The global race to develop semiconductor industries is heating up, with countries like Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, and India making significant strides. Now, the Philippines is joining the fray with a new push to expand its presence in the sector.

According to a Bloomberg report, the Philippines is actively reaching out to Taiwanese semiconductor giants such as TSMC and United UMC in an effort to secure equipment and expertise needed to build its own chip fabrication operations.

Dan Lachica, head of the Semiconductor and Electronics Industries in the Philippines Foundation Inc. (SEIPI), explained that they are encouraging companies like TSMC and UMC to send their older, depreciated equipment to the Philippines. In return, Filipino workers would be trained to support these companies’ global operations.

The Philippines, home to more than 100 million people, lags behind its neighbors such as Malaysia and Singapore in the complex chip manufacturing industry, which requires billions of dollars in initial investment. Taiwan, led by TSMC, dominates the global semiconductor market, and its companies are expanding overseas to mitigate risks posed by tensions with China.

Neither TSMC nor UMC provided detailed responses to Bloomberg’s inquiries. TSMC declined to comment, while UMC reiterated its policy of not addressing market speculation.

The Philippines’ strategy is part of a broader effort to move beyond low-margin chip testing and packaging into more advanced areas such as IC design and semiconductor wafer fabrication.

Elsewhere in Southeast Asia, Vietnam has been increasing its focus on semiconductor development. Prime Minister Pham Minh signed Decision No. 1018/QD-TTg on September 21, as reported by the Vietnam Government News website. The decision outlines the country’s vision for semiconductor growth, with short-term goals set for 2030 and long-term projections extending to 2050.

India is also making strides in this field. During Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the U.S. in September, the two countries agreed to build a semiconductor plant focusing on infrared, gallium nitride, and silicon carbide chips, backed by India’s Semiconductor Mission and a strategic partnership with the U.S. Space Force.

(Photo credit: SEIPI)

SK hynix Inc announced today that it recorded 17.5731 trillion won in revenues, 7.03 trillion won in operating profit (with an operating margin of 40%), and 5.7534 trillion won in net profit (with a net margin of 33%) in the third quarter this year.

According to the third-quarter financial report released today by SK hynix, the company posted record-breaking figures, including revenues of 17.5731 trillion won, an operating profit of 7.03 trillion won (with an operating margin of 40%), and a net profit of 5.7534 trillion won (with a net margin of 33%) for the third quarter of this year.

SK hynix’s financial report shows that quarterly revenues hit an all-time high, exceeding the previous record of 16.4233 trillion won in the second quarter of this year by over 1 trillion won. Both operating profit and net profit also surpassed the records set during the semiconductor boom in the third quarter of 2018, which were 6.4724 trillion won and 4.6922 trillion won, respectively.

SK hynix emphasized that the demand for AI memory continued to be strong centered on data center customers, and the company marked its highest revenue since its foundation by expanding sales of premium products such as HBM and eSSD. In particular, HBM sales showed excellent growth, up more than 70% from the previous quarter and more than 330% from the same period last year.

As sales increased mainly on highly profitable premium products, the average selling price (ASP) of both DRAM and NAND rose in the mid 10% range compared to the previous quarter, which made the company mark the highest operating profit.

While the demand of memory for AI servers such as HBM and eSSD has grown noticeably this year, SK hynix predicts that this trend will continue next year. This is because generative AI is developing into a multi-modal1 form and global big tech companies continue to invest to develop artificial general intelligence (AGI).

SK hynix also forecasts that the PC and mobile product markets, which had been slow to recover demand compared to memory for AI servers, will be on a steady growth path as well next year as AI memories optimized for each device are released.

As a result, the company will continue to focus on profitability by increasing sales centered on high value-added products based on its world-leading technology in AI memory.

In the DRAM area, SK hynix is continuing the rapid transition from existing HBM3 to 8-layer HBM3E products. The company also plans to start supplying 12-layer HBM3E products, which were mass-produced last month, in the fourth quarter as scheduled. This makes HBM sales, which accounted for 30% of total DRAM revenues in the third quarter, expected to reach 40% in the fourth quarter.

For NAND, the company plans to expand sales of high-capacity eSSD, which is rapidly increasing market demand, while focusing on investment efficiency and production optimization.

“SK hynix has solidified its position as the world’s No.1 AI memory company by achieving the highest business performance ever in the third quarter of this year.” said Kim Woohyun, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) at SK hynix. “We will continue to maximize profitability while securing stable revenues by taking flexible product and supply strategies in line with market demand.”

(Photo credit: SK hynix)

Ahead of SK hynix’s Q3 earnings announcement on October 24^th, the market expects it may see a surge in quarterly operating profit driven by HBM, potentially leading the company to outperform Samsung’s semiconductor division. Therefore, there is growing interest in SK hynix’s next move.

In order to maintain its leadership in the memory sector amid heated competition from China, SK hynix is reportedly shifting its focus to high-value technologies such as HBM4 and Compute Express Link (CXL), according to Korean media outlet Pinpoint News and Tom’s Hardware.

This shift is motivated by a highly competitive memory market, where Chinese firms are ramping up their production capabilities and adopting aggressive pricing strategies to gain share, Tom’s Hardware notes.

For instance, a previous report by ZDNet mentions that Chinese memory manufacturers like CXMT (Changxin Memory Technologies) are aggressively expanding production, which could negatively affect profitability in the traditional DRAM market. Established in 2016, CXMT has become China’s largest DRAM producer with government backing.

Both Samsung and SK hynix are said to be closely monitoring these developments, and counting on high-valued technologies like HBM4 and CXL to unlock a new wave of growth momentum.

It is worth noting that both memory giants have teamed up with TSMC on HBM4, as they attempt to incorporate customized features requested by major clients, counting on TSMC to manufacture more powerful logic dies, the component that functions as the brain of an HBM chip.

Per SK hynix’s product roadmap, the company plans to launch 12-layer stacked HBM4 in the second half of 2025 and 16-layer in 2026.

Samsung, which is struggling with the 12-Hi HBM3e verification with NVIDIA, also aims high for HBM4 to turn the tide. A previous report by The Elec indicates that Samsung targets to tape out HBM4 by year-end, while eyeing the mass production by the end of 2025.

On the other hand, CXL is a next-generation interface that efficiently connects CPUs, GPUs, and memory in high-performance computing systems. According to Pinpoint News, by applying CXL to existing memory modules, capacities can be expanded by more than ten times, makes it extremely suited for the demand of the AI era.

SK hynix is also focusing on CXL memory, which is gaining attention as the next-generation AI memory following HBM. Citing SK hynix CEO Kwak Noh-Jung’s remarks, a report by ZDNet suggests that the memory giant plans to launch products like CXL and LPCAMM tailored to customers’ needs, as the results will begin to materialize around next year.

In the meantime, Samsung reportedly aims to begin mass production of a 256GB CMM-D, compatible with the CXL 2.0 protocol, by the end of 2024, according to Tom’s Hardware. In its own words, Samsung’s CMM-D is a memory expander built with next-generation CXL technology, which seamlessly connects multiple processors and devices, increasing memory capacity thus optimizing memory management.

Read more

• [News] Samsung’s Next Move? Early HBM4 Mass-production and 2nm Foundry Solutions Could Be the Cure
• [News] SK hynix Reportedly to Tape-out HBM4 in October, Paving the Way for NVIDIA’s Rubin

(Photo credit: SK hynix)

According to TrendForce’s latest memory spot price trend report, regarding DRAM, spot prices for DDR5 products have finally stabilized this week as contract prices have room for further hikes. As for NAND flash, the story seems to be different as the wave of price slashes is only going to become even more apparent as China’s Double 11 shopping festival approaches. Details are as follows:

DRAM Spot Price:

Regarding DDR5 products, spot prices have stabilized this week as contract prices have room for further hikes, and there have also been occasional small price hikes in spot transactions. As for DDR4 products, spot prices show signs of stabilization but have experienced the same kind of increase as DDR5. Overall, demand remains weak for consumer products, suggesting further price drops are possible. The average spot price of mainstream chips (i.e., DDR4 1Gx8 2666MT/s) has fallen by 0.31% from US$1.911 last week to US$1.905 this week.

NAND Flash Spot Price:

The reduction of inventory has become the priority for the spot market that is currently experiencing sluggishness in demand and purchase sentiment, seeing how truncations have been frequently happening among retail and channel markets, where several module houses of a larger scale are even selling their client SSD at a loss just to get rid of existing inventory. This wave of price slashes is only going to become even more apparent as China’s Double 11 shopping festival approaches. Spot market prices are thus expected to remain on the downward trajectory. 512Gb TLC wafers have dropped by 0.08% this week, arriving at US$2.493.

Arm Holdings Plc is terminating its architectural license agreement with Qualcomm Inc., which permitted Qualcomm to use Arm’s intellectual property for chip design, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.

According to the report, Arm has issued a mandatory 60-day notice to Qualcomm regarding the cancellation of the licensing agreement. This contract previously enabled Qualcomm to develop its own chips based on Arm’s proprietary standards.

Arm declined to comment on the situation, while Qualcomm did not respond to a request for comment from Reuters outside of regular business hours.

This announcement coincides with an ongoing legal battle between the two tech companies, which is slated to begin in federal court in Delaware this December.

The British firm, majority-owned by Japan’s SoftBank Group, filed a lawsuit against Qualcomm in 2022 for allegedly failing to negotiate a new licensing agreement after acquiring a new company.

The lawsuit centers on technology acquired by Qualcomm from Nuvia, a startup founded by former Apple chip engineers, which Qualcomm purchased for $1.4 billion in 2021. Qualcomm aimed to leverage Nuvia’s technology to compete with Apple by developing chips that could rival the Apple M-series processors and challenge the desktop market dominated by Intel and AMD.

While the acquisition was initially seen as routine, Arm claims that Qualcomm’s use of Nuvia’s designs violates the licensing agreement. The licenses granted to Nuvia were specifically intended for a startup and could not be directly used by Qualcomm without Arm’s approval.

Arm has previously emphasized that, ‘Arm is filing this claim to protect Arm, our partners, and the unparalleled ecosystem we have built together. Arm and its partners have invested billions of dollars to create industry-leading intellectual property. Because Qualcomm attempted to transfer Nuvia licenses without Arm’s consent, which is a standard restriction under Arm’s license agreements, Nuvia’s licenses were terminated in March 2022. Before and after that date, Arm made multiple good faith efforts to seek a resolution. In contrast, Qualcomm has breached the terms of the Arm license agreement by continuing development under the terminated licenses. Arm was left with no choice but to bring this claim against Qualcomm and Nuvia to protect our IP, our business, and to ensure customers are able to access valid Arm-based products.’

(Photo credit: Arm)