While Samsung Electronics is said to be delivering an oversea workforce cut up to 30%, a report from Korean media outlet Business Korea on September 11th has added that persistent issues with its 2nm yield rate have led Samsung to decide to withdraw personnel from its Taylor, Texas plant, signaling another setback for its advanced wafer foundry business.

Originally envisioned as a mass production hub for advanced processes below 4nm, the Taylor facility’s strategic location near major tech companies was intended to attract U.S. clients. However, despite rapid development, Samsung continues to face 2nm yield issues, resulting in performance and production capacity falling short of its main competitor, TSMC.

Reportedly, Samsung’s wafer foundry yield is below 50%, particularly in processes below 3nm, while TSMC’s advanced process yield is around 60-70%. This gap has widened the market share difference between the two companies.

As per a report from TrendForce, TSMC held a 62.3% share of the global wafer foundry market in the second quarter, while Samsung’s market share was only 11.5%.

Industry sources cited by Business Korea further added that Samsung’s Gate-All-Around (GAA) yield is around 10-20%, which is insufficient for handling orders and mass production. Such yields have forced Samsung to reconsider its strategy and withdraw personnel from the Taylor plant, leaving only a minimal number of staff.

Samsung Electronics had signed a preliminary agreement to receive up to KRW 9 trillion in subsidies from the U.S. Chips Act. However, a key condition for receiving the funding is that the plant must operate smoothly, and Samsung’s current difficulties put this agreement at risk.

Reportedly, Samsung Chairman Lee Jae-Yong personally visited major equipment suppliers like ASML and Zeiss, hoping to achieve breakthroughs in process and yield improvements. However, there have been no significant results so far, and it remains uncertain when personnel might be reassigned back to the Taylor plant.

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• [News] Samsung Reportedly Buckling Under Pressure, with Plans to Cut Overseas Workforce by Up to 30%
• [News] Samsung Signals Will to Collaborate with Other Foundries on Basedie

(Photo credit: Samsung)

According to a report from Reuters citing sources, Samsung Electronics, the global leading manufacturer of smartphones, TVs, and memory, is said to be cutting up to 30% of its overseas workforce in certain departments.

Per the same report, sources revealed that Samsung has instructed its global subsidiaries to reduce sales and marketing staff by around 15% and management personnel by as much as 30%. The plan, set to be implemented by the end of this year, will affect jobs across the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa.

Additionally, other industry sources reportedly confirmed Samsung’s global layoff plan as well. However, details about the extent of the layoffs remain confidential, making it unclear how many employees will be affected and which countries or business units will be hit the hardest.

Amid these rumored layoffs, Samsung is grappling with increasing pressure on its key departments. In May, the company replaced the head of its semiconductor division to tackle the ongoing chip crisis, as it strives to catch up with competitor SK hynix in supplying high-end memory used in AI chipsets.

In the premium smartphone market, Samsung faces fierce competition from Apple and China’s Huawei, while it has also lagged behind TSMC in chip manufacturing.

A source pointed out that the layoffs are aimed at addressing the slowdown in global tech product demand due to the global economic downturn. Another source, however, mentioned that Samsung is looking to boost profits by cutting costs.

Per Reuters, Samsung has noted in a statement, claiming that some workforce adjustments in its overseas operations are routine measures aimed at improving efficiency. The company stated that these plans do not have specific targets and added that production staff would not be affected.

According to Samsung’s 2024 sustainability report, as of the end of 2023, the company employed 267,860 people, with over half (147,104 employees) located overseas. The report indicated that the majority of jobs were in manufacturing and development, with 25,136 employees in sales and marketing, and 27,887 in other areas.

Other sources cited by Reuters revealed that the global directive for layoffs was issued about three weeks ago. Samsung’s India operations have already offered severance packages to some mid-level employees who have left in recent weeks, with the total number of employees expected to leave the Indian subsidiary potentially reaching 1,000.

Samsung employs around 25,000 people in India, where the company generates an annual revenue of approximately USD 12 billion. Wage strikes are currently disrupting production in the country.

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• [News] Samsung Partners with TSMC, Its Foundry Rival, on HBM4 Development
• [News] Samsung Signals Will to Collaborate with Other Foundries on Basedie

(Photo credit: Samsung)

Amid concerns on the delay of NVIDIA’s Blackwell, CEO Jensen Huang spoke at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia and Technology Conference a few hours ago, trying to ease the doubts of the market by expressing his optimism on the demand of its products and the company’s future prospects.

“We have a lot of people on our shoulders, and everybody is counting on us,” said Huang, according to a report by Yahoo Finance. He even joked that as the world relies so much on the company, the engineers may have to spend more time on work. “Less sleep is fine. Three solid hours is all we need.”

Huang also elaborated on the demand for the delivery of NVIDIA’s components, technology, infrastructure and software, stating that it is so overwhelming that people may get “emotional,” as it has a direct impact on their revenue and competitiveness.

It is worth noting that Huang also mentioned that NVIDIA heavily relies on TSMC for producing its most important chips, as in many ways, according to a report by Economic Daily News. He said TSMC’s agility and ability to respond to demand are incredible.

Huang stated that most of NVIDIA’s technology is self-developed, and if necessary, orders could be shifted to other suppliers. However, such adjustments could lead to a decline in chip quality, according to the report.

According to a previous report from Commercial Times, NVIDIA has reportedly executed changes to the Blackwell series’ GPU mask. Therefore, the process can now proceed without re-taping out, with NVIDIA’s updated version of B200 expected to be completed by late October, allowing the GB200 to enter mass production in December.

Moreover, in his latest meeting with Goldman Sachs, Huang noted that the first trillion dollars of data centers is going to get accelerated, creating a new type of software, generative AI.

Citing Huang’s remarks, the report by Yahoo Finance stated that it matters a lot because generative AI is not just a tool but a “skill,” so for the first time, the AI chip giant is developing skills that will enhance human capabilities.

According to Yahoo Finance, Huang said that NVIDIA, along with cloud service providers (CSPs), build the infrastructure in the cloud so developers can access these machines to train, fine-tune, and safeguard models.

It is worth noting that Huang tried to materialize the benefit, saying that for every dollar a CSP spends with NVIDIA, it results in USD 5 worth of rentals. He also said while training AI models is resource-intensive, it pays off in the long run.

Citing Huang, the report stated that NVIDIA’s servers may seem expensive at first glance, as it potentially costs a couple of million dollars per rack. However, they replace thousands of nodes. What is remarkable is that the cost of cables for old, general-purpose computing systems is higher than consolidating everything into a single, dense rack, Huang said.

According to Yahoo Finance, Huang also noted that the days of software engineers writing every line of code are completely behind. In his vision, every software engineer will have digital companions working alongside them 24/7.

In addition, NVIDIA, with its 32,000 employees, hopes to be supported by “100 times more digital engineers” in the near future, the report noted.

Notably, there seems to be another piece of good news for the U.S. chip giant. According to a report by Reuters, the U.S. government is said to be mulling, allowing NVIDIA to export advanced chips to Saudi Arabia, which would enable the country to train and operate the most powerful AI models.

According to the report, Saudi Arabia expects to receive shipments of NVIDIA’s most advanced chips, the H200s, which were first used in OpenAI’s GPT-4o.

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• [News] NVIDIA’s Blackwell Overcomes Delays, as GB200 Reportedly Sets for December Mass Production
• [News] Foxconn Remains Unfazed Despite NVIDIA’s GB200 Delay, with Customers Aim to Secure Their Orders

(Photo credit: NVIDIA)

On September 10, two major smartphone manufacturers, Apple and Huawei, held new product launch events simultaneously. Apple’s iPhone 16 is powered by the A18 series Bionic chip, which is said to make it the first truly native AI smartphone.

Meanwhile, Huawei’s Mate XT, the world’s first triple-foldable phone, redefines the future standard for foldable devices.

• iPhone 16 Hit the Market, Backed by a Powerful Chip

On September 9, Apple held its product launch event, introducing the iPhone 16 series, including the iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, and iPhone 16 Pro Max. All models in the new series are equipped with the new 3nm A18 series processor, with the standard iPhone 16 featuring A18 chip, and the flagship iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max powered by A18 Pro chip.

Compared to A16 Bionic chip used in the iPhone 15, iPhone 16’s processor makes a leap forward by two generations, offering a gaming experience on par with console-level performance.

The A18 and A18 Pro chips in the iPhone 16 series use the world’s first second-generation 3nm process and the latest Armv9 instruction set architecture. They have a built-in 16-core neural engine, with smaller transistors that increase speed and efficiency.

The memory subsystem has been uniformly upgraded, increasing total system memory bandwidth by 17%.

The A18 chip in the standard iPhone 16 features a 6-core CPU (2 performance cores + 4 efficiency cores), which is 30% faster than the A16 Bionic in the iPhone 15 and 60% faster than the A14 chip in the iPhone 12.

Its GPU is more efficient, consuming 35% less power for the same performance. A18 chip adopts Apple’s latest desktop-class GPU architecture, with a 5-core GPU that supports key functions like Apple Intelligence, photography, and graphically intensive games. It’s 40% faster than the A16’s GPU and twice as fast as the A14’s GPU.

The A18 Pro chip, debuting in the iPhone 16 Pro series, delivers up to 15% faster performance and 20% less power consumption compared to the A17 Pro when running the same workloads.

Additionally, Apple Intelligence’s running speed improves by 15%. Fitted with brand new 6-core GPU, A18 Pro optimizes graphics performance, features a GPU speed of up to 20% at the fastest and supports hardware ray tracing.

A18 Pro also supports faster USB 3 and ProRes video recording, along with a new video encoder and image signal processor, which double data throughput, boosting encoding speed and video processing efficiency.

Apple emphasized that the iPhone 16 series will introduce new generative AI features centered around Apple Intelligence for the first time. Apple Intelligence is set to launch in beta this fall as part of the iOS 18 update on all iPhone 16 models, as well as the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max, with Siri and the device language initially set to U.S. English. Some functions and additional languages will be rolled out next year.

TrendForce previously noted that Apple Intelligence is a major highlight of the iPhone 16 series this year. While the LLM parameters on Apple’s devices are not as extensive as those on Android phones, Apple is expected to achieve superior system integration thanks to its closed ecosystem, self-developed processors, and strong control over app development.

The company is also focusing on improving Siri’s accuracy and has partnered with ChatGPT to boost AI performance. TrendForce points out that Apple Intelligence will gradually roll out more features and support for additional languages.

However, its functionality in China remains unclear, and the lack of significant AI-centric applications could potentially impact sales of the iPhone 16 series this year. 

From a production perspective, TrendForce’s research on September 6 pointed out that the excitement around Apple Intelligence has been building since WWDC24, and with a relatively low base in 2023, Apple’s four new models are expected to have a combined production volume of 86.7 million units in the second half of 2024, marking an 8% year-on-year increase.

Looking at total production for 2024, Apple is currently close to Samsung, the market leader, and could potentially surpass Samsung by the end of the year to become the top smartphone manufacturer by market share for the first time.

• Huawei’s World-First Triple-Fold Design Sets a New Standard

At the Huawei Extraordinary Brand Event and HarmonyOS Product Launch, Huawei officially unveiled the world’s first mass-produced triple-fold smartphone, the Mate XT. Prior to Huawei, companies like Samsung, TCL, and even Africa’s smartphone leader Transsion had already showcased triple-fold “concept phones.”

According to official reports, Huawei Mate XT measures 156.7mm in length. When unfolded, its width is 73.5mm in single-screen mode, 143mm in dual-screen mode, and 219mm in triple-screen mode.

When folded, the device is just 12.8mm thick and weighs approximately 298g. Mate XT boasts the world’s largest foldable screen at 10.2 inches, with a high resolution of 2200 x 2480. With a thickness of just 3.6mm, the Mate XT offers a user experience rivaling that of a small tablet, while still being compact enough to fit in a pocket when folded.

TrendForce reports that shipments of foldable phones are expected to reach 17.8 million units in 2024, making up only 1.5% of the smartphone market. Despite high repair rates and costs, market penetration is projected to climb to 4.8% by 2028.  

Samsung, which held a dominant 60% market share in foldable phones between 2023 and 2024, is facing more intensive competition from multiple smartphone brands, pushing its market share down to 50%, and Huawei has become its fiercest competitor.

The launch of Huawei’s 4G foldable Pocket S in 2023 performed exceptionally well in the market, driving Huawei to break into double digits for the first time in foldable phone market share, reaching 12%.

In 2023, Huawei also introduced upgraded 5G foldable phones, including the Mate X5 and Pocket 2. With the recent release of the Mate XT, Huawei’s foldable phone market share is expected to approach 30% by the end of this year.

Read more

• [News] Huawei’s Tri-Fold Phone Revealed Hours after Apple, with Pre-Orders Reportedly Exceeding 4 Million
• [News] Fuelled by AI Features, Apple’s iPhone 16 Shipments Reportedly to Increase by 10%

(Photo credit: Apple)

On September 9, Indian tech blog PiunikaWeb cited a report from Tech & Leaks Zone, stating that rumors have hinting at Google’s preparation to exit Samsung Electronics’ wafer foundry business, Samsung Foundry, and switch to TSMC in 2025. The next two generations of Google’s custom Tensor processors are reportedly expected to use TSMC’s 3nm and 2nm processes, respectively.

As per the same report, Google’s Tensor G4 processor is being manufactured by Samsung Foundry using its 4nm process. However, the G4 offers only a slight upgrade compared to the Tensor G3 in the Pixel 8 smartphone, as the G4 continues to use Samsung’s older FO-PLP packaging technology instead of the newer FO-WLP packaging, which is more capable in preventing overheating.

On the other hand, Google’s Tensor G5, which will be used in the Pixel 10, is reportedly set to be manufactured by TSMC using the latest 3nm process and TSMC’s advanced InFO-POP packaging technology. The Tensor G6, which will support the Pixel 11 series, will also be produced by TSMC using 2nm process.

Notably, Apple had introduced an AI technical document in June, disclosed that two AI models supporting “Apple Intelligence” were trained in the cloud using Google’s custom-designed Tensor Processing Unit (TPU).

Per Google’s official website, the cost of using its most advanced TPU can be less than USD 2 per hour if reserved three years in advance. Google first introduced the TPU in 2015 for internal use, and it became available to the public in 2017.

Additionally, per a report from wccftech, Google’s ARM-based TPU v5p “Axion,” designed specifically for data centers, is also rumored to be manufactured using TSMC’s enhanced 3nm process, N3E.

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• [News] Google’s Tensor G5 Reportedly Manufactured with TSMC’s 3nm and InFO-POP Packaging
• [News] Breaking Apple’s Monopoly – TSMC’s InFO Packaging Reportedly Adds Google Chips

(Photo credit: Google)