Nexperia, a Dutch chip firm owned by China’s Wingtech, said on Monday that it will acquire UK chip foundry Newport Wafer Fab.CNBC said in its report that the deal is worth 63 million pounds.Nexperia will own a 100% stake in Newport’s fab in Wales.The UK foundry’s fab was founded in 1982 and has a pr

Fab equipment firm Exicon said on Wednesday that it has supplied a prototype of its burn-in tester to Samsung.The deal was worth 10.7 billion won and Exicon will be supplying more of the units up to December this year.Exicon primarily manufactures memory tester and solid-state drive tester. DRAM tes

Packaging firm Polaris Works said on Tuesday that it will begin supplying its automotive image sensor package called NeoPAC Encap to image sensor company Pixelplus this month.The package is for 5.6 micrometer pixel size VGA (688x528) automobile rear cameras. It will first be supplied to a Chinese ca

Samsung has put in requests to its CMOS image sensors testers to expand their capacity, TheElec has learned.The South Korean tech giant is guaranteeing orders for its testing partners as it is expecting high demand for CMOS image sensors in the second half of the year, people familiar with the matte

US fab equipment component maker MKS Instruments said on Thursday that it will be acquiring Germany’s Atotech for US$5.1 billion.MKS is buying Atotech at a 10% premium and the deal is expected to be completed within the year.The US company will buy the German company with cash on hand and committed

The shortage in automobile chips that started late last year is expected to ease slightly starting in the third quarter of 2021, according to market research firm IHS Markit.Automobile OEMs around the world suspended their car production multiple times in the first half due to the shortage.This tren

Unitest, a South Korean fab equipment vendor which supplies kits to SK Hynix, is close to completing its new factory at Pyeongtaek.The factory will start operation within the year at the earliest, people familiar with the matter told TheElec.Unitest’s production capacity will triple once the factory

Texas Instruments said on Wednesday that it will be acquiring Micron’s fab in Lehi, Utah for US$900 million.Back in March, Micro had said it would sell the 300mm fab.Texas Instruments has now secured four 300mm fab through this deal.The company plans to manufacture 65- and 45-nanometer analog and em

DRAM and NAND flash prices remained flat in June from the previous month, according to DRAMeXchange.The fixed price of PC DDR4 8Gb was US$3.8 in June, the same as the in May. The prices of the second and third months of a quarter usually remains the same as new contracts are negotiated at the start

SK Hynix is preparing to end its business relationship with its design house partner ADTechnology, TheElec has learned.The South Korean memory giant had used the design house to have TSMC make its NAND flash controllers.But as ADTechnology recently ended its value chain aggregator (VCA) contract wit

SK Hynix’s acquisition of Intel’s NAND business unit has received the approval from UK’s antitrust watchdog.The Competition and Markets Authority gave its unconditional approval of the deal on Monday.In October last year, the South Korean memory giant announced that it would be acquiring Intel’s NAN

The semiconductor industry has focused on reducing the size of the chip so far. But microfabrication today is nearing its limits. Technology competition between semiconductor companies are now moving to packaging, which is moving away from traditional wire bonding and soldering to multi-function, ve

SiFive announced two new RISC-V cores called P550 and P270. P550 will be used for the first time in Intel’s 7-nanometer (nm) CPU codenamed Horse Creek, which will launch sometime between 2022 and 2023.In March, Intel had said its 7nm CPU Meteor Lake will enter tape-in stage in the second quarter of

Fabless company Eyenix said on Thursday that it will be supplying its internet protocol (IP) camera SoC EN675 series for CCTVs to Seyeon Tech, Cellinx Systems, and Webgate.EN675 SoC will be used in two IP security cameras that Seyeon Tech will launch at the end of June, a Eyenix spokesperson said.Th

A total of 19 new fabs will start construction by the end of 2021, according to SEMI.An additional 10 more fabs are expected to start construction next year, the organization said.These fabs, when completed, in total will add production capacity equal to 2.6 million 200mm wafers per month, SEMI said

Synopsys said on Monday that it will acquire Bistel’s semiconductor and flat panel display solutions.The acquisition will broaden Synopsys’ process control solutions for chip fabs, the company said.It will be able to offer an integrated and comprehensive yield management and prediction solution to e

Semiconductor design solution firm ADTechnology is planning to form a subsidiary at San Hose, California by July, TheElec has learned.The US arm will be led by Lee Young-bae, who was previously an executive at Samsung Foundry.ADTechnology is also planning to form a regional office at Shanghai, China

3D image and sensing market will begin growing fast again in 2023 after years of slow growth, according to market research firm Yole Development.The 3D sensing market was worth US$6.5 billion in 2020, which was only 80% of the research firm’s earlier forecast.This was due to less use of time of flig

Display driver IC demand will increase 7.4% in 2020 from a year prior, according to market research firm TrendForce.However, supply of the chips will increase only 2.5% over the same time period, which will continue the shortage over them, the firm said.This is because most 8-inch foundry capacities

Chip inspection equipment firm Intekplus said on Friday that it will spend 8 billion won to build a new factory at Daejeon.This will double its production capacity and allow to meet the current high demand from the semiconductor industry, the company said.Once the new factory goes live next year, In