OTHER ELECTRONICS & NANOTECHNOLOGY
INDUSTRY UPDATE
July 2020
McIlvaine Company
Coretronic Building New Plant in Vietnam
Qualcomm Opens New Testing Facility In Vietnam
Samsung Boosts Foundry Capacity with New Production Lines
for 5G And AI
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Coretronic Building New Plant in Vietnam
Backlight unit (BLU) maker Coretronic is building a new plant in Vietnam, with
plans to kick off volume production of TV BLUs in fourth-quarter of 2020, having
just inaugurated a new plant in Suzhou, China in July, according to company
sources.
Qualcomm Opens New Testing Facility In Vietnam
The deployment of 5G technology worldwide has made chip makers intensify
production further to ensure that smartphone manufacturers will have enough
hardware to meet the continually growing demand. The introduction of 5G has also
led to a need for research and testing facilities. To meet that need, Qualcomm
has announced that it is opening a “Interoperability Testing Laboratory” in
Vietnam. The new test facility will primarily cater to its research and
development needs and offer “world-class testing and engineering development
services to local OEMs and partners”.
This is the first testing facility for the California-based fabless
semiconductor company in South East Asia. Qualcomm, like many other American
tech companies, was also caught in the middle of a trade war between the US and
China. Some companies have already started moving their production activities in
China to markets like Vietnam and India. Qualcomm has decided to build its first
testing facility in Asia at Hanoi, Vietnam.
Qualcomm Vietnam test facility to assist R&D studies
The new Qualcomm testing facility is in Hanoi, Vietnam. The facility, consists
of three labs and includes: 1) the RF Lab which supports various development
activities including design review and calibrations; 2) the PPT Lab which
performs Power, Performance, and Thermal testing to help customers ensure their
products sustain the highest level of performance; 3) the Camera Service Lab
which offers camera tuning capabilities and basic image quality verification.
The company confirmed that the Modem and RF conformance lab provides pre-cert
test for GCF in Europe and PTCRB in North America. Also Read - Qualcomm launches
new Wi-Fi 6E enabled chips for smartphones and routers
The first test facility in Asia and particularly in Vietnam will support local
players like VinSmart, BKAV and Viettel. VinSmart is one of the fastest growing
smartphone brands in Vietnam and has plans to introduce 5G smartphones. Qualcomm
is the leader in 5G modem design and has introduced 5G mobile chipsets including
Snapdragon 865, Snapdragon 765G, Snapdragon 768G and Snapdragon 690 across price
point.
“Our new office and Interoperability Testing laboratory will not only offer
world-class testing and engineering development services to our local OEMs and
partners; it will also be a hub for growing local talent and contributing to the
enhancement of Vietnam’s workforce in preparation for the digital age. The Lab
also reflects our continued commitments towards Vietnam’s ambitions of becoming
a regional technology hub,” said ST Liew, VP, Qualcomm CDMA Technologies
Asia-Pacific Pte. Ltd. and President, Qualcomm Taiwan & Southeast Asia.
Editor’s Note: This article has been updated to reflect that Qualcomm has opened
a new testing facility and not factory to make 5G chipset.
Samsung Boosts Foundry Capacity with New Production Lines
for 5G And AI
The production line at Samsung's Pyeongtaek foundry in South Korea that will be
upgraded to support 5G and AI. Source: Samsung
Samsung Electronic plans to boost capacity in its foundry facility in
Pyeongtaek, Korea, to include a line that will be focused on extreme
ultraviolent (EUV)-based 5 nm and below process technology.
The new production line will focus on next generation applications such as 5G,
high performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence. The new foundry
line has just started construction and is expected to be in full operation in
the second half of 2021.
Samsung said the production facility will expand manufacturing capabilities for
sub-5 nm process technology and respond to increasing demands for EUV-based
solutions.
Samsung recently added an EUV-dedicated V1 line in its facility in Hwaseong,
Korea, which is slated to begin mass production of 5 nm EUV process technology
in the second half of 2020. With both of these new EUV lines, Samsung said its
foundry presence in this technology will increase significantly.
EUV uses 13.5 nm wavelength light to expose silicon wafers as opposed to
conventional argon fluoride (ArF) immersion technologies that are only able to
achieve 193 nm wavelengths and require expensive multi-patterning mask sets.
Extreme ultraviolet lithography uses a single mask to create a silicon wafer
layer where ArF can require up to four masks to create the same layer. EUV
lithography offers increased performance, lower power and smaller area while
improving design productivity by reducing multi-patterning complexity.
With the addition to the Pyeongtaek fab, Samsung will have a total of seven
foundry production lines in South Korea and the U.S. comprised of six 12 in
wafer lines and one 8 in line.
McIlvaine Company
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E-mail:
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