Japanese electronic parts manufacturer Rohm Semiconductor is planning to expand its silicon carbide (SiC) power device production.The company has finished construction its new production building for SiC power device at its Apollo Plant in Chikugo, Japan in December of last year, Rohm said on Thursd

Abov Semiconductor will supply specific absorption rate (SAR) sensors to Samsung Electronics for the Galaxy S21 smartphone series and Galaxy Buds Pro earphones, TheElec confirmed.SAR sensor, or proximity sensor, is used to reduce electromagnetic waves of electronic devices when the human bodies are

China’s locally produced integrated circuits (IC) will represent only 19.4% of its IC market in 2025, according to market research firm IC Insights.This falls short of the country’s Made in China 2025 goal of 70%, the firm said.Last year, China-produced ICs accounted for 15.9% of the country’s IC ma

Qualcomm on Tuesday said Cristiano Amon will succeed Steve Mollenkopf as CEO, effective from June 30.Mollenkopf had been the CEO since 2014 and faced patent dispute with Apple, anti-trust investigation from the Fair Trade Commission.He also led Qualcomm in the years of its rapid growth and high prof

Shortage in large-sized display driver IC (LDDI) is expected to continue to the third quarter of 2021, according to TrendForce.In the upstream semiconductor supply chain, various foundries’ 8-inch wafer capacities have mostly been allocated to other chips with higher profit margins, in turn lowering

The South Korea government is expecting semiconductor export to surpass US$100 billion in 2021.The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said on Tuesday that export is estimated to increase 10.2% this year to US$109.3 billion from last year’s US$99.2 billion.This will be the second highest ever fig

Qualcomm on Sunday unveiled its new application processor aimed at budget 5G smartphones.The Snapdragon 480 is its first AP to have a 5G modem. It comes with Snapdragon X51 5G modem that supports both mmWave and sub-6GHz spectrum. It also supports both TDD and FDD connectivity.The CPU has eight core

Samsung Electronics said on Monday that vice chairman Lee Jae-yong visited the company’s Pyeongtaek semiconductor plant.According to Samsung, Lee told executives and employees that they must collaborate with partners, academia and research institutes to build a healthy ecosystem to make history in s

The South Korean government is planning to increase funding in research and development of materials, components and equipment in 2021.The Ministry of Science and ICT and the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said they plan to increase funding for related projects by over 20%.The South Korean g

A shortage in production capacity compared to demand in semiconductors is expected to increase their prices in 2021. Some companies have already notified their customers of the price hike.TSMC, the world’s largest contract chip maker, recently scrapped its price cut policy (up to 3%) for major custo

Global foundry sales in 2021 will grow 6% from 2020 to US$89.6 billion, market research firm TrendForce said.Notebook, TV and other electronics devices and 5G will lead this growth it said.The foundry market is 2020 is expected to grow 23.7% from a year ago to be worth US$84.6 billion. This is thank

South Korean company KEC has developed a low voltage MOSFET (LV MOSET) semiconductor for vehicle heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC).The company will supply the chips, called KFS70N06K, to Hanon Systems and Doowon Climate Control, it said on Wednesday.The chip will be applied to blow m

Semiconductor inspection equipment maker Nextin has supplied its new kit to SK Hynix, TheElec has learned.SK Hynix was testing the demo version. If it scores highly in the evaluation, Nextin may supply more of them next year for a boost in sales.The demo version of inspection equipment Aegis 2 was a

Taiwan’s MediaTek shipped the most number of smartphone application processors in the third quarter of 2020, according to market research firm CounterPoint.MediaTek controlled 31% market share in terms of shipment, an increase of 5% from the same time period a year ago.CounterPoint said sales of low

Soft Motions & Robotics, a software-based equipment motion control company, is expected to double its sales in 2020 from 2019.A large South Korean semiconductor equipment has expanded the use of the company’s software, which is quickly replacing programmable logic controller (PLC) hardware as Soft M

South Korean semiconductor equipment maker APTC has successfully commercialized a new polysilicon etching kit called LEO WH, the company said on Wednesday.A new etching kit called NARDO M can be used to not only etch polysilicon but metal layers has also been commercialized, the company said.Both eq

Semiconductor IP company CEVA will focus on offering automotive digital signal processor (DSP) IP to South Korea next year, the company said.CEVA was founded in 2002 and offers DSP IP and related software for companies. In 2014 it acquired RivieraWaves and in 2019 it bought Hillcrest Labs to expand

South Korean chip maker DB HiTek has decided to increase the price of semiconductor contract production, or foundry, by up to 20%, TheElec has learned.The company decided to increase the price due to high demand for foundry services globally, people familiar with the matter said. DB HiTek has also s

Samsung Electronics on Saturday posted a teaser video for its new Exynos chip launching next month.The Korean tech giant said on in the clip that the new chip will be unveiled on January 12.The chip is likely the rumored Exynos 2100. It will likely have beefed up neural processing unit for artificia

US Department of Commerce has added Chinese foundry SMIC in its list of sanctioned companies that will have their access to US technology blocked.SMIC was among 77 companies, 60 of them Chinese, added to Entity List. The addition was due to China’s military-civil fusion (MCF) doctrine and evidence o