The Chinese government officially released the 13th Five-Year Plan this March. In this broad national economic roadmap, two initiatives – the upgrading of modern industries and the expansion of the country’s Internet economy – will have significant influence over the development of the Chinese fabless IC design industry.
Virtual reality (VR) has made significant progress in the consumer market as major technology companies roll out competing products. According to the global market research firm TrendForce, the 9 million out of the estimated 105 million units wearable devices shipped this year will be VR-based products. Gaming has emerged as the first major consumer application for the VR technology, said TrendForce analyst Ariel Chen.
According to TrendForce’s analysis, the global NAND Flash bit supply is expected to grow by at least 47% annually on average from 2012 to 2016. During the same period, bit demand in the worldwide NAND Flash consumer market will also increase by an average rate of 46% every year. These projections indicate that the NAND Flash industry will continue to grow rapidly.
The global smartphone demand has been stagnant since the fourth quarter of 2015. All branded vendors therefore have lowered their shipment targets, and the entire market spent about three months on channel inventory digest. Avril Wu, smartphone analyst for the global market research firm TrendForce, said the stock up of Chinese branded smartphones started to pick up in the middle of February, as the inventory adjustment period came to an end.
Major Chinese memory manufacturer XMC will begin the construction of a new wafer fab at the end of March. This fab is expected to enter production by the start of 2018 and its main strategic product at the outset will be 3D-NAND Flash, the most advanced Flash memory product available on the market.
