In 2011, the overall IC industry output value in Taiwan was 1.5155 trillion yuan

The IEK ITIS of ITRI plans to announce the fourth quarter and full year of China's semiconductor industry review and outlook for the fourth quarter of 2011. In the fourth quarter of 2011, the overall IC industry output value in Taiwan (including design, manufacturing, packaging and testing) reached NT$370 billion. , a 3.8% decline from the third quarter of 2011. In 2011, the total output value of Taiwan's IC industry was NT$155.58 billion, a slight decline from the RMB1.7537 billion in 2010.

The performance analysis of Taiwan's IC industry in the fourth quarter of 2011 continued the recessionary trend in the third quarter, but the decline in the output value of Taiwan's IC industry in the fourth quarter of 2011 (2011Q4) has slowed down. Although the overall industry performance continues to be fermented by the European debt crisis, unemployment The rate has risen, impacting European and American consumers’ willingness to purchase electronic products; however, Apple’s continued growth in smart phone business opportunities, the growth of the iPhone 4S and the growth of shipments from Samsung and other handset makers have made the PC/NB market perform poorly. Under the circumstances, it made up for the vacancy in the IC market.

First of all, we observed the IC design industry. In 2011, Q4 domestic IC design companies generally performed poorly except for a few revenue performances from related vendors such as wireless Netcom chipsets, automotive MCUs, and digital TV STBs. In particular, due to the continuous decline in global PC/NB market demand, the company's shipment performance is far lower than expected, making domestic and LCD panel drivers and control ICs, power management ICs, memory control ICs, and other related businesses, revenue decline. Overall, the output value of Taiwan's IC design industry in 2011Q4 was NT$94.6 billion, a decline of 3.4% from the previous quarter.

Taiwan's overall IC manufacturing output declined by 4.0% from the previous quarter to NT$180.3 billion, a sharp decline from the previous year by 13.9%. In the foundry industry, it was down 3.2% from the previous quarter and 7.1% from the same period last year. Although the U.S. debt and European debt continued to affect consumer confidence in the global market, the performance of the smart phone market in the growth stage was better than expected, reducing the decline in the output value of foundry products. The reduction in customer stocks also made the order begin to show signs of reflow.

ICs containing memory and IDM manufactured their own products, which fell 6.8% from the previous quarter and fell 30.3% from the same period last year. The IEK IT IS Institute of ITRI pointed out that after the DRAM manufacturers reduced production in the third quarter, the shipment performance in the fourth quarter turned to a steady state, and the decrease in the ASP of the global DRAM products narrowed, all resulting in a quarterly recession. It was smaller than the third quarter of 2011.

Finally, in the IC packaging and testing sector, the 2011Q4 packaging and testing industry in Taiwan has entered a seasonally low season, and vendor revenues have generally declined, due to the sharp downward revision of the capacity utilization rate of the wafer foundry in the third quarter, coupled with an increase in excess inventory by upstream customers. In the fourth quarter, orders released to the packaging and testing plants were generally lower than the third quarter.

According to the IEK IT IS Institute of Industry Technology Research Institute of ITRI IT IS, the penetration rate of application wafers such as smart phones and tablet PCs is high, and the reduction rate for 2011Q4 revenue is between 2% and 4%. %, but the order of the computer market-based Chaofeng, Ling Sheng, East China, etc., revenue reduction rate of more than 10%. In 2011Q4, Taiwan's package output was NT$65.7 billion, a 3.8% decline from the previous quarter. The output value of the 2011Q4 test industry in Taiwan was 29.4 billion yuan, a 3.9% decline from the previous quarter.

Analysis of major events in the IC industry in the fourth quarter of 2011 1 . Intel Medfield Chips Spread across Smart Phones Intel announced at the CES in the United States that it will launch the Medfield chip platform with its Atom processor, targeting Android operating systems and officially entering the smartphone market dominated by ARM-bsaed. Medfield's low-power mobile chips are smaller than the fingertips, using 32nm process technology, single-core, 1.86GHz, and design emphasizes power saving to extend battery life. In addition, the Medfield platform's smart phone has 8 hours of 3G voice talk time, 6 hours of 1080p high-definition video, and 5 hours of continuous Internet browsing.

In recent years, ARM-Based processors have rapidly emerged, and the influence of the Intel x86 architecture has deteriorated. Although the Medfield chip is powerful, its price is still too high and power consumption compared with ARM-Based processors. Currently, there are not many vendors (such as Motorola and Lenovo), and future market promotion still needs further observation. However, in the future, if the Medfield chip platform can gain a place in the smart handheld device, the overall industrial ecological ownership will also change. Taiwan may need to pay close attention to ARM-Based, x86 and other developments, and develop response strategies.

2. Hua Hong and Grace announced the merger of Hua Hong and Grace respectively as the second and third largest foundries in China, second only to SMIC, which ranked first, and announced its merger in early January 2012. Hua Hong Semiconductor will issue new shares to Grace Semiconductor shareholders in return for all outstanding shares of Grace Semiconductor. At present, Hua Hong and Hong Li’s monthly 8-inch wafer production capacity reaches 86,000 and 44,000, respectively. Both of them are major project suppliers of the Chinese government, such as ID card, telecommunication SIM card and bank credit card, overseas. Customers include Sanyo, VIA, NEC, and MPS.

Hua Hong NEC and Grace are the eighth and twelfth Chinese mainland companies in the professional wafer foundry market worldwide. The two mergers account for approximately 2.4% of the global professional foundry market share. China’s largest market share and SMIC’s 4th largest global professional foundry’s market share is 4.7%. Hua Hong NEC and Grace are expected to become the fifth-largest professional foundry company. Hua Hong NEC and Grace merged under the guidance of policies to change the thinking of the foundry foundry industry in the mainland of China, and to increase the strategy of acquiring large and powerful resources in China. The merger of the two companies will facilitate the development of the 12-inch wafer fab originally invested. And to avoid the edge of technology and production capacity of international giants, the more marginalized dilemma.

3. Samsung NAND Flash decided to set up a factory in South Korea The South Korean government finally agreed that Samsung Electronics will set up a factory in mainland China to produce a NAND Flash wafer plant with an investment plan of up to 4 billion U.S. dollars. In order to set up a wafer fab in the mainland, Samsung proposed to the South Korean government a "10-nanometer process NAND Flash national core technology export application" which has been accepted by the South Korean Ministry of Knowledge Economy on January 4. According to reports, in December 2011, Samsung planned to submit an investment report to South Korea’s Ministry of Knowledge Economy. In 2012, Samsung will decide to set up a factory in mainland China and formally start construction. It is expected that it will enter mass production from the middle of 2013. It has been speculated that Samsung may choose Suzhou, which currently has a wafer rear-end process line, as an expansion hinterland.

In the past, Samsung only set up a fab in Texas, except in South Korea. To draw the United States government and local customers, such as Apple. This time, Samsung stepped into the footsteps of Hynix, South Korea's memory maker, and plans to build a 12-inch fab in mainland China. Hynix currently has a 12-inch wafer fab in Wuxi, Jiangsu. Samsung is optimistic about the growth of the smart phone and SSD market and will expand NAND Flash production capacity. For Mainland China, which is the world’s number 3C terminal assembly and consumer destination, Samsung’s intention to win over the Chinese mainland government and local customers is very clear.

4. Asukahiko completed the acquisition of Riyue Hong and faded out the memory market. Riyue Hung, the memory seal maker of the Riyueguang Group, was under the impact of the transformation of its major customer, PGI, into a foundry. The company's internal memory was held by the parent company Riyue Guangguang through public acquisition. The 99% equity of Sun Yuehong Technology was sealed and tested and the acquisition process was completed. Sun Yuehong is currently fighting for profits and losses. If there is still no improvement in future operations, the company will not be able to merge into the parent company through simple mergers and acquisitions. Sun Yuehong's board of directors also decided to revoke the original listing of the emerging market, and wait for the right time, and then re-plan the listing operation.

At the beginning, Sun Yuehong was jointly established by Powerchip and Sunlight, and in addition to equity investment, Li Jing also handed over orders for sealing and testing at the latter stage to Sun Moonstone. However, in recent years, the DRAM industry has experienced fierce fluctuations. Taiwan’s DRAM maker has suffered heavy losses, and Powerchip has only to undergo transformation. Since 2011, it has reduced the amount of DRAM chips, withdrew from the DRAM private label market, and transferred to wafer foundry and NAND Flash product lines. Under the sharp reduction of orders for Powerchip, Sun Yuehong was also affected. In mid-2011, idle test equipment was sold to peers, including Licheng and East China. The number of wire-wrapping and packaging machines has also been reduced to 50 units from the highest peak of 150 units. Currently, the company mainly supports the business needs of its parent company, Riyueguang, in the logic package. On the whole, Sun Yuehong’s business has become almost irrelevant to memory, so the parent company decided to acquire Sun Yue Hong’s shareholding in order to increase the efficiency of resource use.

Future Outlook ITRI ITIS expects that in the first quarter of 2012 (2012Q1), Taiwan’s semiconductor industry will show a downward trend with a production value of NT$358.3 billion, a decline of 3.0% from the fourth quarter of 2011. In the IC design industry, although most domestic companies have actively seized chip opportunities such as smart phones and tablet PCs, their share is not high and their contribution to revenue growth is still small. Furthermore, since 2012Q1 is still a traditional off-season and the European debt crisis still exists, global PC/NB, consumer electronics and other market needs are still weak. The estimated 2012Q1 output value was NT$89.4 billion, and the quarterly recession was 5.5%.

In the IC manufacturing industry, the global economic situation may not be substantially improved in the short term, but orders will gradually pick up after the inventory goes down. In addition, smart phone sales performance is still good, making the foundry's output value relative to 2011. The fourth quarter of the year was flat with a slight decline of 1.6%. The IDM industry, including DRAM, is expected to grow by a small margin of 4.2% when DRAM products show a steady increase in price. Estimated value of Taiwan's IC manufacturing industry for 2012Q1 reached NT$179.9 billion, a slight drop of 0.2% from 2011Q4.

In the IC packaging and testing industry, the first quarter of the year due to the longevity of the Lunar New Year, the reduction in the number of working days, and the timing is still the traditional off-season of the industry. 2012Q1 LCD panel driver ICs are expected to remain stable, while communications-based wafer packaging and test revenue performance may be relatively better than consumer electronics and PC-based wafers, but will still show a decline compared to the fourth quarter of last year. Estimated production value of Taiwan's packaging and testing industry in 2012Q1 reached NT$61.5 billion and HK$27.5 billion, respectively, which was 6.4% and 6.5% lower than 2011Q4.

Looking ahead to 2012, the IEK ITIS of the ITRI estimated that Taiwan's IC industry was NT$1.656 trillion, which was 6.5% higher than in 2011. In the IC design industry, the shipment of smart handheld devices will continue to grow rapidly with the trend of “low-cost” global smart phones and tablets. In addition, with the arrival of PC/NB replacement surge, Ultrabook shipment ratio is expected to increase significantly. It will help boost the performance of the domestic IC design industry as a whole. It is expected to grow 7.0% in 2012 and the production value will be NT$412.6 billion.

In the IC manufacturing sector, the prospects of Taiwan's wafer foundry industry will remain stable in the future compared with the DRAM industry, and the prospects for visibility will be high. Hot sales of smart phones, tablets, and Ultrabooks will drive the growth of foundry value. The DRAM industry is expected to gradually recover as the supply and demand situation stabilizes and sales of Ultrabook drive. It is estimated that the output value of Taiwan's IC manufacturing in 2012 is expected to resume positive growth, and will increase by 5.7% from 2011, reaching NT$824.6 billion.

In the sector of IC packaging and testing, the European debt problem is expected to be gradually relieved. The global economy will begin to recover in the second quarter of the first quarter. Taiwan's packaging and testing plants will benefit from IDM outsourcing and high-level closure testing. Harvesting. It is estimated that the output value of Taiwan's packaging and testing industry in 2012 will reach NT$290 billion and RMB129.7 billion, respectively, which is only 7.6% and 7.4% higher than 2011.