Smartphone, Tablet & integrated circuit

choi

(1) Tim Culpan, Apple Versus Samsung’s Winner Is TSMC: Riskless Return. Bloomberg, Feb 26, 2013.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/20 ... iskless-return.html

Quote:

"TSMC gets $7 in sales for every smartphone sold worldwide, according to Chief Executive Officer Morris Chang, because it’s the only company with the technology to make the chips used in the latest handsets.

"The company’s grip also extends to tablet computers. It gets about $11 from every one sold worldwide, according to Chief Financial Officer Lora Ho.

"TSMC could face a risk from Samsung, the world’s biggest maker of smartphones. The Korean company, which already makes most of its own components including displays and memory chips, is boosting production of its own mobile processors. Extending this push into areas where it’s relying on outside designers could take work from TSMC. If Samsung uses more in-house components[, as opposed to taking orders from outside companies as a foundry, Samsung will rely less on TSMC]

"TSMC generated 54 percent of sales last quarter from components used in communication devices and 16 percent from computing [PC] chips, according to a company presentation. Santa Clara, California-based Intel got 63 percent of sales from PC chips and less than 1 percent from mobile devices.  
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(2)
(a) Miriam Gottfried, Bigger Rivals Mean B&N Has a Tough Job to Kindle Enthusiasm for Nook. Wall Street Journal, Feb 25, 2013 (in the column Heard on the Street).
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB ... 20513317943432.html

My comment:
(i) I was impressed by the latest Barnes & Noble tablets (Nook HD and Nook HD+, both of which were released Nov 1, 2012). So I am sorry that they are not selling well.
(ii) There is no need to read the text. The bar chart, which may have been based on (b), is described below.

"Short Story[;] Top US tablet vendors by share of shipments in 2012

Apple 51.3%
Amazon 20.1
Samsung 8.2
ASUS 7.3
Barnes & Noble 4.1
Microsoft 1.3

Source: IDC"  

(iii) Miriam
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miriam
(iv) The German and Jewish surname Gottfried is "composed of the elements god, got ‘god’ + frid(u) ‘peace.'"

(b) Press release: Tablet Shipments Soar to Record Levels During Strong Holiday Quarter, According to IDC. Jan 31, 2013.
http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS23926713
(4Q12 worldwide market share for tablets: Apple 43.6% (4Q12/4Q11 growth 48.1%); Samsung 15.1% (263.0%); Amazon 11.5% (26.8%); ASUS 5.8% (402.3%); Barnes & Noble 1.9% (-27.7%))
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(3) One in Six PCs Shipped in Q4 2012 Was an iPad; Pads made up a third of worldwide PC shipments in Q4 2012.
http://www.canalys.com/newsroom/ ... ed-q4-2012-was-ipad
("Worldwide PC shipments increased 12% year-on-year in Q4 2012 to reach 134.0 million units, with pads accounting for over a third. Apple continued to lead the PC market, shipping 27.0 million units and taking its share over 20% for the first time. * * * The notebook market continued to falter, with Q4 volumes flat compared with the same period in 2011. The combination of the Windows 8 launch and holiday sales in Western Europe and the US had little effect on worldwide shipments"

My comment: Canalys is unique, lumping tablets with PC in its statistics (other market researchers separate the two categories).
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(4) China’s IC Market Growth Continues to Outpace Its IC Manufacturing; Future IC production in China is highly dependent on foreign firms like Intel and Samsung. McClean Report (2013 edition), IC Insights, Jan 28, 2013.
http://www.icinsights.com/news/b ... s-IC-Manufacturing/

Quote:

(a) "A very clear distinction should be made between the IC [or called chips] market in China and indigenous IC production in China.  As IC Insights has oftentimes stated, although China has been the largest consuming country for ICs since 2005, it does not necessarily mean that large increases in IC production within China will immediately, or ever, follow (Figure 2). As shown, IC production [by both indigenous and foreign chipmakers] in China represented only 11.2% of its $81 billion IC market in 2012.  Moreover, IC Insights forecasts that this share will increase only about two points to 13.1% in 2017.

(b) "In 2012, SK Hynix, TSMC, and Intel were the only foreign IC manufacturers that had significant IC production in China.  In fact, SK Hynix’s China fab had the most capacity of any of its fabs in 2012.  Last year, Intel continued to ramp-up its 300mm fab in Dalian, China (it started production in late October 2010), which is expected to give a noticeable boost to the China-based IC production figures over the next few years (the fab currently has an installed capacity of 30,000 300mm wafers per month with a maximum capacity of 52,000 wafers per month).

"In early January of 2012, it was reported that Samsung gained approval from the South Korean government to construct a 300mm IC fabrication facility to produce NAND flash memory in in Xian, China.  Samsung started construction of the fab in September of 2012 with production set to begin in the first half of 2014.  The company expects to invest $2.3 billion in the first phase of the fab with $7.0 billion budgeted in total.  This facility is targeting NAND flash production using 10-19nm feature sizes.

My comment: It is a long time coming. This is teh only reference I know of that talks about Intel's Dalian fab, since the 2010 opening.