Memorychip maker Macronix International Co (旺宏) yesterday said that it is shipping high-density memory chips for Huawei Technologies Co’s (華為) 5G base stations and expects client demand for the chips to peak next year or in 2021 in step with the global deployment of the next-generation wireless networks.
Other than Huawei, “80 percent of the [world’s] 5G companies are adopting our chips as well. Those [clients] are from China, Japan, Europe and South Korea,” Macronix chairman Miin Wu (吳敏求) told reporters at the company’s headquarters in Hsinchu.
“I believe the company is a major supplier to those [5G] clients,” he added.
Photo: CNA
As global telecom operators are just beginning to install base stations this year, shipments of Macronix’s memory chips used in 5G base stations are expected to peak next year, or the year after, Wu said.
He said that 5G base stations are expected to require a significant amount of memory chips, as they are usually equipped with high-density NOR flash with 1 or 2 gigabytes of memory.
Not only 5G technology, but also true wireless stereo earbuds are driving demand for memory chips and boosting memorychip prices, Wu said.
“Based on the information on hand, I think [prices] will grow mildly. The semiconductor looks quite good... There is room for price increases in the second half next year,” he said. “Demand for NOR flash and NAND flash memory chips should surpass supply sometime next year.”
Macronix expects demand to improve every quarter next year, he said.
Macronix, which turned 30 earlier this month, plans to ship its first 3D 48-layer NAND flash memory chips in the second half of next year, with the first batch going to Nintendo Co.
The chipmaker said that 3D 96-layer NAND flash memory chips would follow in 2021 and 192-layer chips in 2022.
To celebrate its 30th anniversary, Macronix is exhibiting innovative technologies and products — such as chips used in autonomous vehicles, automated external defibrillators, Fibit Inc’s smart watches, drones and Nintendo Co’s Switch game consoles — in a new showroom at its headquarters.
The company aims to grow its revenue from medical, industrial and automobile devices to make up 50 percent of the company’s revenue in the long term, compared with the current 25 percent, Wu said.
Macronix invests 15 percent of its annual revenue in research and development (R&D) and had 7,950 patents granted as of October, the company said, adding that about 20 percent of its 40,000 employees are R&D staff.
Macronix said that it would give a NT$10,000 (US$328) bonus to each employee to celebrate its anniversary.
In other words, it would pay a total of NT$40 million in bonuses, which Wu said reflected the company’s gratitude for the contribution made by its employees and support from their families.
The company reported earnings per share of NT$4.94 for last year and NT$1.21 per share for the first three quarters of this year.
Revenue for last month decreased 6 percent to NT$3.66 billion, from NT$3.89 billion a year earlier. In the first 11 months, cumulative revenue totaled NT$29.08 billion, 9 percent less than the NT$31.87 billion reported for the same period last year.
Additional reporting by CNA
The New Taiwan dollar is on the verge of overtaking the yuan as Asia’s best carry-trade target given its lower risk of interest-rate and currency volatility. A strategy of borrowing the New Taiwan dollar to invest in higher-yielding alternatives has generated the second-highest return over the past month among Asian currencies behind the yuan, based on the Sharpe ratio that measures risk-adjusted relative returns. The New Taiwan dollar may soon replace its Chinese peer as the region’s favored carry trade tool, analysts say, citing Beijing’s efforts to support the yuan that can create wild swings in borrowing costs. In contrast,
Nvidia Corp’s demand for advanced packaging from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) remains strong though the kind of technology it needs is changing, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said yesterday, after he was asked whether the company was cutting orders. Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip, Blackwell, consists of multiple chips glued together using a complex chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) advanced packaging technology offered by TSMC, Nvidia’s main contract chipmaker. “As we move into Blackwell, we will use largely CoWoS-L. Of course, we’re still manufacturing Hopper, and Hopper will use CowoS-S. We will also transition the CoWoS-S capacity to CoWos-L,” Huang said
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) is expected to miss the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump on Monday, bucking a trend among high-profile US technology leaders. Huang is visiting East Asia this week, as he typically does around the time of the Lunar New Year, a person familiar with the situation said. He has never previously attended a US presidential inauguration, said the person, who asked not to be identified, because the plans have not been announced. That makes Nvidia an exception among the most valuable technology companies, most of which are sending cofounders or CEOs to the event. That includes
VERTICAL INTEGRATION: The US fabless company’s acquisition of the data center manufacturer would not affect market competition, the Fair Trade Commission said The Fair Trade Commission has approved Advanced Micro Devices Inc’s (AMD) bid to fully acquire ZT International Group Inc for US$4.9 billion, saying it would not hamper market competition. As AMD is a fabless company that designs central processing units (CPUs) used in consumer electronics and servers, while ZT is a data center manufacturer, the vertical integration would not affect market competition, the commission said in a statement yesterday. ZT counts hyperscalers such as Microsoft Corp, Amazon.com Inc and Google among its major clients and plays a minor role in deciding the specifications of data centers, given the strong bargaining power of
RSS