Taiwan-based IC designer house MediaTek reportedly is on track to roll out its first 5G SoC series, codenamed MT6885, in fourth-quarter 2019, ready for commercial production in first-quarter 2020. The 5G market may see explosive growths starting next year, but until then, the US-China trade war remains a crucial factor, plaguing markets and industries with uncertainty and disrupting seasonal patterns. Sales of smartphones in China surged 22.4% sequentially in the second quarter, but are expected to drop 7.1% in the third quarter. In China's semiconductor sector, foundry house HSMC CEO Shang-yi Chiang has told Digitimes why chiplets promise to be a solution in post-Moore's Law era.
MediaTek 5G SoC launches on track: With support from its partners including TSMC, and backend houses such as ASE Technology Holding, MediaTek's development of SoC chips designed for 5G-enabled smartphones is on schedule with volume production to kick off in the first quarter of 2020, according to industry sources.
China smartphone sales up 22.4% on quarter in 2Q19, says Digitimes Research: Sales of smartphone in the China market increased 22.4% sequentially to 93.4 million units in the second quarter of 2019 as local brands were keen to roll out new models after inventories in the channels had been partly cleared out in the previous quarter, according to Digitimes Research. On a yearly basis, second-quarter shipments were still down 1.6% from a year earlier.
China foundry HSMC to push chiplet standard formulation, says CEO Shang-yi Chiang: While Moore's Law is approaching its physical limits, only a few could still afford the expensive game of process shrink. And when the post-Moore's Law era comes, semiconductor firms, though lost in Moore's Law, may realize that there is another solution: chiplets, according to Shang-yi Chiang, CEO of China-based foundry Hongxin Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (HSMC).