South Korean outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) companies are seeing the operation rate in their factories drop steeply from the recent downturn of the global chip market.The downturn has caused customer orders to plummet and these companies have operation rates below 50%, sources sai

Registering clock driver chip developer One Semiconductor will begin production of RCD for server DDR5 DRAM during the second half of the year.Company CEO Kim Chang-hyun told TheElec that One Semiconductor was already manufacturing DDR4 RCD as of last year after passing all required quality tests.It

BOE was facing problems in developing OLED panels aimed at Apple’s iPhone 15, TheElec has learned.The hole display was facing a light leakage problem __ where the light that isn’t properly covered by the screen comes from the corners or edges. And in this case, the light was leaking out of the hole

Samsung Display will be using Chemtronics as its vendor to handle the back-end etching of OLED panels it plans to supply to Apple for iPads, TheElec has learned.Chemtronics will be the sole vendor for the process, sources said.Samsung Display and LG Display are gearing up to start production of OLED

South Korea is the largest producer of memory chips. Samsung and SK Hynix combined has a 70% market share in the DRAM market and around 50% in NAND flash.However, they don’t dominate all technologies related to memory chips. For instance, for controllers used in NAND, the pair rely heavily on compan

Chipmaker Magnachip is planning to suspend production at its factory in Gumi, South Korea for a week starting on Saturday.This is unprecedented for a chipmaker as fabs are usually run 24/7 for the full year.Sources said Magnachip was doing so from its high inventory and low demand.Power will still b

Chip component maker KNJ has become a director vendor of silicon carbide (SiC) focus ring to chipmaker SK Hynix, TheElec has learned.Prior to being selected as a direct vendor, KNJ was below in the value chain and supplied unfinished SiC rings to SiC ring suppliers of the chipmaker.SiC rings are use

South Korean blank mask maker S&S Tech is seeing high demand for its blank mask thanks to the high interest and development of AI chips spurred by ChatGPT.Blank masks are used to make photo masks, which are used during the lithography process in chip production where the pattern of the chips is prin

LG Energy Solution said on Thursday that it will be forming a joint venture with Ford and Turkey’s Koc Group that will build a battery factory in Turkey.The three will aim to secure 25GWh in annual production capacity and start production in 2026.Ford and Koc had such an agreement originally with SK

Samsung’s design partners for its chip foundry business saw their operating profits halved in 2022.Samsung Foundry’s Design Solution Partners ADTechnology, Gaonchips, and Coasia saw their revenue and operating margin rate impacted heavily by the global economic downturn.ADTechnology, Samsung’s large

US car giant Ford and South Korean battery maker SK On were in a dispute over the halting of the production F150 Lightning electric truck, TheElec has learned.Ford is claiming SK On’s faulty batteries were the cause. The South Korean company had countered that it was a one-time issue and that there

LG Energy Solution was currently developing lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries for electric vehicles.The aim is to have the LFP batteries have higher performance than those made by rival CATL, sources said.LG Energy Solution’s version uses a cobalt-free cathode and is a pouch type.In its researc

SK Hynix faced problems this month during DRAM production due to the high-k material having a quality issue, TheElec has learned.The zirconium (Zr) high-k material that was supplied by SK Trichem had impurities in them, sources said.This caused some of SK Hynix’s production equipment at its DRAM fab

Fab equipment maker Semes said on Thursday that it recorded 2.88 trillion won in revenue and a net income of 185.7 billion won for the entire year of 2022.Revenue and net income dropped 7.6% and 29.7%, respectively, from 2021.The decline is significant as Semes, a subsidiary of Samsung which owns 91

DB Hitek said on Wednesday that it recorded 1.67 trillion won in revenue and 768.7 billion won in operating profit for the entire year of 2022.Revenue and operating profit jumped 38% and 93%, respectively, from the previous year.Operating margin rate stood at an impressive 46% __ close to foundry ma

Global unit sales of electric vehicles reached 10.54 million units in 2022, an increase of 55% from 2021, according to analyst firm EV Volumes.And these EVs used 505GWh of batteries, the firm said, with the top five companies supplying 76% of the batteries used.The top five EV battery suppliers were

South Korean AI startup FuriosaAI is planning to launch an AI chip that will support ChatGPT next year, its CEO told TheElecFuriosaAI CEO June Paik claimed that this second-generation AI chip of the company will be the most powerful chip available for the operation of ChatGPT.The particular chip boa

The CEO of production equipment maker SFA said on Tuesday that the acquisition of CMOS image sensor maker CIS will allow it to offer turn-key deals in the battery sector.SFA CEO Kim Young-min said during its earnings call for 2022 that the company is planning to maximize its synergy with CIS going f

LG Innotek is planning to start production of flip chip ball grid array (FC-BGA) in October this year.This will be its first phase; the second phase will start in 2026, the company said in a video posted on YouTube earlier this month that now has been pulled.The first phase of production will begin

Meta will be collaborating with South Korean component makers SK Hynix and LG Display to develop MicroOLED, TheElec has learned.LG Display, along with Samsung Display, is a leading OLED display panel maker.It has recently signed a collaboration agreement with South Korean memory chipmaker SK Hynix f