As we have every week since January, this week Objective Analysis published another handful of our white papers, which we call “Objective Analysis Briefs”.
This week’s set covers a very diverse range, from the dissolution of a joint venture, through semiconductor cycles and business strategy, to Continue reading “More New “Brief” White Papers Published This Week”
As we have been doing since mid-January, we introduce another five of our Objective Analysis Briefs this week, bringing the total this year to 35.
This week’s release covers three companies, YMTC, SK hynix, and Intel, and one explains the process we used in 2020 to create our 2021 forecast, with and without a pandemic-driven Continue reading “Five New Briefs: YMTC, SK hynix, Intel, and a Forecast”
This week Objective Analysis has introduced five briefs that fall into three categories: Business strategies (Samsung, Kioxia, and Intel), government policy (US against SMIC), and world events (COVID).
In case you’re just learning about the Objective Analysis “Brief” format, the Brief is a short white paper used to make a Continue reading “New Briefs: Strategy, Policy, & World Events”
Today, Groundhog’s Day, Objective Analysis is publishing another five of our Objective Analysis Briefs, rounding out 2022’s total of new documents to 20. This week’s set covers even a more diverse range than those that we published in the past three weeks, with no overlap between any two Briefs’ subjects. They range from forecast methodology and China’s semiconductor efforts to critically considering Continue reading “Five More New Briefs Published”
This week’s newly-published Objective Analysis Briefs have just been released. These five cover business strategies (Intel, WDC, and Everspin), policy issues, and quantum computing – quite a variety! Each is derived from one of our most interesting and timeless “Insights” published on membership website Smartkarma. Now Objective Analysis is making these studies available to Continue reading “This Week’s Round of Objective Analysis Briefs”
This week five more Objective Analysis Briefs have just become available. This handful covers commonly held myths and the basic underpinnings of semiconductor market cycles. All are drawn from the most interesting and timeless of the Insights that we have published on membership website Smartkarma. Now Objective Analysis is providing them to our friends for a reasonable price.
The Brief is a very Continue reading “More New Objective Analysis Briefs Available”
On its way out the door the Obama Administration put together a proposed response to China’s plans to invest $150 billion in the semiconductor market over the next five years. It seems that US semiconductor industry views China’s investment as a threat to its position in the market.
Last week the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) delivered a 25-page Report to the President entitled: “Ensuring Long-Term U.S. Leadership in Semiconductors.”
You might ask: “Who is PCAST?” The organization states its mission in this paragraph: “The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) is an advisory group of the Nation’s leading scientists and engineers, appointed by the President to augment the science and technology advice available to him from inside the White House and from cabinet departments and other Federal agencies. PCAST is consulted about, and often makes policy recommendations concerning, the full range of issues where understandings from the domains of science, technology, and innovation bear potentially on the policy choices before the President.”
PCAST has a small Semiconductors Working Group whose elite members include Continue reading “US Plans Response to China’s Chip Plan”
China foundry XMC has broken ground for its new 3D NAND flash fab, the country’s first China-owned 3D NAND flash facility. Plans for this fab were publicly disclosed over a year ago. Simon Yang, XMC’s CEO, gave a presentation at SEMI’s Industry Strategy Symposium (ISS) on January 11, 2015 in which he detailed the need for China to produce a larger proportion of its overall chips, explaining how his company would help make that happen.
Yang used the map in this post’s graphic to show that XMC has enough land on its campus for six 300mm wafer fabs. Two shells (yellow), each capable of processing 30,000 wafers per month, had been constructed by that time: Fab A (left) was already fully utilized, and Fab B (right) was ready for tooling. The gray boxes show that the site has enough space to build 2 additional 2-line megafabs, each with a capacity of up to 100k wafers per month. Accoding to DRAMeXchange XMC currently produces 20,000 wafers of NOR flash per month. A March 30 China Daily article reports that monthly wafer production will reach 300,000 in 2020 and 1 million in 2030.
XMC’s formal name is Wuhan Xinxin Semiconductor Manufacturing, and it is located Continue reading “XMC Breaks Ground for 3D NAND Fab”
There are some who still believe that Toshiba made good on its announcement to cut NAND flash production by 30%. Let’s take a close look to see if that really happened.
Readers may recall that Toshiba stated last July that it would immediately cut NAND flash production by 30%. At the time NAND was selling below cost for spot prices as low as 31 cents/GB.
The Memory Guy questioned both the wisdom of the move and its authenticity in a blog post at that time, since this level of cut would reduce Toshiba’s market share while increasing its Continue reading “A Retrospect of Toshiba’s NAND Production Cut”
Every so often I run into someone who asks about the discrepancy between various analysts’ NAND market share rankings and SanDisk’s shipments. After all, SanDisk is a leading producer of flash memory and has captive manufacture through its joint venture with Toshiba. Yet, most market share rankings leave SanDisk out.
What’s going on here?
Owing to a long-standing convention SanDisk’s NAND chips aren’t counted since they are sold as “Systems” (with a controller.) The World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) set that rule up, and most analysts Continue reading “Why Most NAND Rankings Ignore SanDisk”
