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The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated paradigm shifts in work, education, and living for people around the world since the early part of 2020, according to TrendForce’s latest investigations. The proliferation of smart handheld devices has led to strong and consistent growth in the demand for cloud storage and computing. Furthermore, the market penetration of cloud services has risen sharply as enterprises undertake digital transformation projects. On the side of general consumers, there have been changes in online spending habits and advances in business models for e-commerce. At the same time, a new generation of social media platforms has risen. Thanks to these developments, cloud service providers (CSPs) are able to collect huge amounts of consumer data for developing a more diverse range of businesses. As such, TrendForce’s latest survey of the global server market indicates that hyperscale servers already account for almost 40% of the total demand in 4Q20, and the number of hyperscale data centers is now three times of that in the 2012-2014 period.
As the current mainstream solution for PC DRAM and server DRAM, both of which share the same roots in IC design, DDR4 reached a penetration rate of more than 90% in each of the above two categories in 3Q20, according to TrendForce’s latest investigations. As well, JEDEC finalized the definition of next-generation DDR5 memory in September 2019. Significant increases in the penetration rate of DDR5 PC DRAM is not expected to take place until 2022 at the earliest.
On October 27, AMD announced that it had reached an agreement with leading FPGA manufacturer Xilinx to acquire the latter for US$35 billion. Should the acquisition proceed as planned, AMD will greatly increase its influence across industries such as 5G, data center, ADAS (advanced driver-assistance systems), and industrial automation, in turn overtaking MediaTek in revenue and becoming the fourth largest IC design company behind third-place Nvidia, according to TrendForce’s latest investigations. Furthermore, as AMD and Xilinx are both major clients of TSMC, AMD will command increased leverage when negotiating for TSMC’s foundry services following the Xilinx acquisition.
The total worldwide shipments of branded SSDs bound for the channel (retail) market in 2019 reached 131 million units, showing an increase of almost 60% from 2018, according to TrendForce's latest investigations. This result also indicated a further and substantial growth in SSD adoption. Kingston, ADATA, and Tigo remained first, second, and third place respectively in the global ranking of branded SSD module makers (excluding NAND Flash suppliers) by shipment market share for retail SSDs.
UMC has announced today (Oct. 22) that the legal case against the company filed by the U.S. Justice Department for stealing trade secrets could now be resolved as soon as possible, according to TrendForce’s latest investigations. Following close negotiation, both sides appear to have agreed on a reasonable settlement of US$60 million, meaning the case is likely closing in on a quick resolution, and UMC will be focusing more on its foundry business in the future. At the moment, this resolution is pending on an approval by the court.
