Memory firms expect explosive growth from 5G starting 2020 Siu Han, Taipei; Willis Ke, DIGITIMES Tuesday 13 August 2019 0 Toggle Dropdown Despite lackluster memory demand likely to persist till the end of 2019, the memory industry is expected to see a brighter prospect starting 2020 when 5G services kick off commercial runs driving the popularity of 5G terminal devices that will in turn generate strong growth for memory products, according to industry sources.
The sources said that the 5G commercialization will stimulate upgrades of datacenter servers, and the resultant strong demand for high-capacity server memory will come first to bail the memory industry out when operators move to accelerate establishment and expansion of datacenters.
The sources said the Tokyo Olympics 2020 and the commercialization of 5G services will trigger a positive cycle of investment expansion, stimulating buying sentiment at the consumer end and prompting telecom operators and web service firms to increase their investments in datacenters by 3-4 folds to support the use of 5G mobile devices.
Sumit Sadana, executive vice president and chief business officer at US-based Micron Technology, said that his company will zero in on business opportunities from the ever-growing 5G, AI, IoT and autonomous driving applications, which will create new business models and spur upgrades in memory and storage solutions.
For mobile devices to fast transmit data on 5G bandwidths, high-performance DRAM and NAND flash products will be badly needed along with a new wave of replacement demand for 5G smartphones. In this regard, Micron estimates smartphone storage capacity will sharply expand from 512GB in 2019 to 1TB by 2021 when data transmission speed hits 20Gbps.
Taiwan memory firms revving up deployments
To cash in on immense 5G-driven business opportunities, Taiwan's memory supply chain is also aggressively proceeding with relevant deployments.
Nanya Technology president Pei-Ing Lee said that 5G commercialization will bring two major impacts on the memory market. First is that mobile devices will require bigger memory capacity support. Some flagship smartphones launched so far in 2019 come with 12GB memory, and some midrange models with 6-8GB. Second is that demand for network devices including routers, servers and cloud computing solutions will grow sharply. Accordingly, Nanya started small-volume server memory shipments in the first half of 2019 and will ramp up shipments in the fourth quarter, expecting the shipment ratio for such memory to reach 10% in 2020.
Macronix is eyeing the first wave of 5G opportunities from femtocells, which will grow exponentially in number, and it is cooperating with vendors of network equipment, APs, routers, and Internet of Vehicles (IoV) equipment to jointly tap the opportunities. Macronix is optimistic about strong demand for high-capacity NOR memory products, bolstered by a spate of new applications created by V2X (vehicles to everything).
Meanwhile, Winbond has recently released its 2Gb NAND+2Gb LPDDR4x MCP (multi-chips package) modules to support the operation of high-speed 5G terminal devices,
Innodisk chairman Randy Chien said his company expects to have as many as 300 AIoT clients by the end of 2019, up from less than 100 in 2018, ready to embrace drastic business expansion after 5G commercialization kicks off in 2020.
Adata Technology chairman Simon Chen noted 5G, AIoT and telematics will be the three major growth drivers for the global memory market starting 2020, with demand to explode in 2021-2022 in the largest-ever bull market for memory.
5G isn’t one technology, but a complex collection of technologies, many of which have not been sorted out by the standards bodies.
In general, however, it’s helpful to oversimplify the explanation about how 5G works. So here goes.
The technologies behind 5G enable the use of very high frequencies. The higher the frequency, the shorter the wavelength. Shorter wavelengths enable faster speeds and lower latency.
But there’s the catch: With shorter wavelengths, the distance between the device and the “tower” has to be much shorter, and the signal has a harder time penetrating through materials such as walls and trees. To get around those obstacles, companies need to deploy vastly more towers than existing technologies do. And companies such as Verizon are using beamforming to direct signals around objects and toward devices.
In order to have reasonable coverage, providers have got to build 5G antennas and towers all over the place, and very close to users. It’s time-consuming and expensive to place these devices everywhere, so the rollout will be slow and uneven.
Because 5G connections suck more power, the chips that power 5G will be designed to favor 4G and kick into 5G mode only when the application demands high bandwidth.
In essence, 5g will take a lot longer ( 10 years+) to really get things together before it becomes something really useful.
We will probably need to wait a lot longer before you can move everything into the cloud and start buying rm50 smartphones ( which only need screen and sound), get smart car access everywhere and all those IoT dreams like Ironman movies.
In essence the jump from 2g to 3g to 4g is quite similar (upgrading of existing cell tower equipment) I know this because I just installed a signal booster in mukah water treatment plant that gave me strong celcom connection locally. It's basically the same device
But the jump from 4g to 5g is on an entirely different scale altogether. It's almost an entirely new technology all together. I'm not sure who will actually be the beneficiary of the new technology or which company will actually be profitable from it long term.
A new version in high speed internet technology around the globe that can benefitted many semiconductor stakeholders . Dufu share price has been performing impressively of late not to mention those under Forbes list unisem, vitrox and etc .
Posted by (HK1997 again) Philip > Aug 20, 2019 10:16 PM | Report Abuse
But the jump from 4g to 5g is on an entirely different scale altogether. It's almost an entirely new technology all together. I'm not sure who will actually be the beneficiary of the new technology or which company will actually be profitable from it long term. ======
Philips has a good balanced take on 5G.
Magic will happen in China.....for Malaysia, it be be a long time.
TSMC to see revenues surge in 2020 Monica Chen, Hsinchu; Jessie Shen, DIGITIMES Wednesday 21 August 2019 0 Toggle Dropdown Growing chip demand for 5G- and AIoT-related applications will boost TSMC's revenues for 2020, which are expected to climb over 10% on year, according to industry sources.
TSMC is also set to generate record-high profits next year, driven by growing sales from 7nm and more advanced process technologies, the sources indicated.
TSMC should be able to see its revenue growth continue to outperform the industry average this year, said the sources, adding that the pure-play foundry is expected to post a slight revenue increase in 2019.
Nevertheless, TSMC is unlikely to post another year of record-high profits this year, due to lower-than-expected profits during the first half of the year, the sources continued.
TSMC has started volume production of chips built using N7+, the foundry's first process node with EUV lithography, since the second quarter of 2019. Huawei, Apple, AMD and Qualcomm are reportedly among TSMC's EUV customers.
TSMC's N7+ node is believed to be more competitive than rivals' due to higher and more stable yield rates, the sources believe.
In addition, TSMC has introduced its 6nm process incorporating EUV with risk production scheduled for the first quarter of 2020. Target applications include high-to-mid end mobile, consumer applications, AI, networking, 5G infrastructure, GPU, and high-performance computing.
As for TSMC's 5nm process technology, regarded by the foundry as "a large and long-lasting node," volume production is slated to kick off during the first half of 2020. Apple is reportedly among the first customers adopting the foundry's 5nm EUV process.
Demand for TSMC's EUV processes is set to become robust starting 2020, when 5G commercialization kicks off, according to market watchers. The availability of 5G networks will be driving chip demand for various terminal devices ranging from network equipment, smartphones, IoT, HPC to automotive.
TSMC CFO Lora Ho said at the company's investors meeting in July that the foundry expects to post an around 18% sequential increase in third-quarter revenues, thanks mainly to growing demand coming from the smartphone and IoT sectors. Ho continued that she believes the fourth quarter will be an even stronger quarter for TSMC, as chip demand for smartphones continues to ramp up coupled with a pick-up in demand for HPC applications.
They can live without US chips, but will have to sacrifice some performance
For example, if they can't get Qualcomm latest modem chips , they won't go bust. They can use back their own less efficient chip, but probably need to add some cooling mechanisms
So it still will work, but might be a bit more bulky
I am a trader.....for traders, Bursa is enough....other exchanges too much leakages, double commissions and forex....as a trader, London biscuit drop to 11 , now 14 , I got too much at 16, dare not average at 11.............
For investors who keeps a couple of years, transaction costs are not relevant.....................
Even though 5G is the next big thing, I dont see there would be drastic action in the next 2 years at the very least.
Unless you are really a geek, you probably have no idea what 5G really is all about except that you know its great in speed. In reality, it is a bit more complex than that. 5G technology is so different than 4G that it poses technological challenges that 4G dont face. The biggest one would be coverage. It operates on a much higher frequency band and as with higher frequency band, the signal dont travel a great distance. Higher frequency also have harder time penetrating materials.
Hence I think for certain countries (I think Malaysia included), you will only get 5G in dense area like city center, universities or government buildings. 5G would benefit since the deployment area is not too big and have huge users to utilize the additional bandwidth gained with 5G. Whereas for the rest, we will most probably be stuck with 4G for 2-3 more years until they made a huge step forward to increase the range of the tower as well as reducing the cost of the equipment even further. As for now, I think only certain countries will be benefiting from 5G roll out.
But all the semicon bosses very upbeat of the 5G business prospect wor. Who are we to oppose? If you scared you wait and see the next quarter earnings only decide lo. They say 2019 second half business will rebound strongly.
5G means the need to start making new mobile phones(Apple, Samsung). Making new mobile phones means the need to make new chips(TSMC,Micron) and test it(Inari,MPI). Making new chips means the need to make machines(Vitrox, Penta). Make machines means the need to maintain the machine(Frontken). New internet speed means the need to make new computer and thus hard-disk(Dufu) and gaming chips too(Nvidia).
every year there will be a handful of stocks that will do well and a lot don't. If you spread your money into 50 stocks, at best a mediocre result, and unlucky can lose 10% or more. Because Bursa alone is so difficult , people like Philips and Icon have to go global to find out- performance.
This book is the result of the author's many years of experience and observation throughout his 26 years in the stockbroking industry. It was written for general public to learn to invest based on facts and not on fantasies or hearsay....
qqq3
13,202 posts
Posted by qqq3 > 2019-08-20 18:04 | Report Abuse
Trump's technology war means TSMC is the best share in the world......................