The growing AIoT sector presents a stark departure from traditional supply chain models that Taiwanese chip manufacturers have long relied upon for mobile phones and PCs. This emerging market demands a fundamentally different approach to succeed.
Europe's industrial control and automotive sectors remain sluggish, with weak demand and excess inventory likely delaying recovery until the second quarter of 2025, according to IDMs and IC distributors. Recovery remains uncertain, with global macroeconomic conditions and potential trade policies under Donald Trump adding further volatility.
MOSFET provider Force Mos Technology has secured a legal victory in a patent infringement lawsuit against Asus, with the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas ruling in its favor on February 13, 2025. The court found Asus guilty of willful infringement and ordered the company to pay US$10.5 million in damages.
PixArt Imaging reported strong financial results for the fourth quarter of 2024, primarily fueled by robust mouse product sales. Despite an anticipated slight dip in gaming mouse revenue share, the company projects stable revenue for the first quarter of 2025, driven by growth in other mouse categories and the upcoming launch of a major client's game console in the first half of 2025.
UK-based semiconductor IP giant Arm is reportedly expanding its efforts in chip design, with plans to release its first self-developed processor as early as summer 2025. Reports indicate that Meta Platforms is among its initial customers, signaling a potential shift in Arm's role within the industry.
Chinese AI company DeepSeek has initiated a major recruitment drive for semiconductor design talent, signaling potential plans to develop its proprietary processors, according to industry sources in China.
Due to the continuous expansion of China's mature process capacity and the ongoing requests from downstream customers for price reductions, the industry is very curious about the wafer pricing that IC design companies will secure for 2025. Recent earnings calls have confirmed that many companies have successfully negotiated wafer prices for 2025 that are better than those for 2024 or have gained additional cost benefits through discounts.
Meta is reportedly in talks to acquire South Korea-based startup FuriosaAI, as major tech companies are increasingly developing and advancing their own AI chips to reduce reliance on expensive Nvidia chips.
Nvidia's high-end RTX 50 series launch, originally set for January 2025, has been postponed to March, according to notebook supply chain sources. This delay also impacts the mid-range and entry-level models, moving their release from March to April.
Novatek Microelectronics, Taiwan's leading display driver IC (DDI) maker, reported a fourth-quarter 2024 revenue of NT$25.263 billion (US$768 million), marking a 9.34% sequential decline and 6.97% year-over-year decrease. The company's performance, though affected by seasonal consumer demand softness, exceeded its financial forecast.
Holtek Semiconductor expects robust performance in the first quarter of 2025, driven by broad increases in microcontroller (MCU) demand and the company's expanded target markets.
MediaTek and Realtek, two of Taiwan's top IC design firms, are bullish on network chips, citing strong momentum heading into 2025. Even in the first quarter, advance orders are emerging amid tariff concerns, signaling a potential demand surge.
The emergence of generative AI (GenAI) has triggered a surge in AI server demand, leading to severe Nvidia GPU shortages. The resulting profit windfall far exceeds that of the previous cryptocurrency mining boom. The strengthening MediaTek-Nvidia alliance is growing, with Nintendo Switch 2 launching in April 2025 and an AI PC platform debuting at COMPUTEX in May 2025. Industry rumors also hint at a potential AI smartphone chip collaboration.
Microip, a company focused on application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) design services and AI software design services, announced its revenue for January 2025 reached NT$14.51 million (approx. US$442,555), marking an increase of 489% month-over-month and 229% year-over-year.
TSMC has notified several Chinese IC design companies that their chips at 16/14 nanometers or smaller nodes lack "approved OSAT" status on the US BIS whitelist and proper certification signatures from packaging facilities, leading to suspended shipments.
MediaTek reported impressive January revenue of NT$51.144 billion (approx. US$1.56 billion), marking a 22.7% increase from the previous month and a 14.94% rise year-over-year. This performance brings the company's sales back above NT$50 billion, a milestone not often achieved, aligning with its optimistic forecasts for the first quarter of 2025.
Amazon has revealed that its in-house designed Trainium 2 processor is gaining traction among potential users, including Qualcomm, who are participating in its early-stage evaluation. Additionally, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy announced that the roadmap for developing the AI training processor series has already extended to Trainium 4. Furthermore, Amazon's chip design team is currently working to integrate the Trainium and the AI inference chip series Inferentia.
Onsemi reported fourth-quarter revenue declined 15% year over year to US$1.72 billion, missing expectations. With lower margins and a weak first-quarter forecast, analysts express concerns about the automotive sector, pointing to a disappointing outlook and elevated inventories.
The strengthening alliance between MediaTek and Nvidia has drawn intense industry attention, particularly regarding their joint development of AI PC platforms. While MediaTek has maintained silence on specific future developments, their partnership continues to yield notable results.
Jim Keller's career has been shaped by interactions with some of the most influential figures in the semiconductor industry. As Jim Keller entered his forties, he met a figure at Broadcom who left a profound impression on him—Henry Samueli. While working together on client visits, Keller's product presentations were so unpolished that, after three days, Samueli could no longer bear to watch and took over.
While Taiwan's semiconductor and server sectors have thrived in recent years, traditional industries have faced mounting challenges. In response, the government has proposed encouraging these industries to form industrial holding companies to achieve economies of scale. However, this initiative has met with mixed reactions from industry players and has struggled to gain widespread support.
US President Donald Trump's proposed new semiconductor tariffs could create an unexpected windfall for India's growing tech sector, according to industry experts.
While the release of an open-source model by Chinese AI startup DeepSeek has been met with widespread acclaim in China, mainstream US media have responded with cautious scrutiny, raising concerns about potential privacy and national security risks. However, US President Donald Trump unexpectedly has taken a notably different stance on DeepSeek.
Chinese smartphone brands and system-on-chip (SoC) designers are showing increased optimism about demand for premium devices, driven by the country's new consumer electronics subsidy program. This development particularly benefits Qualcomm and MediaTek, which are strengthening their flagship smartphone SoC offerings while their competitor Apple faces growing market challenges in China.
Baidu has launched its third-generation Kunlun AI chip cluster, marking China's first domestically developed large-scale AI computing deployment. The company's 10,000-GPU Wanka cluster began operations in early 2025, though nearly a year behind schedule. Baidu AI Cloud plans to further expand its computing infrastructure with an upcoming 30,000-GPU cluster deployment.