The new chip plant in Kumamoto, Japan, operated by Japan Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing (JASM), a joint venture between Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), Sony, and Denso, is poised for substantial capacity growth.

JASM President Yuichi Horita revealed that after commencing production in the fourth quarter of 2024, the plant’s production capacity will gradually ramp up, targeting a full capacity of 55,000 12-inch wafers per month.

Simultaneously, TSMC aims to enhance Japan’s semiconductor supply chain and ecosystem, looking to a 60% local contribution by 2030, a significant increase from the current 25%.

Yuichi Horita unveiled the latest plan for TSMC’s Kumamoto plant during his speech at the SEMICON Japan. He emphasized that TSMC’s Kumamoto plant is actively working to establish a local supply chain and ecosystem in Japan.

The current proportion of equipment and materials sourced from Japan for the Kumamoto plant is approximately 25%. The goal is to increase this to 50% by 2026 and achieve 60% by 2030. The progress in constructing production capacity, trial production, and mass production is in line with the original plan.

Yuichi Horita stated that the current workforce at the Kumamoto facility stands at 1,700 employees. Among them, around 600 are dispatched by TSMC and Sony, with the remaining being newly recruited staff.

The production capacity of the new Kumamoto plant primarily focuses on 28/22 nanometers and 16/12 nanometers. In the initial phase, the majority of the capacity is allocated to the manufacturing of Image Signal Processor (ISP) used in CMOS image sensors, as part of Sony’s outsourcing.

The remaining capacity is dedicated to automotive parts supplier Denso, where they outsource the production of automotive microcontroller unit (MCU), with Denso reportedly able to obtain approximately 10,000 wafers per month.

Reportedly, in industry analysis, although Japan’s recent performance in foundry has not matched that of Taiwan, South Korea, and China, Japan’s semiconductor equipment supply chain is already quite mature and comprehensive.

Major players in the field, such as Nikon in lithography equipment, and Hitachi High-Tech, renowned for etching equipment and critical dimension scanning electron microscopy (CD-SEM), have established dominance.

Additionally, Japanese companies specializing in chemical solutions, gases, and materials have also secured significant positions. All of these factors make them crucial partners for supporting the development of TSMC’s Kumamoto plant in the future.

Industry source suggests that in the future, the Japanese government will not only continue to subsidize semiconductor manufacturing but also strengthen collaboration between the semiconductor industry and academia to attract more talent into the semiconductor industry.

Read more

• [News] TSMC’s Kumamoto Plant Prepares for 2024 Mass Production with 1000+ Employees, Followed by Taiwanese Material Suppliers’ Collaboration
• [News] Rumored to Build Third Plant in Kumamoto, TSMC: Currently Focusing on Assessing the Construction of a Second Plant

(Photo credit: TSMC)

AMD has long aspired to gain more favor for its AI chips, aiming to break into Nvidia’s stronghold in the AI chip market. Key players like Meta, OpenAI, and Microsoft, who are major buyers of AI chips, also desire a diversified market with multiple AI chip suppliers to avoid vendor lock-in issues and reduce costs.

With AMD’s latest AI chip, Instinct MI300X slated for significant shipments in early 2024, these three major AI chip buyers have publicly announced their plans to place orders as they consider AMD’s solution a more cost-effective alternative.

At the AMD “Advancing AI” event on December 6th, Meta, OpenAI, Microsoft, and Oracle declared their preference for AMD’s latest AI chip, Instinct MI300X. This marks a groundbreaking move by AI tech giants actively seeking alternatives to Nvidia’s expensive GPUs.

For applications like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Nvidia GPUs have played a crucial role. However, if the AMD MI300X can provide a significant cost advantage, it has the potential to impact Nvidia’s sales performance and challenge its market dominance in AI chips.

AMD’s Three Major Challenges

AMD grapples with three major challenges: convincing enterprises to consider substitutions, addressing industry standards compared to Nvidia’s CUDA software, and determining competitive GPU pricing. Lisa Su, AMD’s CEO, highlighted at the event that the new MI300X architecture features 192GB of high-performance HBM3, delivering not only faster data transfer but also meeting the demands of larger AI models. Su emphasized that such a notable performance boost translates directly into an enhanced user experience, enabling quicker responses to complex user queries.

However, AMD is currently facing critical challenges. Companies that heavily rely on Nvidia may hesitate to invest their time and resources in an alternative GPU supplier like AMD. Su believes that there is an opportunity to make efforts in persuading these AI tech giants to adopt AMD GPUs.

Another pivotal concern is that Nvidia has established its CUDA software as the industry standard, resulting in a highly loyal customer base. In response, AMD has made improvements to its ROCm software suite to effectively compete in this space. Lastly, pricing is a crucial issue, as AMD did not disclose the price of the MI300X during the event. Convincing customers to choose AMD over Nvidia, whose chips are priced around USD 40,000 each, will require substantial cost advantages in both the purchase and operation of AMD’s offerings.

The Overall Size of the AI GPU Market is Expected to Reach USD 400 Billion by 2027

AMD has already secured agreements with companies eager for high-performance GPUs to use MI300X. Meta plans to leverage MI300X GPUs for AI inference tasks like AI graphics, image editing, and AI assistants. On the other hands, Microsoft’s CTO, Kevin Scott, announced that the company will provide access to MI300X through Azure web service.

Additionally, OpenAI has decided to have its GPU programming language Triton, a dedication to machine learning algorithm development, support AMD MI300X. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) intends to introduce bare-metal instances based on AMD MI300X GPUs in its high-performance accelerated computing instances for AI.

AMD anticipates that the annual revenue from its GPUs for data centers will reach USD 2 billion by 2024. This projected figure is substantially lower than Nvidia’s most recent quarterly sales related to the data center business (i.e., over USD 14 billion, including sales unrelated to GPUs). AMD emphasizes that with the rising demand for high-end AI chips, the AI GPU market’s overall size is expected to reach USD 400 billion by 2027. This strategic focus on AI GPU products underscores AMD’s optimism about capturing a significant market share. Lisa Su is confident that AMD is poised for success in this endeavor.

(Image: AMD)

With Apple’s Extended Reality (XR) headgear, Vision Pro, set to hit the market early next year, Samsung is reportedly making diligent preparations to unveil its own XR product.

According to a report from Pulse News, the English version of the Korean Daily Economic News website, data released by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) on the 14th indicates that Samsung Display has recently filed for a new trademark, “Flex Magic,” sparking rumors that it is intended for Samsung’s next-generation XR headset.

Samsung Display mentioned in its application documents that the universal applications of its display panel include 3D Spectacles, Virtual Reality Headsets, Virtual Reality Goggles, and smart glasses. The company had also applied for the same trademark with the European Union Patent Office in November.

While filing a patent does not guarantee the release of a product, the South Korean industry believes that Samsung Electronics has made significant progress towards unveiling a new product.

Reportedly, industry insiders in South Korea reveal that Samsung has set a goal to launch an XR device early next year, potentially entering a new frontier in competition with Apple. Initially named “Galaxy Glass,” this device was originally scheduled for a later release next year.

In February of this year, Samsung Electronics officially announced its entry into the XR market in collaboration with Google and Qualcomm. It is expected that Samsung Electronics will handle hardware development, Google will manage software, and Qualcomm will provide chipsets specifically for the XR platform.

Reportedly, industry insiders in South Korea anticipate that its primary competitor, Apple’s Vision Pro, is expected to launch in the United States in March of next year, followed by expansion into other countries, with a starting price of USD 3,499.

Read more

• [News] TSMC’s CoWoS Demand Surges from NVIDIA, Apple, AMD, Broadcom, Marvell, Monthly Capacity Up 120% in 2024

Despite the uncertainties in the semiconductor market, there is still an intense global competition in the development of advanced semiconductor manufacturing processes. TSMC as one of the key players in the foundry industry is actively advancing its next-generation 2nm process. According to market rumors, the schedule for the first tool-in at Hsinchu Baoshan Fab and Kaohsiung Fab has been established, along with a finalized production capacity plan.

CNA has reported that TSMC’s 2nm process will be deployed in the Phase 2 Expansion Area of the Baoshan Site at the Hsinchu Science Park. The first tool-in is scheduled for April 2024. Industry sources have revealed that the initial production capacity for this process will be around 30,000 wafers per month, with mass production planned for the following year.

In addition, TSMC’s fab in Kaohsiung has notified equipment suppliers that this facility is set to begin in the third quarter of 2025. According to MoneyDJ, the pilot run is planned for the end of the same year, with the aim of achieving mass production in 2026. The Kaohsiung fab will adopt the N2P process, which is an enhanced version of the 2nm process with the backside power rail technology. The initial monthly production capacity is also expected to be around 30,000 wafers.

According to previous disclosures made by TSMC during financial calls, the company has developed a backside power rail solution for the N2 process, which is particularly suitable for high-performance computing (HPC) applications. This innovative technology is expected to boost speed by 10% to 12% and increase logic density by 10% to 15%. TSMC plans to introduce the backside power rail solution to customers in the latter half of 2025, with mass production scheduled for 2026. This timetable aligns with recent rumor circulating in the supply chain.

In addition to the latest progress on the N2P process, TSMC made an official announcement at the IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) on December 12th. Specifically, the company revealed its plans to introduce a 1.4nm process as the successor to the 2nm process. As reported by Tom’s Hardware, this new process, named A14, continues the naming convention from the 2nm process (A20). Production using the A14 process is anticipated to take place between 2027 and 2028.

(Image: TSMC)

Explore more

• [News] TSMC Responds to Rumors of New 1.4nm Fab
• [News] TSMC President Highlights 2024 Semiconductor Challenges While Envisioning Abundant AI Opportunities
• [News] TSMC May Reduce Next Year’s Capital Expenditure, Affecting Orders for Equipment & Testing-Related Companies

On December 13th, the Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy (MOTIE) of South Korea held a ceremony to celebrate the establishment of the public-private Mobility Charging Industry Convergence Alliance. During the ceremony, the South Korean government announced measures aimed at promoting the electric vehicle (EV) charging industry and providing support to charging station operators.

According to a news report from Businesskorea, the South Korean government revealed a target of capturing a 10% global market share for chargers made by Korean companies by 2030, a significant leap from the current 1%.

The South Korean government aims to acquire five key technologies by 2030 in the field of EV charging market. These include ultra-fast charging, wireless charging, charging robots, intelligent charging, and cybersecurity software for charging stations.

The ultimate objective is to foster the growth of at least five domestic charging pile manufacturers with a combined annual revenue exceeding KRW 50 billion (approximately USD 38.66 million). Additionally, the government wants to significantly increase South Korea’s global market share in the EV charging market from 1.2% last year to 10% by 2030.

To achieve this policy objective, MOTIE has established the public-private Mobility Charging Industry Convergence Alliance. This alliance consists of more than 40 companies and 20 organizations, encompassing charging pile manufacturers, component suppliers, charging service operators, as well as testing and certification organizations.

TrendForce anticipates that by 2026, the global tally of public charging stations will soar to 16 million, marking an impressive threefold increase from 2023 figure. Alongside this growth, the global ownership of new energy vehicles (NEVs), which include plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs) and battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), is projected to surge to 96 million. This will result in a vehicle-to-charger ratio of 6:1, a significant decrease from the 10:1 ratio observed in 2021.

(Photo credit: Pixabay)

Read more

• Driven by Global Government Initiatives: A Surge in Public Charging Piles Expected—16 Million by 2026, Tripling 2023 Figures, Says TrendForce