SK Hynix is preparing to end its business relationship with its design house partner ADTechnology, TheElec has learned.The South Korean memory giant had used the design house to have TSMC make its NAND flash controllers.But as ADTechnology recently ended its value chain aggregator (VCA) contract wit

SK Hynix’s acquisition of Intel’s NAND business unit has received the approval from UK’s antitrust watchdog.The Competition and Markets Authority gave its unconditional approval of the deal on Monday.In October last year, the South Korean memory giant announced that it would be acquiring Intel’s NAN

The semiconductor industry has focused on reducing the size of the chip so far. But microfabrication today is nearing its limits. Technology competition between semiconductor companies are now moving to packaging, which is moving away from traditional wire bonding and soldering to multi-function, ve

SiFive announced two new RISC-V cores called P550 and P270. P550 will be used for the first time in Intel’s 7-nanometer (nm) CPU codenamed Horse Creek, which will launch sometime between 2022 and 2023.In March, Intel had said its 7nm CPU Meteor Lake will enter tape-in stage in the second quarter of

Fabless company Eyenix said on Thursday that it will be supplying its internet protocol (IP) camera SoC EN675 series for CCTVs to Seyeon Tech, Cellinx Systems, and Webgate.EN675 SoC will be used in two IP security cameras that Seyeon Tech will launch at the end of June, a Eyenix spokesperson said.Th

A total of 19 new fabs will start construction by the end of 2021, according to SEMI.An additional 10 more fabs are expected to start construction next year, the organization said.These fabs, when completed, in total will add production capacity equal to 2.6 million 200mm wafers per month, SEMI said

Synopsys said on Monday that it will acquire Bistel’s semiconductor and flat panel display solutions.The acquisition will broaden Synopsys’ process control solutions for chip fabs, the company said.It will be able to offer an integrated and comprehensive yield management and prediction solution to e

Semiconductor design solution firm ADTechnology is planning to form a subsidiary at San Hose, California by July, TheElec has learned.The US arm will be led by Lee Young-bae, who was previously an executive at Samsung Foundry.ADTechnology is also planning to form a regional office at Shanghai, China

3D image and sensing market will begin growing fast again in 2023 after years of slow growth, according to market research firm Yole Development.The 3D sensing market was worth US$6.5 billion in 2020, which was only 80% of the research firm’s earlier forecast.This was due to less use of time of flig

Display driver IC demand will increase 7.4% in 2020 from a year prior, according to market research firm TrendForce.However, supply of the chips will increase only 2.5% over the same time period, which will continue the shortage over them, the firm said.This is because most 8-inch foundry capacities

Chip inspection equipment firm Intekplus said on Friday that it will spend 8 billion won to build a new factory at Daejeon.This will double its production capacity and allow to meet the current high demand from the semiconductor industry, the company said.Once the new factory goes live next year, In

Nexperia said on Thursday that it will spend US$700 million for next 12 to 15 months to expand its chip production capacity.The money will be spent to at its European wafer fabs, assembly factories in Asia, and global research facilities.Research will include those into gallium nitride (GaN) wide ba

AI chip firm Graphcore will start collaborating with South Korean IT service firm NHN in AI cloud service starting this month.Under their partnership, Graphcore will not only be supplying its intelligence processing unit (IPU), but the pair will be co-developing OpenStack technology, Graphcore count

High performance computing (HPC) sector is expected to lead the growth of chip fan-out packaging market this year, according to data from Yole Development.Application processors (AP) for smartphones and smartwatches accounted for the majority of the fan-out packaging market last year.Starting this y

Samsung said on Tuesday that it has begun mass production of its LPDDR5 UFS-based multichip package (uMCP).The package integrates LPDDR5 DRAM with UFS 3.1 NAND flash.The high spec is for flagship 5G smartphones, Samsung said. The LPDDR5 mobile DRAM offers 25GB/s read and write team, which is 1.5 tim

Cryo H&I said on Tuesday that it has secured 2 billion won from its Series A funding round.The company is the only one in South Korea that offers ultra low-temperature high vacuum cryopump technology used in semiconductor and display panel production.Industrial Bank of Korea and Quantum Ventures Kor

Sung Chung, the CTO of chip reliability testing firm QRT, told TheElec that semiconductors used in automobiles must have equal reliability levels to their counterparts used in satellites and in space.Automobile chips require high levels of soft error evaluation as automobile reliability is directly

Magnachip has received a takeover bid from Cornucopia Investment Partners worth US$1.66 billion, according to a report by Reuters.In March, the South Korean chip firm entered into a deal with Chinese private equity firm Wise Road Capital to sell its shares for US$1.4 billion.The South Korean governm

Chip testing firm APACT said on Monday that it plans to start a new system semiconductor backend business for new growth.The company will open a new sales office in Pangyo to start the business in full-scale, it said.APACT will place sales personnel and engineers at the new office to aggressively wi

SK Hynix’s plan to buy Intel’s NAND business unit was approved by antitrust authorities in Taiwan on Thursday.The approval follows those made in the US, Europe and South Korea.Last year in October, SK Hynix had announced that it plans to buy Intel’s NAND and solid-state drive business units for US$9