Outlook: DRAM, NAND, Next-Gen Memory


Jim Handy, director at Objective Analysis, sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to talk about the 3D NAND, DRAM and next-generation memory markets. What follows are excerpts of that discussion. SE: How would you characterize the NAND market thus far in 2021? Handy: All chips are seeing unusual strength in 2021, but NAND flash and DRAM are doing what they usually do by exhibiting more e... » read more

More Fabs Seen In Chip Boom


Over the last year, the semiconductor industry has seen an amazing turnaround. The industry happens to be in a boom cycle. Today, chip demand remains strong. And some fab projects have been accelerated to meet this demand, according to Christian Dieseldorff, an analyst at SEMI. It wasn’t always this way. In early 2020, the business looked bright, but the IC market dropped amid the Covid... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Coronavirus The coronavirus in China has been declared as a global health emergency by the World Health Organization (WHO). The situation appears to be much worse than SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome), which hit in 2003. Several companies are taking precautionary measures to prevent widespread transmission of coronavirus. For example, ASE has devoted a Web page for the measures it is t... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Chipmakers A fire broke out this week at a joint NAND flash fab between Western Digital (WD) and Kioxia. Kioxia is the former Toshiba NAND flash unit that was recently spun out by the Japanese company. “On Monday, January 6, (morning, January 7 local time) a small fire occurred at one of our joint venture facilities in Yokkaichi, Japan. Local firefighters quickly extinguished the fire, and w... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Trade wars Talks between the United States and China continue to stall and the two nations are still embroiled in a trade war. So this week, U.S. President Donald Trump would like to impose a 10% tariff on the remaining $300 billion list of China-based imports starting Sept. 1, according to a report from Reuters. This in turn will impact the electronics and IC industries. In response to the... » read more

Changes In China


By Jesse Zhang, SEMI China Industry leaders gathered in Beijing at BIMS 2016 — the Beijing International Microelectronics Symposium — to discuss growth opportunities for the semiconductor industry and the mobile communications market. The 17th session of BIMS was co-sponsored by SEMI and the Chinese-American Semiconductor Professionals Association (CASPA). For 17 years, BIMS has provi... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


Is the sky falling on the ATE market? The ATE market is expected to hit $2.8 billion in 2014, up from $2.28 billion in 2013, according to Pacific Crest Securities. “Overall, we are now modeling overall semiconductor test demand to decline by 2% in 2015, a significant change from our previous estimate of up 10%,” said Weston Twigg, an analyst with Pacific Crest Securities, in a report. “Te... » read more