Chipmakers to Battle in the Smartphone Market

The next big battle in the semiconductor industry, as described by an article in The New York Times today, is over chips for the coming generations of hand-held mobile devices.  As the article aptly begins, "The semiconductor industry has long been a game for titans."  The going rate for a state-of-the art chip fabrication factory is about $3 billion.  The plants typically take years to build and the microscopic size of chip circuitry makes for challenging engineering in order to keep up with Moore's Law.

The next phase of chip wars will focus on smartphones along with tablet and notebook sized devices.  Intel, which until now has had a very small presence in the smartphone market, is joining the fray.   The current market leader is ARM Holdings.  Global Foundries, a spinoff of Advanced Micro Devices, this year plans to start making chips at one of the most advanced factories ever built in Dresden, Germany.  Global Foundries has been helped by close to $10 billion in current and promised investments from the government of Abu Dhabi.

Other competitors in this industry include Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, United Microelectronics and, of course, Samsung Electronics.

Rising DRAM Prices--More Good News for Korea's ICT Sector

I've been reading with great interest about how Korean mobile phone handsets and LED backlit television sets are doing so well in the U.S. and other international markets. Today, the Joongang Ilbo reports that the good news has spread to dynamic random access memory chips (semiconductors) which are a big item for Samsung Electronics and Hynix. These memory chips are important components of many modern digital devices. Saying abreast of technology change in the DRAM industry requires huge capital investment. Nevertheless, these chips are an important commodity in the information age, and Korea seems positioned to maintain its world leading position as a manufacturer and exporter of DRAM chips. NAND flash memory is another interesting category, and the semiconductor industry in Korea is steadily making efforts to branch out into other types of chips.

I'll be on vacation for the next week, so will probably not post any additions to the blog until September.

Intel to Invest in Three U.S. Fabs in the Next Two Years

The announcement that Intel will invest $7 billion to expand and transform three U.S. manufacturing plants should be good news for Korean electronics companies.  Business Week reports  that, as early as this fall, the company plans to start shipping the world's first microprocessors created at the atomic 32 nanometer level--transistors so small that 4 million of them could fit in the period at the end of this sentence.  Intel CEO Paul Otellini said in a speech that "the chips produced by the new fabs will become the basic building blocks of the digital world, generating economic returns far beyond our industry."  By shifting to a more advanced manufacturing process, Intel hopes to make inroads into selling chips not only for PCs, but for consumer electronics, cell phones and other internet-connected devices.  Such chips could substantially lower development costs for Samsung, LG and their international competitors.

Korean Chipmakers Widen Technology Gap in Memory Chips

Just after my previous post about Samsung Electronics development of 40 nanometer technology for manufacturing memory chips, Hynix announced on Sunday that it has developed the world's first one gigabit DRAM chip using 44 nanometer technology!  These announcements make it clear that Korea's main semiconductor manufacturers have opened up a technology lead over their major rivals in other countries.  Reports in the Korea Times and other local press noted that prices of DRAM chips are gaining momentum after the German-based firm Qimonda filed for insolvency.  The productivity of this latest DDR3 (double data rate) chip will be 50 percent greater than chips now on the market.   Production costs and power consumption by the chips will also be lowered.  A significant aspect of this development is that it is based on technology advances within Hynix.

Another World's First in Memory Chips for Samsung Electronics

As reported in the JoongAng Daily, Samsung Electronics has developed DDR2 dynamic random access memory using 40-nanometer technology, becoming the first among the world's leading chipmakers to do so.  This new technology allows Samsung to enhance production by 40 percent over the current 50 nanometer technology that it and Hynix are using.  The 40 nanometer DRAM chip also consumes up to 30 percent less electricity than chips produced with the older technology.

For chip makers, developing higher DRAM density means they can cut production costs and lead market trends by providing the latest DRAM chips at higher prices. Since chips are produced from a wafer, the smaller chips are, the more chips are produced out of one wafer.

This new development gives Samsung a head start on its rivals and industry observers said it will take two years for them to catch up.

Samsung Enters U.S. Notebook Market

Having personally used Samsung notebooks for many years now, I welcomed the news that this company is going to enter the U.S. notebook computer market.  It can only help competitiveness in the market and make available some high quality products to American consumers.  A little over a year ago I gave my Samsung X-10, a multimedia notebook with which I was very happy, to my wife.  For my own use, I purchased a Samsung Sens Q35, a bit more compact, but powerful notebook that is handy for weekend and occasional overseas traveling.  While in my office during the week, I plug into a larger monitor and regular keyboard.

One could almost say this Samsung move was inevitable, given that it manufactures most of the key components that go into a notebook computer these days --display, hard drive, and memory chips, to name the main ones.