ISC said on Monday that it recorded 36 billion won in revenue and 6.5 billion won in operating profit in the second quarter.Revenue dropped 34.4% from last year while operating profit nosedived by 71.7% over the same time period.The company explained that the earnings drop stems from customers’ lowe

SK Telecom said on Sunday that it has invested US$100 million into US AI firm Anthropic.The US startup was founded in 2021 by researchers that left OpenAI. It has developed chatbot Claude and has Google and Salesforce as investors.SK Telecom is a strategic investor under their partnership and Anthro

Fab equipment maker DIT has begun supplying laser annealing equipment to chip giant SK Hynix, TheElec has learned.Annealing equipment is used to repair wafers that are damaged after ion injection.During the ion injection process, Group 3 or Group 5 dopants such as B, I or As are injected into the wa

South Korean chip fabless company Netsol is planning to supply its first magnetic random access memory (MRAM) to a Chinese customer, the company CEO told TheElec.Niche memory chips, excluding DRAM and NAND flash, accounted for 5% of the total memory chip market, Netsol CEO Kim Woo-jin said.Out of th

SK Hynix has unveiled a 321-layer NAND flash at a conference in the US.The South Korean chip giant unveiled the 321-layer 1Tb triple-level cell NAND flash at Flash Summit 2023 in Santa Clara on Tuesday.SK Hynix is the first memory chip maker to unveil a NAND with over 300 layers.The company said its

Chip and electronics material company Soulbrain is planning to acquire precursor maker DNF, TheElec has learned.The deal is expected to close within the year and is reportedly worth around 100 billion won, sources said.Soulbrain Holdings, the holding company of the Soulbrain group, will be the acqui

Research into applying wafer-to-wafer (W2W) technology in the DRAM sector was very active, according to EV Group.This was because the application of W2W hybrid bonding solution could improve the productivity of products such as high bandwidth memory, EV Group Korea General Manager Justin Yun said du

Inkjet printing solution company Enjet was aiming to apply inkjet technology to battery and semiconductor production, CEO Doyoung Byun said.The company was also aiming to develop a multi-nozzle to challenge Japan’s dominance in inkjet head, he said in an interview TheElec.Enjet, which went public la

Competition in the advanced die bonder market is intensifying. Besi, ASMPT, and Hanmi Semiconductor have all announced expansion plans in the thermal compression (TC) bonder sector.TC bonders are used to bond individual chips on processed wafers. They started to become in high demand with the launch

Chip design house ASICLAND was developing a new packaging technology to improve the cost of customer TSMC’s chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS).CoWoS has room for improvement in performance and power consumption compared to integrated fan-out and organic substrate package, ASICLAND manager Kang Sung-

LB Semicon has acquired battery recycling company GSM.The chip back-end company said it acquired all the company shares for 20 billion won.LB Semicon acquired a 60% stake for 12 billion won and LB a 40% stake for 8 billion won.The new subsidiary will collect scraps and used batteries made during bat

Samsung Display is expected to see its supply of OLED panels for iPhones grow again this year.The South Korean display panel maker received Apple’s approval for all models of OLED panels it will supply to the four models on the iPhone 15 Series and has begun delivery, TheElec has learned.In contrast

WCP said on Monday that it will be supplying lithium-ion battery separators to Samsung SDI.Its Japan-based parent company W-Scope will supply 4 billion meter-square of the separators __ enough to be used in batteries for 5.3 million units of electric vehicles __ for five years up to 2027.The separat

Samsung Display was planning to apply low refraction capping layer (CPL) on its smartphone OLED and was expected to apply them commercially in 2025 at the earliest, TheElec has learned.CPL is formed on top of the cathode and helps the light emitted from the emission layer towards the face of the dis

Samsung’s chip division recorded a steep operating loss of 4.36 trillion won in the second quarter due to the global economic downturn that is causing weak demand for IT products.However, inventory of chips peaked in May and is declining, the South Korean tech giant said, a sign that demand for chip

3D SoC with hybrid bonding applied was the way to overcome the current limitations of microfabrication the chip industry is facing, according to Inha University Professor Rino Choi.And for application of hybrid bonding, back side power delivery network, and other advanced technologies, there need to

Even in high bandwidth memory (HBM) hybrid bonding may be needed to pack in more layers within the confines of the package.This is according to SK Hynix Wafer Bonding Head Kang Ji-ho, who said during a local chip conference hosted by TheElec that HBM with 12-layer or higher can face problems in heig

SK Hynix said on Wednesday that it has recorded 2.9 trillion won in operating loss in the second quarter this year.This means that the South Korean chip giant recorded 6.3 trillion won in operating loss in total for the first half of the year, as the down cycle of the global chip market continues.Ho

Apple has asked its display panel suppliers Samsung Display and LG Display to develop zero-bezel OLED panels, TheElec has learned.While most premium smartphones in the market right now offer screens with very thin bezels, completely removing them is no easy task.The bezel area of the screen houses c

Fab equipment maker Wonik IPS was using multiple securities firms to purchase the shares of competitor APTC, TheElec has learned.Wonik IPS started buying listed shares of APTC in May and the move is ongoing, sources said.It is unknown how many shares Wonik IPS purchased in total for the past two mon