Two major IC packaging/testing providers based in Taiwan, Advanced Semiconductor Engineering (ASE) and Siliconware Precision Industries (SPIL), signed a joint share-exchange memorandum of understanding on May 26 to establish a new holding company. According to the memorandum, each common ASE share will be swapped for a 0.5 share of the holding company, while each common SPIL share will be sold to the holding company at a price of NT$55.
In the mainstream PC-Client OEM SSD market for the second quarter, the average contract prices of TLC- and MLC-based products respectively fell 4~11% and 6~10% compared with the prior quarter, according to DRAMeXchange, a division of TrendForce. Looking ahead to the third quarter, the overall supply-demand situation in the NAND Flash market may become more balanced.
China will continue to bolster the development of a domestic robotics industry, according to a new robotics technology roadmap that was recently released by the Chinese government for the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016~2020). China aims to have three to five internationally competitive domestic robotics companies by 2020.
According to the latest large-size panel report by WitsView, a division of TrendForce, TV panel shipments arrived at 20.82 million units in April, translating to a 7.2% drop from March and 5% drop from a year ago. Branded TV set vendors began to replenish their inventories for the Chinese Labor Day sales earlier in March. This resulted in weaker panel shipments for April, when vendors had just about completed this phase of inventory activities.
In the first quarter of this year, the average contract price of NAND Flash chip fell by about 10% compared with the previous quarter due to persistant market oversupply. During the same period, the prices of eMMCs and Client-SSDs also dropped 13~18% quarterly as a result of steep decline in shipments of smartphones, tablets and notebooks.