As American tech giants depart from China and relocate their production of artificial intelligence (AI) server to Mexico, according to a report from UDN, some major AI players have urged their Taiwanese manufacturing partners to enhance their investments in production in Mexico.

Reportedly, Taiwanese manufacturing giants like Foxconn and Inventec are increasingly attentive to this trend, ramping up their investments in Mexico and leveraging the advantages provided by the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) that came into effect in 2020.

As per a report by The Wall Street Journal, the USMCA has already attracted billions of dollars in investment in the manufacturing sector, aimed at shifting production operations from China to Mexico.

James C. F. Huang, from the Taiwan External Trade Development Council, stated that the three North American countries aim to minimize imports from Asia as much as possible. Based on this consensus, Mexico is expected to become the most significant production base within the USMCA for the production of goods.

In February, Foxconn, the world’s largest electronics manufacturing services provider, announced a USD 27 million investment in purchasing land in the western state of Jalisco, Mexico. According to the report citing sources, this move is aimed at significantly expanding the company’s production of AI servers. Foxconn stated that it has invested approximately USD 690 million in Mexico over the past four years.

Sources cited by UDN also revealed that Foxconn’s Mexican facility manufactures AI servers for American tech giants such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and NVIDIA. However, the US companies have declined to confirm this claim.

Last year, the chairman of Mexico’s largest private organization, Francisco Cervantes, pointed out that increased investment by Taiwanese businesses in Mexico will significantly reshape the country’s industrial structure over the next decade.

The production volume of AI server is on the rise, and American companies are hoping to avoid repeating the history of smartphones. Many core components and parts of smartphones ended up being produced in China, particularly in factories operated by companies like Foxconn, for the assembly of iPhones.

Foxconn’s Chairman Young Liu previously indicated a strong demand for AI servers, with Foxconn securing new projects continuously.

Foxconn spokesperson James Wu noted that Foxconn Group commands over 40% market share in the server industry, particularly in the mid-to-high-end products related to AI servers. Foxconn closely collaborates with customers and aims to maintain its dominance, anticipating substantial contributions once the entire supply chain stabilizes.

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• [News] Foxconn Capitalizes on AI Opportunities? Reportedly Looking at Apple’s AI Server Market, B200 Also Poised to Succeed
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(Photo credit: Foxconn)

Samsung Electronics Co. has recently established a HBM team within its memory division, with the goal of enhancing yield during the development of the sixth-generation AI memory HBM4 and the AI accelerator Mach-1.

According to a report of the Korea Economic Daily (KED) citing industry sources on March 29th, Samsung’s HBM team is primarily responsible for the research, development, and sales of DRAM and NAND flash memory. Samsung’s Executive Vice President and Chief of DRAM Product and Technology, Hwang Sang-joon, will lead the new team. This marks the second team focused on HBM since Samsung initiated its HBM task force in January.

Per KED’s report, Samsung is stepping up its efforts in hopes of surpassing SK Hynix, the leader in the advanced HBM field. In 2019, Samsung dissolved its HBM team due to a mistaken belief that the market would not see significant growth.

Per a previous TrendForce press release, the three major original HBM manufacturers held market shares as follows in 2023: SK Hynix and Samsung were both around 46-49%, while Micron stood at roughly 4-6%.

To vie for dominance in the AI chip market, Samsung is pursuing a “two-track” strategy by concurrently developing two cutting-edge memory chips: HBM and Mach-1.

According to TrendForce’s report, SK Hynix led the way with its HBM3e validation in the first quarter, closely followed by Micron, which plans to start distributing its HBM3e products toward the end of the first quarter, in alignment with NVIDIA’s planned H200 deployment by the end of the second quarter.

Samsung, slightly behind in sample submissions, is expected to complete its HBM3e validation by the end of the first quarter, with shipments rolling out in the second quarter.

According to the same report from KED, Samsung is also gearing up to develop the next-generation accelerator, “Mach-2,” tailored for AI inference. According to Kyung on March 29th, Samsung must expedite the development of Mach-2 as there is strong interest from customers in this regard.

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• [News] Memory Manufacturers Vie for HBM3e Market
• [News] Another Semiconductor Giant Makes a Move on HBM

(Photo credit: Samsung)

The semiconductor battleground of the Angstrom Era has commenced earlier than expected, with TSMC advancing its plant expansions in Taiwan. As per Commercial Times citing sources, TSMC is poised to increase its 2024 capital expenditure from the initial estimate of USD 28-32 billion to USD 30-34 billion, marking a hike of over 7%.

TSMC’s continuous plant expansion includes the initiation of the first 2-nanometer plant in Hsinchu’s Baoshan facility in April, the addition of another 2-nanometer plant in Kaohsiung, and the commencement of construction for two advanced packaging plants in Chiayi. Furthermore, there are market rumors speculating that TSMC plans to build two more A14 plants in Kaohsiung.

According to industry sources cited by the report, TSMC’s earnings call on April 18th will mark a significant milestone as the company transitions to the next generation of manufacturing processes. Expectations are high for surprises in capital expenditure, second-quarter operating prospects, and the nomination list for new directors.

During TSMC’s January earnings call, they disclosed a capital expenditure estimate of approximately USD 28-32 billion for this year. However, with NVIDIA’s recent unveiling of the Blackwell architecture, advanced packaging has become almost indispensable for next-generation chips. Major customers for advanced packaging, including NVIDIA, Broadcom, Marvell, and AMD, are all closely linked to AI.

Per the same report citing sources, it’s revealed by Commercial Times citing sources near TSMC’s clients that the current waiting time remains as long as six months, as capacity ramp-up continues to chase demand. It is widely expected that TSMC will increase its capital expenditure, with the lower bound potentially surpassing USD 28 billion to over USD 30 billion.

From an operational standpoint, TSMC is expected to benefit this year from the surge in demand for artificial intelligence. Analysts predict that AI clients will support TSMC’s second-quarter revenue momentum, with the potential to deliver low single-digit quarterly growth.

Per the report citing sources, the positive outlook for TSMC’s second quarter can be attributed to several factors. These include stable demand for TSMC’s 4nm and 5nm processes with support from NVIDIA’s GPUs. Additionally, it is speculated that the 3nm process will benefit from cryptocurrency clients and early orders for Apple’s AI chips, boosting capacity utilization. Furthermore, there is an upward trend in the mature 16nm and 28nm processes.

Per the industry sources cited by the report, TSMC’s CoWoS capacity is fully booked until the first half of next year. This will drive up the revenue contribution from TSMC’s 3nm process. Furthermore, the outsourcing orders for Intel CPUs this year will further boost revenue growth.

Additionally, on June 4th, TSMC will hold elections for ten directors, including six independent directors. The list of director candidates is about to be announced, attracting significant attention to the new team lineup. With the current Chairman, Mark Liu, announcing his succession, and independent director K.C. Chen planning to retire, significant changes in the TSMC board of directors’ composition are anticipated.

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• [News] Three Major Giants Vying for TSMC’s 3-Nanometer Production Capacity
• [News] Blackwell Enters the Scene – A Closer Look at TSMC’s CoWoS Branch

(Photo credit: TSMC)

According to wccftech, Intel’s new GPUs will come in two models, namely Battlemage-G10 (abbreviated as BMG-G10) and Battlemage-G21 (abbreviated as BMG-G21).

These two new GPUs from Intel were revealed in an internal document. According to the document, the BMG-G10, targeted at enthusiasts, is a GPU with a TDP of less than 225W, while the BMG-G21 is designed as a mid-range performance product with a maximum TDP not exceeding 150W.

As for specific parameters and performance, the enthusiast-grade BMG-G10 is expected to be equipped with up to 64 Xe2 cores, directly competing with NVIDIA’s RTX 4070. On the other hand, the mid-range BMG-G21 aims at the RTX 4060, both continuing to utilize TSMC’s 4nm manufacturing process.

Therefore, previous rumors suggesting that Intel had canceled the development of BMG-G10 and only retained the BMG-G21 with 40 Xe2 cores appear to be untrue. Moreover, the core count of BMG-G10 is larger than initially reported at 56 Xe2 cores, indicating it is poised to deliver even higher performance.

Recently, per a report from Reuters, Intel, Qualcomm, Google, and other major tech companies are teaming up to challenge NVIDIA’s market dominance and make inroads into the AI software sector. They are expected to look to steer developers away from NVIDIA’s CUDA software platform, a parallel computing platform tailored for GPU acceleration.

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• [News] Addressing AI PC Chip Solutions, Intel and Qualcomm Reportedly Unveil Respective Strategies
• [News] Intel, Qualcomm, Google Reportedly Form Alliance, Posing Challenges to NVIDIA’s Dominance in AI?

(Photo credit: Intel)

On March 27, Wolfspeed announced the topping out of construction at the its largest and most advanced John Palmour Manufacturing Center for Silicon Carbide.

According to its introduction, the “John Palmour Silicon Carbide Manufacturing Center” has a total investment of USD 5 billion, covering 445 acres. The first phase of construction is expected to be completed by the end of 2024. Wolfspeed CEO Gregg Lowe stated that the factory has begun installing ingot equipment, and it is estimated that production will start in December 2024 or January 2025.

The factory will mainly produce 200mm (8-inch) silicon carbide wafers, which are 1.7 times the size of 150mm (6-inch) wafers. This will meet the demand for the next generation of semiconductors critical for energy transformation and AI artificial intelligence.

It is reported that the ramp-up of the “John Palmour Silicon Carbide Manufacturing Center” will provide support for customers like Renesas and Infineon. Currently, Wolfspeed manufactures over 60% of the world’s silicon carbide wafer at its headquarters in Durham, North Carolina. It is worth mentioning that, Wolfspeed is carrying out a capacity expansion plan with a total investment of USD 6.5 billion.

In recent years, driven by the burgeoning development in applications such as new energy vehicles, 5G, solar energy, and photovoltaics, the demand for silicon carbide has shown explosive growth. According to previous data statistics from TrendForce, the overall market size of silicon carbide power device reached USD 2.28 billion in 2023 with 41.4% YoY, which is expected to stand at USD 5.33 billion by 2026.

Given the promising market prospects, major silicon carbide-related companies worldwide are accelerating their strategic deployments. Recently, reports of investments and progress in various silicon carbide industry projects.

Globally, Mitsubishi Electric is scheduled to open a new 8-inch SiC plant in Japan in April this year, and plans to put it into operation in 2026. European graphite materials and silicon carbide substrate supplier Mersen is expanding its silicon carbide substrate production capacity by obtaining investment from the French government.

In China, SICC announced to spend CNY 500 million to invest in “Silicon Carbide Semiconductor Materials Project”. TANKEBLUE’s silicon carbide project completed the second phase of the main body; Ascen Power steps up the production of its silicon carbide wafer manufacturing project phase I.

On the other hand, the joint venture of San’an and Li Auto has started pilot production of its  automotive-grade silicon carbide wafer and module project with a total investment of 1 billion; a large-size silicon carbide single crystal substrate industrialization project signed in Lishui, Zhejiang, China. Nantong Semiconductor Equipment SiC components project started the second phase. TonyTech intend to expand the 6-inch silicon carbide substrate materials project with a capacity of 200,000 pieces annually.

Cases of collaboration between enterprises frequently came up since 2024. For instance, Infineon has signed a long-term contract with SK Siltron for silicon carbide wafer, Innosilicon and STMicroelectronics have signed a silicon carbide strategic cooperation agreement in Shenzhen of China, the same as United Nova Technology and Li Auto.

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• [News] Continuous Breakthroughs in SiC Substrates, Global 8-Inch Fab to Reach 11

(Photo credit: Mitsubishi Electric)