Today's hot spots
1. Micron's price increase! The Pollution Incident of Western Digital Armored Man triggered a wave of price increases
2. The standard DRAM spot price hit a new half-year high
3. Semiconductor talents are in short supply, and Korean companies have successively abolished the retirement age system
4. The message says that the Intel X86 core license will be open
01 Micron big price increase! The Pollution Incident of Western Digital Armored Man triggered a wave of price increases
According to the Taiwan media "Economic Daily", the impact of production obstruction caused by raw material pollution in western data and jiaoxia in Japan is still continuing. The supply chain revealed that it received a notice from Micron that the NAND chip contract and the spot price rose twice, the contract price rose by 17% to 18%, and the spot price was more than 25%, which is the company with the highest known increase at present, and Taiwan factories such as Qunlian, Weigang, and Yuzhan will benefit from the price increase. (For details, please check today's headline push)
Previously, Qunlian has reported the news of raising the module quotation by 15%, and Western Digital has also sent a letter to customers to plan the price adjustment, but did not disclose the increase. The industry pointed out that after the outbreak of the Western Digital and Armored Man incident, the price increase or suspension of quotations in the same industry was expected, but the original market expected price increases of about 15%, Micron rose more than expected, and the spot price rose more than 25%, highlighting that the impact of related events was greater than expected, and the follow-up price increase wave was likely to appear wave after wave.
Industry insiders said that because the contract price is negotiated monthly, Micron's price increase is almost immediate and is expected to be fully reflected in early March. The next observation focuses on the actions of the two Korean industry companies of the leading Samsung and SK Hynix, and if the two major factories also raise prices, it will push up this wave of price increases.
02 The standard DRAM spot price hit a new half-year high
According to the Taiwan media "Industry and Commerce Times" reported that by the upstream DRAM factory product line conversion, capacity allocation and strict control of capital expenditure, the DRAM supply released to the spot market has continued to decrease this year, but the inventory water level in the hands of market channels and ODM/OEM factories has remained low, the standard DRAM spot price has slowly risen, and the mainstream 8Gb and 16Gb DDR4 granule spot prices have hit a new half-year high since September last year.
The market had expected DRAM demand to slow down after the Lunar New Year, but in fact, the buy order to replenish inventory continued to strengthen. Module manufacturers said that in the second half of last year, due to the backlog of personal computer or server orders due to chip shortages, this year has begun to ship one after another, with the demand for replenishment inventory rebounded, but the supply of goods released to the spot market by the three major DRAM plants in the first quarter continued to decrease, so the spot price was pushed higher.
03 Semiconductor talents are in short supply, and Korean companies have successively abolished the retirement age system
According to the Korean media BusinessKorea, Samsung announced that it will introduce the abolition of the retirement age system through the reform of the personnel management system, with the purpose of preemptively responding to changes in the environment such as population aging and talent disconnection, and also creating a corporate culture that respects the accumulation of professional knowledge and experience. Samsung's current progress on this is in the process of formulating specific implementation guidelines.
In addition to Samsung, Another South Korean technology giant, SK Hynix, previously launched the Honorary Engineer (HE) system in December 2018, allowing outstanding technical experts to continue working even after retirement at the age of 60. In addition, SK Hynix has planned to train engineers at in-house universities who are not subject to retirement age restrictions. Among them, among the retired senior employees of SK Hynix University (SKHU), which was established in-house in 2017, retired senior employees have become teachers at the university within the company to continue to pass on their knowledge to a new generation of colleagues.
04 Message said the Intel X86 core license will be open
According to The Register, Intel will open up the soft and hard core licenses of the x86 architecture, enabling customers to mix different CPU IP cores such as x86, Arm and RISC-V in custom-designed chips manufactured by Intel.
In the conference calls of the previous earnings reports, TSMC always emphasized its advantage as a wafer foundry, that is, it can fully gain the trust of customers so that the two sides can work closely together. In contrast, the manufacturing operations of IDM manufacturers such as Intel are relatively closed, and even asset-heavy fabs and production lines have become a burden on their operations. Before Pat Gelsinger took office, there were rumors in the industry that Intel was shutting down its manufacturing business, and after Intel announced the "IDM 2.0" strategy, its stock price even fell.
With the shortage of wafers and the scrutiny of supply chain security in many countries, chip manufacturing has once again become the focus of the supply chain, and the voice and profitability in the supply chain have risen. After the strategic shift, Intel began to invest heavily in the construction of factories in order to seek to restore its position in the chip manufacturing industry. The opening of the x86 architecture will become an important part of its foundry service strategy, reflecting its manufacturing openness, cooperation point of view, or becoming a "killer" to attract customers in competition with wafer foundries.