In the first half of 2024, aggressive stockpiling by terminal manufacturers led to an early depletion of demand, resulting in a lackluster peak season for the display panel industry. This downturn significantly impacted Taiwanese polarizer suppliers, such as BenQ Materials and Cheng Mei Materials Technology, which reported revenue declines due to sluggish market conditions

Honda has stated that revisions to its electric vehicle (EV) roadmap will be made if the demand for pure EVs continues to dip. This move reflects a growing trend of major automakers slowing down their pace of EV development

As global semiconductor firms invest in compound semiconductors, Japan-based companies are stepping up their efforts on gallium nitride (GaN) to expand its applications beyond electric vehicles and to produce larger GaN wafers, reports Nikkei, Nikkan, and Nikkan Jidosha Shimbun

LG Electronics' Business Solutions (BS) division plans to nearly double its revenue in the B2B market to KRW 10 trillion (US$7.4 billion) by 2030, focusing on commercial displays and electric vehicle (EV) charging solutions. Despite selling LG Display's (LGD) Chinese LCD factory, the company assures that this will not significantly affect its operations, thanks to its supply chain diversification strategy

Intel has reportedly approached senior executives at Samsung Electronics with a proposal to form a "foundry alliance" against the market-dominating TSMC. This move comes in the wake of Intel and Samsung finding themselves in hot water with both of their foundry operations. The potential collaboration between these two major players has become a focal point of interest within South Korea's industry

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is set to visit India later this week, where the GPU and AI chip design company reportedly plans to co-develop a chip, capitalizing on the country's abundant talent pool and vast market potential

Xiaomi's self-developed 3nm chip has begun taping out, marking the first 3nm mobile SoC launched by a Chinese company, with TSMC anticipated as the manufacturer. However, neither Xiaomi nor TSMC has confirmed this information, and shortly after the news broke, related video reports were removed

The silicon carbide (SiC) substrate market appears to be oversupplied, but it takes more than just comparing production capacity and actual demand to understand the real picture, according to Wen-Chung Lee, general manager of Latent Technologies (Latentek)

TCL Zhonghuan, a leading Chinese manufacturer of solar silicon wafers, has reportedly reduced its factory utilization rates, sharply cutting the working hours for its workers, according to industry sources

In mid-October, Yuichi Horita, president of JASM, TSMC's subsidiary in Japan, announced that the fab will operate on 100% renewable energy upon its launch, setting a precedent ahead of TSMC's headquarters in Taiwan. Additionally, construction for the second wafer fab will begin by the end of 2024

Rapidus, the Japanese semiconductor manufacturer aiming for mass production of 2-nanometer (nm) chips, is making significant progress on its first factory located in Chitose, Hokkaido. According to a report by Nikkei, the Agency for New Industry Cluster of Hokkaido (ANIC) estimates that by fiscal year 2036 (ending March 2037), the presence of Rapidus will generate an economic impact totaling around JPY18.8 trillion (approx. US$120 billion)

The Chinese automotive supply chain is facing intense competition, with the industry's profitability continuing to decline. Profit margins have dropped below 5%, prompting Hong Li, president of leading power semiconductor manufacturer CR Micro, to call for an end to blind investments in new factories to escape this relentless cycle of competition

At a public event in China, Jianguo Tang, the chief economist at the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Economy and Information Technology, inadvertently declared that Xiaomi's self-developed 3nm SoC has successfully undergone tape out, which has garnered significant international attention

Former South Korean ministers recently gathered to assess the challenges facing the country's semiconductor industry. They cautioned that while South Korea currently leads globally in the memory sector, the nation could lose its fundamental competitiveness within five years if issues such as technological limitations in the AI era, competition from China, and insufficient power supply are not addressed

Samsung Electronics has been unable to obtain Nvidia's certification for its fifth-generation high-bandwidth memory, the HBM3E, for almost a year. This has led to speculation about the reasons behind this, with some attributing it to the history of tensions between the two giants