Hanwha Techwin has started development of 8-nanometer (nm) system-on-a-chip (SoC) for CCTVs this year, TheElec has learned.The company is aiming to reduce reliance on China’s HiSilicon, which has previously supplied the CCTV chips.Hanwha is using South Korean design house company for the design. Sam

Renesas Electronics has suffered a fire in its facilities over the weekend that will likely exasperate the ongoing global chip shortage that is affecting automobile production.The company said its N3 building at its Naka plants in Japan suffered fire on Friday. The fire was put down in around five h

Abov Semiconductor said on Thursday that it will supply three new microcontroller units (MCU) aimed at automobiles this year.These will be a lidar MCU (A31Q213), a passenger assistance system MCU (A94Q216) and a mobile device charging MCU (A94Q427).A Abov spokesperson said the company will start pro

Fab equipment spending in 2020 increased 16% compared to 2019, according to SEMI.Spending is expected to increase 15.5% this year to reach over US$70 billion, according to the organization. It will increase 12% in 2022 to over US$80 billion.Fab equipment spending increased substantially for three ye

South Korean fabless semiconductor companies recorded noticeably polarizing earnings in 2020.TheElec collected earnings of the top 17 fabless companies, including design houses and chipless firms, and based on revenue in South Korea.The four top companies, Silicon Works, ADTechnology, Abov Semicondu

Tokai Carbon Korea will expand its silicon carbide (SiC) ring production starting in mid-2021, thanks to its new factory in Ansung going into operation, according to Japanese media Nikkei.The expansion is likely due to high demand for the rings from expanded production of NAND flash from major chip

SK Hynix’s acquisition of Intel’s NAND business unit has received approval from the US government.The South Korean memory maker said on Friday that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) gave the go-ahead for the deal.SK Hynix already received the approval from the Federal

Surround view monitor (SVM) system-on-a-chip (SoC) made by South Korean fabless company Pixelplus has been installed on a Japan-made automobile, TheElec has learned.The company supplied in September last yearthe SoC, model name PI5008K, that supports SVM and rear camera along with an image sensor to

Samsung’s suspension of its semiconductor plant in Austin due to power outage will increase prices of solid-state drives (SSD), market research firm TrendForce says.Client SSD prices will increase between 3 to 8% in the second quarter compared to the first quarter, the firm said. Prices of enterpris

Dongjin Semichem and ENF Technology have sent requests to their customers Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix to increase the price of thinners by up to 50%, TheElec has learned.The companies are asking for the raise to come in to affect starting in April. Samsung and SK are running simulations to cons

The top three fab equipment manufacturers in South Korea are expected to post record earnings in 2021 from record spending in the global semiconductor and display industries.Semes, a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics, recorded its highest ever sales in 2020. Its previous record was 2.03 trillion won

Telechips have succeeded in commercializing 14-nanometer (nm) application processor for automobile cockpit, TheElec has learned.The firm will be supplying the chip, Dolphin 3 (model name: TCC805X), to a Chinese automobile company through a local tier-1 supplier.Mass production and supply will begin

KNW said on Monday that it has completed the acquisition of Solvay Korea.The company acquired 4 million shares for 20 billion won.KNW has secured fluorine (F2) and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) businesses through the acquisition. The chemicals are used for semiconductor production and as insulators in g

South Korea’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said on Thursday that it has formed a council to promote collaboration between local semiconductor and automobile companies.The announcement comes amid a global shortage of semiconductors that have caused automobile companies to suspend production

A research team of a South Korean university has developed a 738GHz high-electron-mobility transistor (HEMT) for potential applications in 6G networks.The team led by professor Kim Dae-hyun of Kyungpook National University’s College of IT Engineering developed the HEMT. It is over 30GHz than the pre

A new academic paper shown at SPIE (Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers) Advanced Lithography event sheds light on the performance of Nextin’s upcoming 3D wafer pattern inspection equipment Iris.The paper, called Comparative near infrared through-focus scanning optical microscopy for

Nordic Semiconductor will expand into the cellular Internet of Things (IoT) market of South Korea this year, a company executive said.Nordic has focused on Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) so far. But starting this year, it will supply long-distance wireless technology, Sean Choi, the company’s regional s

Samsung Electronics has secured stakes in a South Korean company that manufacturers pellicles used in semiconductor production.FST said on Tuesday that it has issued 1.52 million shares for Samsung to purchase. The Korean tech giant will secure a 6.9% stake in the company, becoming the third largest

Global chip sales is expected to remain strong in 2021 but also challenging and will require bold actions from the government for US to capitalize on them, a senior executive of the semiconductor industry said on Thursday.In 2020, industry sales for the year ticked up 6.8% from the 2019 total, reach

Samsung Electronics’ application of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography technology on its latest DRAM has showed fabrication benefits in scaling, expediting production and improved performance yields, according to reverse engineering analysis firm Techinsights.Samsung applied EUV technology on 1zn