According to the latest reports from Russian media, the country’s CPU manufacturing company Baikal Electronics is on the verge of bankruptcy and is preparing to auction its assets. It is currently selling intellectual property assets worth US$5 million. It is reported that Russian CPU manufacturer Baikal is part of T-Platforms, a company specializing in ultra-large-scale computing. It can be said that it is a "wind vane" for the Russian market to encourage independent production of domestic CPUs, because the company has done a lot of work on its Baikal-M series of products. Baikal even tried integrating Baikal CPU into laptops, but such laptops failed to gain acceptance in the industry. A recent benchmark test of the company's Baikal-S processor showed that it was unable to beat products launched by Intel and Huawei back in 2019, suggesting that the chipmaker's approach is "outdated." It has been previously reported that Baikal Electronics aims to move towards ASICs for the artificial intelligence industry, which may be one of the reasons why its CEO sees asset sales as an opportunity. Perhaps the company has decided to shift its focus entirely to artificial intelligence, which is the right move given the industry’s current “AI gold rush.”

According to the latest news, AI chip orders remain high, making TSMC’s advanced packaging CoWoS production capacity continue to be in short supply. In June, it was reported that the gap was as high as 20%. Now TSMC is accelerating production expansion, and it is also chasing orders from equipment manufacturers, requiring suppliers to do their best to shorten delivery. period support. Previously, it was reported that due to strong orders from HPC customers such as Nvidia, TSMC’s advanced packaging CoWoS production capacity was tight, with a gap of 10-20%, and customers requested TSMC to expand CoWoS production capacity. TSMC also confirmed that due to the sudden increase in demand for AI orders, the demand for advanced packaging is much greater than the existing production capacity, and now it is forced to urgently increase production capacity. In fact, the supply of AI GPUs is in short supply, and the main bottleneck is CoWoS packaging. As an advanced packaging technology, CoWoS was originally used in niche markets such as high-speed computing. The main customers are Nvidia, Google, AMD, and Amazon. The cost is relatively high, about 4,000 to 6,000 US dollars per wafer, much higher than TSMC’s other packaging technology InFO $600. Now CoWoS has become a widely used packaging technology in the field of HPC and AI computing. Most of the high-performance chips using HBM, including most start-up AI training chips, have applied CoWoS. As for the shortage of GPUs, semiconductor equipment manufacturers said that the main reason is that Nvidia and TSMC previously estimated that their annual production capacity and orders were quite conservative. They did not expect the demand for HPC chips such as AI GPUs to erupt, and the CoWoS wet process with a small production capacity Advanced packaging equipment is difficult to meet. In addition, the lead time for some packaging equipment and components is as long as 3 to 6 months, and the new production capacity will be slowly in place at the end of the year at the earliest. In other words, there will be a shortage of goods in the next six months. For TSMC, the expansion of CoWoS is the current focus. Recently, industry sources said that due to the high demand for CoWoS, TSMC pursued orders from equipment manufacturers at the end of June, requiring suppliers to fully shorten the delivery time support. Some equipment manufacturers said that TSMC's advanced packaging production capacity is dominated by InFO, and its main customer is Apple. CoWoS production capacity will increase significantly in the second quarter of 2023, driven by Nvidia's large-scale production capacity. It is estimated that TSMC's annual production capacity in 2023 will be at least 120,000 In 2024, the production capacity can be expanded to nearly 175,000-200,000 pieces, and Nvidia has contracted 40% of the production capacity in advance. In 2023, the second and third largest customers are Broadcom and Xilinx respectively. It is worth mentioning that, in addition to AMD's MI300 series launch in the fourth quarter, the order scale squeezed into the top five, Amazon and TSMC are getting closer and closer. 2024 will be the third largest CoWoS customer.

Recent news indicates that after experiencing two consecutive quarters of declining revenue and net profit, Texas Instruments (TI) lowered chip prices in the Chinese market in May, attempting to seize more market share during the darkest moments before the industry's recovery. As we all know, analog chips can be divided into general-purpose analog chips and dedicated analog chips. General-purpose analog chips include power management and signal chain, which are the main targets of TI's price reduction strategy, especially in the field of power management chips, where many Chinese companies have developed considerable scale and products that have gradually gained a foothold in the high-end market. Therefore, most industry insiders believe that power management chips are the main targets of TI's targeted attack. Currently, TI only has one authorized agent in China, Arrow Electronics. After its product line was fully reduced in price, other electronic component agents quickly noticed the market changes, and some other overseas analog chip companies' market shares in China began to be impacted. Many market insiders believe that TI's price reduction strategy in China is likely to show results in the second quarter of this year. Its revenue is expected to rebound, but its profit performance will not change significantly due to the impact of the price reduction strategy. It is worth noting that we are currently at the cyclical bottom of the semiconductor industry. TI's price reduction strategy at this turning point needs to attract the attention of local analog chip companies because once the market begins to rebound, TI will inevitably take the largest share of the cake in the next wave of the market. Some analysts believe that although some dedicated analog chips with longer verification cycles and more dispersed types have not been affected, if TI's price reduction strategy continues to extend, it is only a matter of time before customers switch back to imported products. It is important to note that TI has a more complete range of products, with more than 80,000 chip products, while the Chinese analog chip company with the most products, Sunlord Electronics, has only over 4,000 products. Furthermore, TI's price reduction strategy has, to some extent, ended the domestic substitution dividend in the analog chip industry. Domestic manufacturers should no longer be satisfied with the current situation of "being able to use" and "being sufficient" for their products. They should instead polish their products to the level of "being good to use" with a sense of urgency and think about how to break through the cost barrier to cope with the pitfalls that TI has laid down through price reductions and the opportunities hidden in the next wave of market rebound.

With the global semiconductor shortage, refurbished chips began to circulate in the supply chain. This will bring quality risks to many products and harm the interests of manufacturers and end consumers. So what exactly are refurbished chips? What are the risks? Today INSKCHIP will give you a detailed introduction What are the common types of refurbished chips? 1. Disassembled Products: used products are removed from recycled PCB boards, and then refurbished through processes such as grinding, coating, re-typing, re-tinning, and whole feet; Features: The model has not changed, the surface of the product body has traces of grinding and re-coating, and the pins will generally be re-tinned or re-balled (depending on the package);If it has been screened by functional tests, it can generally be used normally, but the defect rate may be higher, and the reliability is not so good, which is why some customers know that they are refurbished but still buy it. It can't be helped, only refurbished; 2. Counterfeit Products: After grinding and coating refurbishment, the material of type A is marked with type B material (the price is more expensive, the market is more scarce, and it is better to sell). Features:This kind of counterfeit product is very scary, and some functions are No, it can't be used at all, it's just the same package;There are also some packages, without grinding and coating, you can directly clean the silk screen (Marking), and then put on other models, generally more grades (that is, commercial grades are changed to industrial grades, or industrial grades are changed to automotive grades, military grades, etc.); 3. The Old Year Becomes The New Year: the old year's material, the price is not good, and it is not easy to sell, and then after grinding and coating, re-typing, marking the new year (the price is higher than the old year, the customer is more willing to accept the new year material); Features: There are traces of grinding and coating on the surface of the body, and the pins are generally untreated (unless the pins of the old materials are oxidized or deformed, etc.), this material can generally be used normally; 4. Re-Tinning/Re-Balling: some old materials or materials that are not well preserved, the pins are oxidized, which affects the machine, what should I do? After processing, re-tinning or re-balling, the pins look beautiful and easy to use; Features: The surface of this material has not been treated, but the pins have traces of re-tinning or re-balling. If the treatment is not good, there will be residual tin slag on some pins. The general function is normal. It's just that the reliability is not so good, and the risk of use is high; 5. Lead-Free to Lead-Free: generally appear in BGA packages, especially for old materials, replace lead-containing solder balls with lead-free solder balls, that is, re-ball; Features: The screen printing format may be different from the new version, there is no environmental protection mark, the surface of the body is not treated, but the leaded solder balls are replaced with lead-free solder balls; 6. Original defective products: After the original factory has been tested, some products with inconsistent parameters will be eliminated. Some of these materials will be scrapped by the original factory, and some will flow to the market through special channels. Because the batches are many and miscellaneous, they will Someone re-sanded, coated, marked with a unified batch, re-packaged, easy to sell! Features: The defect rate is relatively high, there will be traces of re-grinding and coating on the surface of the body, and the pins are generally not treated; 7. Original factory mantissa or samples of multiple batches: Because the batches are many and miscellaneous, some original factories will re-polish the coating by themselves, mark a unified batch, make a complete package, and pack and ship; Features: The function is normal, but there are traces of re-grinding and coating on the surface of the body The types of refurbished chips can be roughly divided into the above 7 types. For customers who are not in the chip industry, it is difficult to distinguish between original and refurbished. So it is very important for them to find an honest supplier. INSKCHIP, as a chip distributor with 9 years of experience and annual sales of over 30 million US dollars. The "customer first" philosophy is the number one reason we have survived for so long.