Recently, the Future Chip Innovation Research Institute of Xiong’an New Area was officially established in Hebei, China.

According to the official Wechat account of “Xiong’an New Area,” the Future Chip Innovation Research Institute of Xiong’an New Area was jointly founded by the RISC-V Working Committee of the China Electronics Standardization Association, Chipup, ESWIN, and Stream Computing as the initial sponsors.

The research institute will engage in technical research and development, product testing, standard formulation, evaluation, application demonstration, and collaboration based on the RISC-V open instruction set, promoting the high-quality development of the RISC-V industry in Xiong’an New Area.

RISC-V is an open instruction set architecture (ISA) based on the principles of Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC). Currently, open source has become a new model for global collaborative innovation. As an advanced and easily-customizable architecture, the open-source RISC-V is still in the early stage of development in terms of ecosystem.

At present, RISC-V has not only become the preferred CPU architecture in many fields in China, including IoT, industrial, medical, intelligent connected vehicles, general computing, and communication computing, but also injecting strong momentum into technological innovation and industrial transformation in the global chip industry. It is expected to gain a foothold in the CPU field and compete with x86 and ARM.

Data shows that in 2022, 10 billion processors based on the RISC-V architecture were shipped, a scale that took x86 and ARM 30 years to achieve. The industry expects that by 2025, the number of RISC-V cores will increase to 80 billion. With the advent of the artificial intelligence (AI) era, RISC-V is also expected to embrace new development opportunities.

Currently, the overall AI chip market is still dominated by GPU (Like NVIDIA, AMD), followed by Arm. TrendForce pointed out that, RISC-V has made some investment in data center in recent years, and with efforts from NVIDIA and CSPs, RISC-V is expected to become another niche market, possibly targeting the open-source AI market (Like Meta) or other niche applications.

(Photo credit: RISC-V Working Committee)

China’s debut AAA game, Black Myth: Wukong, has achieved remarkable success just four days post-launch. The game has sold over 10 million copies on Steam alone, with peak simultaneous online players reaching 3 million. Priced around NT$1,280 per copy, its total sales revenue has hit NT$12.8 billion (approximately USD$400 million).

According to the Commercial Times, the game’s detailed graphics and cinema-quality 3D scenes have driven gamers to upgrade their memory and graphics cards, boosting related hardware sales.

Industry sources cited by the Commercial Times predict that this surge in China’s self-developed gaming trend will enhance demand for memory and graphics card upgrades. Companies such as ADATA, Kingston, and Teamgroup, as well as Gigabyte, ASUS, and MSI, are expected to see a corresponding increase in sales performance.

Black Myth: Wukong, based on the famous “Journey to the West” IP, has topped Steam’s charts with over 1.75 million simultaneous online players since its August 20 release. Developed by GameScience, a company that had faced near-bankruptcy twice in its six years of operation, the game gained prominence after Tencent’s investment.

Players cited by Commercial Times have noted that the game’s high-resolution graphics require at least 32GB of RAM to run smoothly, with many standard laptops and PCs, typically equipped with 16GB, being unable to support it. Graphics card upgrades are crucial, with minimum specifications costing over NT$10,000 (approximately USD$314). The high price of NVIDIA’s RTX 4090 card raises questions about whether players will invest heavily in upgrades.

The Black Myth: Wukong phenomenon has sparked extensive discussion. Amid a mobile game-dominated market, the resurgence of interest in standalone games signifies that China’s game production standards are now rivaling those of Japan and Korea, with international gamers and bloggers actively engaging in conversations about the title.

(Photo credit: Stram)

TSMC is accelerating its global expansion, receiving robust support from governments in Japan and China. In the first half of this year alone, TSMC secured nearly NT$8 billion in subsidies from the two countries, bringing its total government aid from Japan and China to NT$62.5 billion(approximately USD $1.96 billion).

According to the Central News Agency, TSMC’s financial reports show that its subsidiaries—JASM in Japan and Nanjing in China—received these subsidies to support their plans to establish and operate manufacturing facilities in Kumamoto and Nanjing. The funds are primarily earmarked for real estate, plant, and equipment purchases, as well as to offset construction and operational costs.

TSMC reported that it received NT$7.051 billion in subsidies from Japan and China in 2022, followed by NT$47.545 billion in 2023, and an additional NT$7.956 billion in the first half of this year, totaling NT$62.5 billion.

Governments worldwide have increasingly recognized semiconductors as vital strategic assets, spurring a race to subsidize the industry’s growth. With TSMC’s cutting-edge technology leading the global market, it has become a key target for investment incentives from various governments. TSMC has already established a presence in Kumamoto, Japan, and Arizona, U.S., and is expanding its 28nm capacity in China.

On August 20, TSMC broke ground on its European Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (ESMC) in Dresden, Germany, marking the start of its initial land preparation phase for a new wafer fab. This expansion extends TSMC’s global footprint from the U.S., China, and Japan to Europe.

The groundbreaking ceremony, hosted by TSMC Chairman C.C. Wei, was attended by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. The European Commission also announced its approval of a €5 billion German subsidy package under EU state aid rules, demonstrating its support for the ESMC project.

TSMC’s Kumamoto plant is progressing rapidly, with its first wafer fab set to begin mass production of 12nm, 16nm, 22nm, and 28nm process technologies in the fourth quarter of this year. A second fab is scheduled to start production in 2027, utilizing 6nm, 7nm, 12nm, 16nm, and 40nm process technologies.

In Arizona, TSMC’s first wafer fab is on track to begin 4nm process production in the first half of 2025, with a second fab expected to commence 2nm production in 2028. The company also plans to construct a third fab that will deploy 2nm or more advanced technologies.

In April, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced a USD $6.6 billion subsidy for TSMC’s advanced fab in Arizona. However, TSMC has yet to receive these funds and does not speculate on future government subsidies.

(Photo credit: TSMC)

According to a report by the Nikkei, Japanese chip manufacturer Kioxia has submitted its initial public offering (IPO) application to the Tokyo Stock Exchange, triggering a long-awaited move as the development of artificial intelligence (AI) drives a surge in semiconductor demand. The company aims to go public in October, the report notes.

According to a report by Nikkei, citing sources, Kioxia’s valuation is expected to exceed JPY 1.5 trillion (roughly USD 10.3 billion). The deal is anticipated to surpass the JPY 420 billion raised by chip equipment maker Kokusai Electric during its 2023 IPO, which was the largest of that year. It is also expected to exceed the projected listing of Tokyo Metro in October, estimated at JPY 640 billion to 700 billion.

This move comes at a time when the Japanese government is increasing its support for investment in the chip industry, aiming to secure the supply of critical components amid rising geopolitical tensions.

As per another report from Anue, Kioxia had once planned to conduct its IPO in 2020.

However, the plan was postponed due to the uncertainty in the global chip market caused by U.S.-China trade tensions and the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. At that time, Kioxia’s target valuation exceeded 2 trillion yen, which was later reduced to 1.7 trillion yen.

Last year, Kioxia engaged in merger talks with Western Digital’s flash memory business, but the negotiations stalled due to opposition from Kioxia’s shareholder, SK hynix.

Read more

• [News] Kioxia Ends Production Cuts, Signaling Potential Downturn in NAND Flash Market?
• [News] Kioxia and Western Digital Restart Merger Plan, SK Hynix Reportedly Remains Opposition

(Photo credit: Kioxia)

China has turned itself into “the world’s market” for semiconductor, while it eyes to play a crucial role in chip manufacturing by procuring more equipment. The latest reports by Bloomberg and Technews, citing data from China’s General Administration of Customs, indicates that Chinese imports of chip equipment in the first seven months of 2024 hit a new high, totaling USD 26 billion.

It is worth noting that in July 2024, the Netherlands’ total exports to China exceeded USD 2 billion, reporting the second-highest single-month record ever, the reports say, which can be largely contributed to China’s stockpiling of ASML’s systems and other machinery.

Tightening U.S. Export Restrictions May Lead to China’s Import Surge with Mature Nodes Its Major Focus  

The primary reason behind this surge, according to Bloomberg, may likely be that Chinese tech companies are preparing for further export restrictions on advanced chip manufacturing tools launched by the U.S. and its allies.

The report states that Chinese tech companies are particularly focused on purchasing semiconductor equipment for mature process, from companies like ASML, Applied Materials, and Tokyo Electron. The move allows fabs in China to produce chips needed for local industries, primarily the automotive sector.

Most of the equipment was said to be lithography systems used for mature nodes, which are crucial for Chinese foundries like SMIC. The company is rumored to produce 5nm chips for Huawei this year, by using old deep ultraviolet (DUV) lithography machines purchased from ASML.

New Local Fabs Opening up, Driving China’s Chip Making Equipment Procurement

In addition to counter the possible export restrictions from the U.S., the reports state that China’s aggressive procurement may also be due to the expansion wave of fabs this year. According to SEMI’s projection, among the 42 new fabs expected to go online in 2024, China leads by 18, which further boosts the country’s purchase of semiconductor production equipment.

The momentum also drives demand for local semiconductor equipment manufacturers in China. Chinese semiconductor company Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment Inc. (AMEC) reported a strong second quarter, with its revenue up 36.46% year-on-year to RMB 3.448 billion. Its etching equipment revenue reached RMB 2.698 billion, a year-on-year increase of 56.68%.

Read more

• [News] ASML Claims the World Counts on China for Legacy Chips; So Do Chip Equipment Giants
• [News] Samsung and SK hynix’s China Revenue Doubled in 1H24, Reportedly Driven by Semiconductor and HBM Demand

(Photo credit: SMIC)