to the US International Trade Commission against Ericsson is based on four patents related to semiconductor manufacturing, TheElec has found.Samsung’s import ban filed on February 4 is based on four of its patents, which it claims Ericsson has infringed

Key Foundry said on Tuesday that it will offer its third-generation 0.18 micrometer Bipolar-CMOS-DMOS (BCD) process to customers.BCD process combines bipolar process that controls analog signals, CMOS to control digital signals and DMOS for high power processing, into one chip.It is mainly used to p

South Korea vacuum robot maker Raon Tech has won two major semiconductor customers in South Korea.The company has been supplying its vacuum robot to one of them in 2011.It has passed the demo test from another company and has been producing the robots from them since early 2020, TheElec has learned.

SK Nexilis said on Tuesday that it may build its fifth copper foil factory at Jeongeup a month sooner than initially planned.This will mean the factory could go live as soon as 2021 and began selling copper foil within the year.Company CEO Kim Young-tae said at its fourth quarter conference call tha

Seoul Semiconductor said on Monday that it is expecting sales between 310 billion won to 330 billion won in the first quarter of 2021.This will be a jump between 27% to 33% from the same time period a previous year.The LED maker said it has strengthened its global sales team and have differentiated

Auros Technology said on Monday that it was close to winning a new order from China within the month.A company spokesperson said results remained to be seen but the situation has been positive up to now.If Auros win the contract, it will be supplying its DRAM production equipment.Company CEO Lee Jun

Japan’s Renesas Electronics said on Monday that it was in talks with UK’s Dialog Semiconductor to potentially acquire the firm.Dialog previously supplied power management IC to Apple. But the company saw sales decline starting in 2019 after Apple began using its own chips. Dialog was in talks with S