Semiconductor Industry

[winston]

Samsung sees low growth rate for chip industry in 2012

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics expects the semiconductor industry to grow at a low rate next year, as the global economic slowdown cuts into demand, a top executive said on Thursday.

"Under an economic slowdown, the visibility of the semiconductor industry is low; the growth rate in 2012 will not be high and technology will be an important factor," Samsung's device solutions head, Oh-hyun Kwon, told reporters at an event in Taipei.

The South Korean firm, along with other tech makers, is struggling with depressed consumer demand amid mounting uncertainty over global economic prospects.

On Wednesday, chip maker Advanced Micro Devices Inc cut its third-quarter revenue and gross margin forecasts.

Source: Reuters US Online Report Technology News

http://www.newsmeat.com/news/meat.php?a ... &buid=3281

[iam802]

Micron Has Second Consecutive Loss on Falling Memory Prices

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-2 ... rices.html

Micron Technology Inc. (MU), the largest U.S. maker of computer-memory chips, reported its second consecutive quarterly loss as prices declined amid lackluster demand for personal computers.

The net loss was $187 million, or 19 cents a share, compared with net income of $155 million, or 15 cents, a year earlier, the Boise, Idaho-based company said in a statement today. Revenue in the first quarter ended Dec. 1 fell 7.2 percent to $2.09 billion. Analysts on average estimated a loss of 8 cents on sales of $2.12 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The average price of Micron’s dynamic random access memory, or DRAM, which provides the main memory in PCs, fell 12 percent in the quarter and has slid another 20 percent so far in the current period, the company said. Floods in Thailand have left PC makers short of hard-disk drives, leading them to trim purchases of other components. That has resulted in a 10 percent to 15 percent drop in DRAM orders, Micron said.

“Business is not going gangbusters,” said Daniel Berenbaum, an analyst at MKM Partners LLC in New York, who recommends buying Micron shares. Berenbaum anticipates that the slowdown will force rival chipmakers to exit the industry or join forces. “Micron will be a survivor in the latest round of consolidation,” he said.

Micron shares were little changed in extended trading. Before the report, they fell 4.3 percent to $5.54 at the close in New York. The stock has dropped 31 percent this year.
‘Catalyst and Consolidator’

Micron, which has previously acquired the operations of other companies exiting the memory business, will consider further deals, Chief Executive Officer Steve Appleton said on a conference call with analysts.

“If there’s something there that makes sense, then we’re going to take a look,” he said. “I think we really have been the only catalyst and consolidator in the main DRAM field that’s been successful.”

While Micron’s DRAM selling price fell from the previous period, the company said it shipped 14 percent more chips. Inventory was little changed from the fiscal fourth quarter at $2.1 billion, and cash and short-term investment fell 11 percent to $1.92 billion after Micron spent $750 million on new plants and equipment.

Micron’s PC-maker customers will be able to ship 20 million more machines in the calendar first quarter compared with the fourth after an increase in hard-disk supply, Micron estimated.

Alone in U.S.

The company is the only remaining U.S.-based maker of DRAM after Asian manufacturers forced out the pioneers of the industry, including Intel Corp. and Texas Instruments Inc. Producers’ inability to match supply to demand in DRAM has hurt earnings as prices for the chips, which are traded on commodity exchanges in Asia, often fell below the cost of production.

Micron has reported an annual profit in only four of the past 10 calendar years. The company goes head-to-head with South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co. (005930), the world’s second-largest chipmaker behind Intel.

Micron has lessened its dependence on DRAM by following Samsung and Toshiba Corp. into the market for Nand flash memory, chips that provide the storage in portable electronics such as Apple Inc.’s iPhone and iPad.

[winston]

Weekly Review

The chips are struggling a bit. Nothing major, but a bit of a struggle.

ALTR is coming back toward the 200 day EMA.

TXN is gapping downside, having a hard time getting through that early-January high.

MRVL is one we have been watching and playing. It has been struggling.

There is a little bit of hitch in the get-along, but that is okay. We are just being careful. We can get better setups out of these with a pullback.

Why ride through something that is not looking that great in hopes that it gets better? Instead we can just let it come back and give us a test that sets it up a lot better. That is the theme I have been hounding you about for the past week.

If you have a little trouble, do not mess around; just take it off the table and then maybe we will come back and later get a better buy on it.

Source: Investment House

[iam802]

Notes:
Samsung and Hynix may benefit from Elpida's failure,

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Elpida’s Failure May Push DRAM Semiconductor Industry Closer to Oligopoly

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-1 ... opoly.html

[iam802]

TSMC suddenly halts 28nm production

http://semiaccurate.com/2012/03/07/tsmc ... roduction/

Sit down before you read this one, we will wait for a second while you do. OK, now, where to begin other than the obvious, TSMC shut down 28nm production about three weeks ago.

No, we are not joking, word has reached SemiAccurate that TSMC halted 100% of 28nm production in mid-February to make unnamed changes to the process. Since only Nvidia was having issues, and those are not really process related, we have no explanation as to why they would take this drastic step, but yields don’t seem to be it. That said, we are quite certain that it happened, and is still in effect.

Sources tell SemiAccurate that the stoppage was quite sudden, and production should resume in short order. One source said that by the end of March, volumes would be back to where they were before if not a lot better. Checks with the channel have confirmed an abrupt stop in 28nm chip shipments, not that there were many to begin with. TSMC is privately promising a quick and planned down time with a resumption in production very soon.

Whether wafers in process were continued, paused, or scrapped is not known. If the parts that were started can be continued on once the switches are flipped back to ‘go’, the production blip won’t be that bad. Because all are saying the whole episode will be but a bad memory by month’s end, we believe that wafers were just paused. If that were not the case, if production restarted today, you would not be seeing new chips coming out until June.

Checks with various points in the chain for graphics cards show that there was actually a large amount of supply of 28nm AMD parts in the channel from chips to cards. That supply, while not infinite, should be enough to keep products on the shelves until new parts come back out.

Basically channel inventory will be depleted about the time it starts being replenished. Best case, buyers won’t see any problems, worst case, 1-2 weeks of short supply. AIBs however have to sit on their thumbs and do nothing until the new parts come in, then it is overtime shifts until demand is sated.

Things get much more complex for Qualcomm. 28nm Kraits are not shipping to end users, and as far as we have heard, nothing has been given a definitive ship date. If there is a 2-3 week delay, the OEMs and carriers will be peeved, but the end user will have no clue about any problem. It is internal, logistical, and annoying, but not a PR disaster.

Nvidia on the other hand is announcing their newest family of parts next Monday. It is a good part, but supply is the proverbial elephant in the room. Ivy Bridge is launching soon, and if GPUs aren’t ready, things get ugly in a hurry. Given Nvidia’s uncharacteristic whining during the last conference call, you now understand what they were prepping the analyst community for.

SemiAccurate still believes that Nvidia is the only company seeing 28nm ‘yield problems’ and the real problem has it’s roots in Santa Clara.

All in all, this is nothing more than a horrific failure. Complete 28nm stoppage at TSMC with no public word, no explanation, and no known concrete resumption date. Sources tell us that it is indeed temporary, but until there is a good explanation, don’t assume anything.S|A

[winston]

Taiwan UMC's Q1 sales down 15.5%

Taiwan's United Microelectronics Corp, the world's second biggest contract microchip maker, said Monday its sales in the three months to March fell 15.5 percent from a year ago due to slowing demand.

Its revenues in the first quarter this year came in at Tw$23.8 billion ($804.7 million), down from Tw$28.1 billion posted a year earlier, the company said.


Source:AFP Asian Edition

[winston]

PC sales beat expectations, China growth slowing

Global sales of personal computers climbed more than expected in the first three months of the year but slowing in China's booming market tempered optimism about the figures released Wednesday.

PC makers shipped 89 million units worldwide in the first quarter of this year, a 1.9 percent increase from the same period in 2011, according to industry tracker Gartner.

"The results were mixed depending on the region," said Gartner principal analyst Mikako Kitagawa.

While the region including Europe, Africa and the Middle East had impressive PC shipments of 6.7 percent, the Asia-Pacific area containing India and China saw slower growth than anticipated, according to Gartner.

"While the PC industry has high expectations for strong growth in the emerging markets, the slowdown of these countries in this quarter provides a cautionary notice to vendors," Kitagawa said.

"The future growth for the PC industry cannot heavily depend on the emerging markets even though PC penetration in these regions is low."

Sales of business machines powered growth, with consumer purchases of PCs for personal uses continuing to slide, according to Gartner.

Non-business demand for PCs was being hurt by tight personal budgets as well as competition from tablet computers, especially Apple's coveted iPads.

The world's largest computer maker, US-based Hewlett-Packard, increased its share of the global market to 17.2 percent.

Second-place computer maker Lenovo saw the biggest gains, with the China-based company's piece of the market swelling more than 28 percent to 13.1 percent when compared to the same quarter a year earlier.

Gartner reported that "Lenovo has been enjoying healthy growth in the professional market, while the company is successfully expanding into the consumer space."

Dell and Acer lost market share, slipping to 11 percent and 10.9 percent respectively, according to Gartner.


Source:AFP Global Edition

[winston]

1.2 billion smartphones, tablets to sell in 2013: survey

AFP - Global sales of "smart devices," which include smartphones and tablets, will hit 821 million worldwide this year and 1.2 billion in 2013, a research firm said Tuesday.

Gartner Inc. said these devices are gaining strong momentum, as many consumers opt to use them instead of personal computers.

"For most businesses, smartphones and tablets will not entirely replace PCs, but the ubiquity of smartphones and the increasing popularity of tablets are changing the way businesses look at their device strategies and the way consumers embrace devices," said Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner.

By 2016, Milanesi said, "two-thirds of the mobile workforce will own a smartphone, and 40 percent of the workforce will be mobile."

She said tablets will be a key to mobility for workers, with 13 million tablets used for business this year, rising to 53 million by 2016.

Gartner estimates that 56 percent of smartphones purchased by businesses in North America and Europe will be Android devices in 2016, up from 34 percent in 2012.

"Today the wide range of brands and price points that the Android ecosystem is offering is winning over users. While Apple remains the heartbeat by which the market moves, Google has rapidly become its archrival," she said.

A separate survey by research firm IDC last week found three out of four smartphones shipped worldwide used the Google-backed mobile platform, even though Apple's iOS devices are growing.

Milanesi said BlackBerry maker Research in Motion, long the dominant force in smartphones, "has a huge challenge ahead in regaining its key presence in the enterprise."

She said that in the business market, Windows 8 will take the number three position in the tablet market behind Apple and Android by 2016, with interest coming more from businesses than consumers.

http://www.france24.com/en/20121106-12- ... 013-survey

[winston]

Semiconductor stocks keep booming… sector fund SMH is up nearly 30% in 2014.

[winston]

Global semiconductor sales at record high of US$28.1b

KUALA LUMPUR: The global semiconductor sales rose to a record monthly high of US$28.1bil in July, which was an increase of 9.9% from year ago when sales were US$25.5bil and is on track for a record year in 2014.

The US-based Semiconductor Industry Association said global sales for July were 2.4% higher than the previous month of June when sales were US$27.4bil.

The association said on a regional scale, sales in the Americas increased by 8.1% from a year ago while Europe posted its strongest on-year growth of 14.9% since October 2010.

All monthly sales numbers are compiled by the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) organisation and represent a three-month moving average.

SIA president and CEO Brian Toohey said: The global semiconductor industry posted its highest-ever monthly sales in July and remains on track for a record year in 2014.”

He pointed out all regions posted both on-month and on-year increases for the third straight month, which was the first time in over four years.

“Sales increased in July across all semiconductor product categories, signifying the market’s broad and consistent strength,” said Toohey.

Regionally, year-to-year sales increased in Europe (14.9%), Asia Pacific (11.2%), the Americas (8.1%), and Japan (2%).

July sales were up compared to June in the Americas (3%), Europe (2.9%), Asia Pacific (2.3%), and Japan (2%).


Source: The Star