Around the web
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Shipments to iPhone assembler Pegatron's factory in China were being held for scrutiny by Chinese customs officials a day after the company's senior executive met with US House speaker Nancy Pelosi in Taipei.
Nikkei Asia
TSMC CEO CC Wei said he had never had an auto industry executive call him until the shortage was desperate. "In the past two years they call me and behave like my best friend," he told a laughing crowd of TSMC partners and customers in Silicon Valley recently. One automaker called to urgently request 25 wafers, said Wei, who is used to fielding orders for 25,000 wafers. "No wonder you cannot get the support."
Reuters
Samsung Electronics has scaled back production at its massive smartphone plant in Vietnam, employees say, as retailers and warehouses grapple with rising inventory amid a global fall in consumer spending.
Reuters
Despite the challenging macroeconomic and geopolitical situation, Infineon has reported another robust quarter with revenue of ??,618 million, up 10% sequentially and 33% year over year, in the third quarter of its fiscal year 2022. The Munich, Germany-based chipmaker has raised its revenue forecast for the full year 2022.
EE Times
China has begun live fire military drills - its biggest-ever in the region - in the waters around Taiwan.
BBC News
Keith Krach, former Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment in the Trump administration, speaks on the significance of the CHIPS Act, which has since been passed by the House in a 243-187 vote.
EE Times
The Biden administration has been weighing a potential ban for months, but has elected to order the Commerce Department to issue a new rule that will effectively block the export of chip design software that's required to make chips with an emerging technology called gate all around, according to a person familiar with the administration's plans.
Protocol
Washington had banned the sale of most gear that can fabricate chips of 10 nanometers or better to Chinese leader SMIC without a license. Now it has expanded that barrier to equipment that can make anything more advanced than 14 nm, Lam Research CEO Tim Archer told analysts.
Bloomberg
Apple reported an almost 11% decline in profit after weathering supply constraints and shutdowns in China, although iPhone sales continued to grow, remaining resilient despite economic challenges.
Wall Street Journal
China has signalled that it may miss its annual economic growth target, as Covid restrictions weigh on the world's second largest economy.
BBC News
China has begun a series of investigations into key figures responsible for shaping chip policy and investment, raising questions about the impact on Beijing's blueprint for challenging US dominance of a US$550 billion industry.
Bloomberg
The US economy has shrunk for the second quarter in a row, a milestone that in many countries would be considered an economic recession.
BBC News
STMicroelectronics expects its factories to run at full steam well into 2023 as the chipmaker's backlog is filled by the car and smartphone industries, prompting it to raise its 2022 outlook and build new production lines.
Reuters
The European Central Bank (ECB) has raised interest rates for the first time in more than 11 years as it tries to control soaring eurozone inflation.
BBC News
Hyundai Motor, factory robot builder ABB and Swedish fridge maker Electrolux see the semi-conductor chip shortage easing, executives said Thursday, in a boost for manufacturers after a long struggle for components.
Reuters
SoftBank has put on hold plans for a London initial public offering of Arm because of the political turmoil in the UK government, throwing doubt on Britain's place as the future home of the Cambridge-based tech giant.
The Financial Times
Intel has informed customers it will raise prices on a majority of its microprocessors and peripheral chip products later this year, citing rising costs, Nikkei Asia learned.
Nikkei Electronics Asia
China's economy contracted sharply in the second quarter of this year as widespread coronavirus lockdowns hit businesses and consumers, with its GDP falling by 2.6% sequentially.
BBC News
Intel today announced that its board of directors has declared a quarterly dividend of $0.365 per share ($1.46 per share on an annual basis) on the company's common stock. The dividend will be payable on Sept. 1, 2022, to stockholders of record on Aug. 7, 2022.
Company release
SK Hynix is considering cutting its 2023 capital expenditure by about a quarter to KRW16 trillion (US$12.2 billion) in response to slower electronics demand than anticipated, people familiar with the matter said.
Bloomberg
Inflation, the rate at which prices rise, hit 9.1% in the 12 months to June and increased by 1.3% from May alone, according to the US Department of Labor.
BBC News
Bosch will invest EUR3 billion (US$3.01 billion) in chip production by 2026, including on opening two new development centres and expanding a wafer factory in Dresden, the company said on Wednesday.
NASDAQ.com
A supply chain crisis triggered by the global pandemic deprived makers of PCs and smartphones to cars of computer chips needed to make their products. All that suddenly changed over three weeks from late May to June, as high inflation, China's latest COVID lockdown, and the war in Ukraine dampened consumer spending, especially on PCs and smartphones.
Reuters
Instead of using an Exynos SoC for the upcoming Galaxy S23 series, perhaps Samsung should fully embrace Qualcomm.
SamMobile
The US is pushing the Netherlands to ban ASML Holding from selling to China mainstream technology essential in making a large chunk of the world's chips, expanding its campaign to curb the country's rise, according to people familiar with the matter.
Bloomberg
Global exports of semiconductors to Russia have plummeted by 90% since the United States and allies slapped export controls on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine, US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said on Wednesday.
Reuters
The British government has delayed for another two months its final judgment on whether to allow the acquisition of Britain's largest semiconductor plant by a Chinese company.
The Financial Times
Apple is previewing a groundbreaking security capability that offers specialized additional protection to users who may be at risk of highly targeted cyberattacks from private companies developing state-sponsored mercenary spyware. Apple is also providing details of its US$10 million grant to bolster research exposing such threats.
Company release
South Korea's export growth slowed sharply in June, partly due to a shorter work month but also as a result of softer global demand, as the nation ran a trade deficit for a third consecutive month.
MarketWatch
Facebook-owner Meta Platforms has cut plans to hire engineers by at least 30% this year, CEO Mark Zuckerberg told employees on Thursday, as he warned them to brace for a deep economic downturn.
Reuters
Taiwan's industrial sector, including the world's largest contract chipmaker, will be hit with the island's first power price increase in four years as the state-owned utility grapples with soaring fuel costs.
Bloomberg
US Commerce Department Secretary Gina Raimondo on Monday stepped up pressure on Congress to approve $52 billion in funding for chipmakers to expand operations, warning that firms would abandon American expansion plans without the legislation.
Reuters
"Both Berlin and Austin factories are gigantic money furnaces right now," the Tesla CEO said in a video interview with Tesla Owners of Silicon Valley posted online Wednesday. The comments, part of a broader discussion filmed May 31, offer new insight into Tesla's operations in the days leading up to Musk's decision to cut costs by laying off employees. The reductions will affect about 10% of Tesla's salaried workers over the next three months, or about 3.5% of its global workforce.
Fortune
Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) plans to suspend most production at its Shanghai plant in the first two weeks of July to work on an upgrade of the site, according to an internal memo seen by Reuters. After the upgrade, the U.S. automaker aims to boost the plant's output to a new record high by the end of July to get closer to its goal of producing 22,000 cars per week in Shanghai, according to the memo.
Reuters
Tesla Inc. is taking steps to ramp up output at its factory in Shanghai, partly suspending manufacturing capabilities at various points through early August to upgrade production lines. The US-based electric carmaker plans to double its original planned annual target to 1 million cars, according to people familiar with the matter. It will halt most production on its Model Y assembly line for the first two weeks of July while an upgrade is underway.
Bloomberg
Two people died this week when a Nio electric car crashed to the ground from the third floor of a parking lot in Shanghai.
CNN
Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) will offer subsidies worth up to JPY476 billion (US$3.5 billion) for a semiconductor plant being built in Kumamoto Prefecture by TSMC, Sony and Denso, the ministry said on Friday.
Nikkei Asia
When the Senate passed a rare bipartisan measure last summer to spend US$52 billion subsidizing computer chip manufacturing and research in the United States, it seemed like an easy legislative priority for both parties. But one year later, the funding still isn't signed into law.
Washington Post
SoftBank's founder and Chief Executive Masayoshi Son on Friday reiterated the Japanese conglomerate was most likely to list British-based chip designer unit Arm on Nasdaq, while stressing no decision has been made.
Reuters
Meta, Microsoft and other tech giants racing to build the emerging metaverse concept have formed a group to foster development of industry standards that would make the companies' nascent digital worlds compatible with each other.
Reuters
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