According to Taiwan’s TechNews, the ongoing soft demand for smartphones, combined with Huawei’s launch of the Mate 60 Pro, has severely impacted Qualcomm. Reports within the Chinese industry suggest that Qualcomm is planning significant layoffs in China, with severance costs estimated to be as high as N+7.

Based on discussions in Chinese forums and media reports, Qualcomm’s Shanghai R&D center is set to undergo substantial layoffs. This center primarily focuses on wireless-related businesses. The severance standards for permanent employees are at least N+4, which means the employee’s tenure plus an additional 4 months are considered for severance pay. As for contract employees, the severance compensation is set at N+7.

In fact, Qualcomm announced its downsizing plan in August, with reports suggesting that Qualcomm Taiwan plans to lay off about 200 employees in October. This will affect personnel in product engineering, testing, and verification fields, comprising 11.8% of the total workforce. The company is also implementing cost-saving measures such as eliminating annual salary adjustments and reducing bonuses to 70%.

This downsizing rumor has also extended to China, with reports at the time suggesting that Qualcomm China might lay off up to 40% of its workforce. The main reasons cited were sluggish demand for smartphones and Huawei’s new Kirin processor.

Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of TF International Securities stated that Huawei is expected to fully adopt its own designed Kirin processors in its upcoming phones next year. Qualcomm will be the major loser in this scenario, losing Huawei’s orders entirely.

According to Kuo’s data, Huawei purchased 23 to 25 million smartphone SoCs (System on a Chip) from Qualcomm in 2022, but this number increased to 40 to 42 million in 2023. However, starting in 2024, Huawei will use its own chip designs, causing Qualcomm to not only lose orders but also face the risk of declining shipments from other Chinese brand customers due to Huawei’s increased market share.

Kuo also expects that, influenced by Huawei’s actions, Qualcomm’s SoC shipments to Chinese smartphone brands will decrease by 50 to 60 million units next year and continue to decline in the following years.

With a significant potential decline in performance in the Chinese market and increasing price competition towards the end of the year, Qualcomm is expected to carry out more layoffs. As of September last year, Qualcomm had approximately 51,000 employees worldwide. The company’s restructuring costs in the last quarter amounted to $285 million, with most of it being severance pay. In June of this year, the U.S. headquarters also reduced around 415 positions.

According to a report by China’s Jiwei, there have been indications of a positive turnaround in the Chinese MCU market recently. Some components are experiencing inventory replenishment, and certain MCU manufacturers have noted an upward trend in component prices, suggesting a gradual stabilization of prices. Additionally, there is optimism that wafer production costs in the coming year may become more favorable, which could gradually boost profit margins.

It is worth noting that the consumer electronics market has been sluggish for over a year, particularly for consumer-grade general-purpose MCUs, which have seen inventory accumulation. Due to the high inventory levels, many MCU manufacturers have been actively working to reduce their stock levels, leading to intermittent price wars.

Recently, Fudan Micro disclosed research findings indicating that the recovery of the end consumer market is still a gradual process, putting significant pressure on IC design companies. In the consumer market, products such as MCUs and storage solutions have seen some recovery in sales but have not yet shown a noticeable improvement in prices. Additionally, the security and identification product lines face substantial competitive pressure.

Looking at the industry as a whole, the clearance of inventory has not disappeared; it is still expected to return to normal levels by the end of this year or the first half of the next year. For IC design firms, the resolution of high-priced inventory is anticipated to continue impacting profit margins in the latter half of the year.

According to a report from China Media Jiwei, there are recent rumors suggesting that the Chinese smartphone brand OPPO may restart its chip design business and has begun recruiting former employees from ZEKU. In response, OPPO stated that the company has terminated its ZEKU business and declined to provide further comments.

On May 12th of this year, OPPO announced that due to global economic uncertainties and a volatile smartphone market, the company needed to make strategic adjustments to address long-term challenges. Following a decision by the Executive Management Team, the ZEKU business was terminated. The company is committed to handling all related matters resulting from this business adjustment and will continue to create value through its products.

ZEKU issued a notice stating that the company and its wholly-owned subsidiaries and branches would be dissolved starting from May 12th. They would also legally terminate all labor contracts. Starting on May 19th, they began signing compensation agreements with employees, providing compensation of N+3, and consolidating all May salaries into a single monthly payment. Social insurance and housing fund for May were also processed.

It is worth noting that before the business termination, ZEKU had a workforce of over 3,000 employees, with 2,500 of them based in China. In terms of personnel scale, it was one of China’s top-tier chip design companies. Established four years ago, ZEKU attracted talent from well-known chip design enterprises such as Spreadtrum, Hisilicon, Qualcomm, as well as recruiting numerous talents from renowned domestic microelectronics institutions through campus recruitment efforts.

(Photo credit: OPPO)

Report to Liberty Times Net, In a joint statement on the comprehensive strategic partnership between the United States and Vietnam, the two countries highlighted Vietnam’s significant potential to become a key player in the semiconductor industry. The United States expressed its support for the rapid development of Vietnam’s semiconductor ecosystem. To foster the development of human resources in the semiconductor industry, the United States will provide a $2 million seed fund, with future investments coming from the Vietnamese government and the private sector. These initiatives are seen as a significant step forward for Vietnam in its journey to join the global semiconductor industry.

U.S. census data showed semiconductor imports from Vietnam surged by 75% to $562.5 million in August compared to the same period last year, capturing approximately 11.6% of the market share. However, experts point out that considering the entire supply chain, Vietnam’s contribution remains relatively small.

Semiconductor manufacturing involves three fundamental stages: design, fabrication, and packaging. Since Intel’s Ho Chi Minh City factory is its primary production facility, Vietnam is primarily involved in the final packaging stage of semiconductor production, which represents the lowest value-added segment of the supply chain. According to data from the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), packaging accounts for only 6% of the chip’s value. Additionally, Korean semiconductor design companies are following Samsung’s lead by establishing factories in Vietnam, including CoAsia in Hanoi and Amkor in Bac Ninh province.

Shortage of Engineers in Vietnam Poses a Major Challenge

A shortage of packaging and design engineers poses a significant challenge for Vietnam. The country lacks the capacity for domestic semiconductor manufacturing. Currently, Vietnam has over 5,500 semiconductor design engineers, while Intel’s Ho Chi Minh City factory has shipped over 3 billion chips to date. The supply chain ecosystem of American giants is gradually taking shape in Vietnam. However, with just over 5,000 engineers, Vietnam remains a distant bridge to this multi-billion-dollar industry.

Vietnam faces two choices for industry growth: expanding its manufacturing sector or enhancing skills and value in the design and packaging phases. Experts suggest that Vietnam has chosen the latter. However, the shortage of personnel poses a barrier to Vietnam’s ambitions to increase the value of its semiconductor supply chain.

According to estimates, the semiconductor industry needs to cultivate 10,000 engineers annually, but Vietnam’s current rate is less than 20%. In fact, according to a report by the Vietnam Microchip Association, the number of engineers only increases by about 500 people each year. Currently, most of Vietnam’s semiconductor engineers work for foreign companies.

(Source: https://ec.ltn.com.tw/article/breakingnews/4432014)

In recent years, with the rise of AI and 5G technologies leading to increasing computational demands, Silicon Photonics technology has once again become a focal point of discussion in the semiconductor industry.

TrendForce Perspective:

• Rewriting Semiconductor Development Rules with Silicon Photonics 

Since the development of the semiconductor industry, the industry’s trajectory has largely followed the development predicted by Gordon Moore – roughly doubling the number of transistors that can be accommodated on an integrated circuit approximately every two years. However, as chip sizes continue to shrink, chip architecture design is gradually being challenged. Semiconductor manufacturers, including TSMC, Samsung, and Intel, are striving to break through Moore’s Law as their goal. Others have publicly announced their focus on mature processes (the industry divides at 7nm, with 7nm and below considered advanced processes) and optimization of existing technologies.

However, even as manufacturers push the boundaries of Moore’s Law, leading to increased transistor density per unit area, signal loss issues inevitably arise during signal transmission since chips rely on electricity to transmit signals. Despite the increased transistor count, power consumption problems persist. Silicon Photonics technology, which replaces electrical signals with optical signals for high-speed data transmission, successfully overcomes this challenge, achieving higher bandwidth and faster data processing. With this approach, chips do not need to cram more transistors per unit area or pursue smaller nanometers and nodes. Instead, they can achieve higher integration and performance on existing processes, further advancing technology.

• Optimistic about Silicon Photonics Technology, but Breakthroughs Will Take Time

Currently, Silicon Photonics technology still faces various challenges, including alignment and coupling, thermal management, modulation and detection, expansion and integration, among others. Significant breakthroughs are unlikely in the short term, and major global manufacturers are still in the early development stages. In Taiwan, recent reports suggest that TSMC is actively venturing into Silicon Photonics technology. While TSMC has not officially confirmed this news, during the Silicon Photonics International Forum, a senior vice president from TSMC clearly stated, “If a good Silicon Photonics integration system can be provided, it can address the key issues of energy efficiency and AI computing power. This could be a Paradigm Shift, and we might be at the beginning of a new era.”

This suggests that TSMC is optimistic about the development of Silicon Photonics technology. Although Taiwanese companies have not formally announced their entry into the Silicon Photonics field, it is expected that with the explosive growth in demand for data transmission, storage, and computing driven by AI technology, Silicon Photonics will undoubtedly be a critical technology for future semiconductor development.