South Korean 8-inch chip foundries, just like their Taiwanese counterparts TSMC and Vanguard International Semiconductor, have lowered their service prices this year from low demand from the IT sector, TheElec has learned.Their transition to 12-inch foundries has also impacted their drop in service

Fab equipment maker DIT has begun supplying laser annealing equipment to chip giant SK Hynix, TheElec has learned.Annealing equipment is used to repair wafers that are damaged after ion injection.During the ion injection process, Group 3 or Group 5 dopants such as B, I or As are injected into the wa

South Korean chip fabless company Netsol is planning to supply its first magnetic random access memory (MRAM) to a Chinese customer, the company CEO told TheElec.Niche memory chips, excluding DRAM and NAND flash, accounted for 5% of the total memory chip market, Netsol CEO Kim Woo-jin said.Out of th

SK Hynix has unveiled a 321-layer NAND flash at a conference in the US.The South Korean chip giant unveiled the 321-layer 1Tb triple-level cell NAND flash at Flash Summit 2023 in Santa Clara on Tuesday.SK Hynix is the first memory chip maker to unveil a NAND with over 300 layers.The company said its

Chip and electronics material company Soulbrain is planning to acquire precursor maker DNF, TheElec has learned.The deal is expected to close within the year and is reportedly worth around 100 billion won, sources said.Soulbrain Holdings, the holding company of the Soulbrain group, will be the acqui

Research into applying wafer-to-wafer (W2W) technology in the DRAM sector was very active, according to EV Group.This was because the application of W2W hybrid bonding solution could improve the productivity of products such as high bandwidth memory, EV Group Korea General Manager Justin Yun said du

Competition in the advanced die bonder market is intensifying. Besi, ASMPT, and Hanmi Semiconductor have all announced expansion plans in the thermal compression (TC) bonder sector.TC bonders are used to bond individual chips on processed wafers. They started to become in high demand with the launch

Chip design house ASICLAND was developing a new packaging technology to improve the cost of customer TSMC’s chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS).CoWoS has room for improvement in performance and power consumption compared to integrated fan-out and organic substrate package, ASICLAND manager Kang Sung-

LB Semicon has acquired battery recycling company GSM.The chip back-end company said it acquired all the company shares for 20 billion won.LB Semicon acquired a 60% stake for 12 billion won and LB a 40% stake for 8 billion won.The new subsidiary will collect scraps and used batteries made during bat

Samsung’s chip division recorded a steep operating loss of 4.36 trillion won in the second quarter due to the global economic downturn that is causing weak demand for IT products.However, inventory of chips peaked in May and is declining, the South Korean tech giant said, a sign that demand for chip

3D SoC with hybrid bonding applied was the way to overcome the current limitations of microfabrication the chip industry is facing, according to Inha University Professor Rino Choi.And for application of hybrid bonding, back side power delivery network, and other advanced technologies, there need to

Even in high bandwidth memory (HBM) hybrid bonding may be needed to pack in more layers within the confines of the package.This is according to SK Hynix Wafer Bonding Head Kang Ji-ho, who said during a local chip conference hosted by TheElec that HBM with 12-layer or higher can face problems in heig

SK Hynix said on Wednesday that it has recorded 2.9 trillion won in operating loss in the second quarter this year.This means that the South Korean chip giant recorded 6.3 trillion won in operating loss in total for the first half of the year, as the down cycle of the global chip market continues.Ho

Fab equipment maker Wonik IPS was using multiple securities firms to purchase the shares of competitor APTC, TheElec has learned.Wonik IPS started buying listed shares of APTC in May and the move is ongoing, sources said.It is unknown how many shares Wonik IPS purchased in total for the past two mon

Nvidia was working to diversify its sourcing of HBM3 and 2.5D packages used in AI GPUs for data centers, TheElec has learned.The US chip giant was negotiating deals with potential suppliers, which includes Samsung, sources said.Currently, Nvidia, for its A100, H100, and other AI GPUs, uses TSMC for

South Korean AI startup Rebellions wants to launch alternatives to AI chips offered by market leader Nvidia.Rebellions CEO Park Sunghyun said the startup’s goal is to, within one to two years, find specific applications that it can offer AI chips that be used instead of those by Nvidia.Specifically,

Nvidia’s influence in the AI chip space is ever-growing, not the least thanks to the success of its GPU software CUDA.Amid this climate, South Korean chip startup FuriosaAI is aiming to carve its mark by developing both hardware and software.Unless chip companies have a software stack that can react

Managing the power efficiency of data centers is a large issue in the chip industry as trends such as AI and self-driving cars are causing exponential increases in the amount of data.Because of this, the amount of data formed in the past two years equaled that of around 90% of the data made througho

Fab equipment maker Neosem’s Gen 5 solid-state drive (SSD) inspection equipment has passed the quality test of a South Korean chip maker, TheElec has learned.This means Neosem will be supplying the equipment to the South Korean chip maker for the first time. The equipment maker’s main customer so fa

Samsung has appointed new heads of development for foundry and DRAM, TheElec has learned.Samsung’s chip division, called Device Solution, recently commenced reorganization of its executive vice president-level officials.CTO of its Foundry Business has been named Gitae Jeong, who was previously the h