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Semiconductor Chips

Nvidia

Chip giant Nvidia nears trillion-dollar status on AI bet

In among of the biggest single-day surges in value around a U.S. stock, Nvidia Corporation’s shares soared 24 percent following its excellent income prediction revelation on Thursday that Wall Street had not yet priced in the AI technology’s ability to change the world.

The rise surpassed doubled the price of the stock during the year and brought the overall market worth of the chip designer up to over 939 billion dollars, which is a rise of roughly 184 billion dollars.

Nvidia
Image Source: businesstoday.in

Thus, Nvidia is now almost two times as big as TSMC, the second-biggest chip manufacturer in Taiwan. It is only behind Apple Inc., Alphabet Inc., Microsoft Corp., as well as Amazon.com Inc. in terms of US market worth.

Also Read: OpenAI’s ChatGPT app tops 500K downloads in just 6 days

The positive news also prompted a surge in the chip manufacturing sector and for businesses with a strong focus on artificial intelligence, propelling share markets from Japan to Europe. While the stock of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. closed 11 percent better, the other Tech Giant companies ended in the range of 0.6 percent and 3.8 percent higher in the US.

consequently, the business’s strength in the marketplace for the processors that power ChatGPT along with many other services like it, experts hurried to increase their price objectives on Nvidia stock, including 27 raising their opinion that all paths in AI led to it.

Over the past twelve months, the average price goal has nearly doubled. Nvidia’s worth is expected to be near that of Alphabet under the maximum scenario, a 644.80 dollar price goal from Elazar Advisors, which values the company at 1.59 trillion dollars.

“In the 15+ years we have been doing this job, we have never seen a guide like the one Nvidia just put up with the second-quarter outlook that was by all accounts cosmological, and which annihilated expectations,” Stacy Rasgon of Bernstein said.

Source: money.usnews.com

The 5th most valuable US firm, Nvidia, forecast a quarterly profit on Wednesday that was over 50 greater than the usual Wall Street prediction & stated that it might have a greater number of AI chips available in the second half to satisfy an increase in consumption.

As generative artificial intelligence is included in each good and service, CEO Jensen Huang estimated that a total of one trillion dollars of present equipment in data centers would need to be substituted with AI chips.

The outcomes are encouraging for giant Tech firms, who have moved their attention to artificial Intelligence in the belief that the technology can boost need at a time when their key revenue generators, cloud computing as well as digital advertising, are experiencing force from an economic downturn.

Also Read: Windows 11 finally gets native RAR support

According to several analysts, Nvidia’s outcomes demonstrate that the generative artificial intelligence surge may be the next major economic catalyst.

“We’re really just seeing the tip of the iceberg. This really could be another inflection point in technological history, such as the internal combustion engine – or the internet,” said Derren Nathan, head of equity analysis at Hargreaves Lansdown.

Source: money.usnews.com
china

U.S. set to further tighten chipmaking exports to China

According to Bloomberg, the United States intends to impose even stricter limitations on the export of machinery for the manufacture of semiconductors to China.

The US government reportedly informed US businesses of the plan and informed them that the restrictions might be revealed as soon as next month. According to the report, the Biden government intends to collaborate with Japan and the Netherlands.

China
Image Source: theprint.in

The action would further disrupt the chip-making sector, which is already adjusting to regulations put in place in October. These limitations prohibited US citizens from working in China as well as other nations that might represent a threat to national security and demanded export licenses for specific machines. Additionally, there are clauses that restrict the selling or support of technology for particular product categories.

Also Read: Germany planning to ban Huawei, ZTE from parts of 5G networks

The administration intends to work with the governments of Japan and the Netherlands, two other important nations for chip manufacturing equipment, in accordance with the most recent rules. Currently, licenses are necessary for the purchase of about 17 of the expensive machines necessary for producing semiconductors, especially if Chinese clients are involved.

When Tokyo and The Hague’s limitations are taken into account, that number is expected to double. The three largest semiconductor equipment producers in the US are Applied Materials, KLA Corp., and Lam Research Corp.

They control the market along with ASML Holding NV of the Netherlands and Tokyo Electron Ltd. of Japan. Building factories with the capacity to produce the most cutting-edge chips is impossible without the availability of their finest products.

US businesses have been compelled to inform investors that losing access to the Chinese market will result in billions of dollars in lost revenue. The Biden administration has pushed Tokyo and The Hague to impose the same restrictions on their businesses in order to level the playing field and close the ring around China’s fledgling chip efforts.

The Dutch government announced earlier this week that it was planning restrictions on specific chipmaking equipment. An additional restriction to those already in place for the most advanced lithography equipment would be placed on the export of so-called immersion DUV lithography products.

The manufacturing of the most sophisticated chips in the world requires this technology. Mao Ning, a spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry, stated on Thursday that China was adamantly opposed to the limitations because they would “intervene and limit normal economic and trade exchanges between Chinese and Dutch companies.”

Also Read: Why Did Silicon Valley Bank Collapse?

Late last year, the US enacted a number of export controls, one of which barred China from obtaining certain semiconductor chips produced anywhere in the world using US equipment.

There are several areas where US-China ties are strained. Along with technology, the debate between the two factions frequently centers on Taiwan. China does not rule out using force to annex Taiwan because it views it as part of its own land. The US is Taiwan’s largest foreign supporter.

chip production

Samsung Elec to expand chip production at the largest plant next year

Despite estimates of an economic downturn, Samsung Electronics intends to expand chip production capacity at its greatest semiconductor power station next year, according to a South Korean media outlet late on Sunday.

In contrast, rival chipmakers have reduced their investment due to declining demand and chip oversupply.

chip production
Image Source: gizmochina.com

Analysts believe that Samsung’s persistence in investing will help it boost sales of memory chips in the market and assist its share price once demand starts to recover.

According to the Seoul Economic Daily, citing unnamed industry sources, Samsung intends to expand the P3 factory located in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, by incorporating a 12-inch wafer capacity for DRAM memory chips.

The plant will also be expanded with an additional 4-nanometer chip capacity, which will be manufactured under foundry contractual agreements that is, as per the client designs as stated in the paper.

P3, the firm’s largest chip production plant, started the manufacturing of NAND flash memory chips with cutting-edge technology this year.

According to the newspaper, Samsung plans to add at least ten extremely ultraviolet pieces of machinery next year but Samsung did not respond to the report.

In October, it stated that it was not planning intentionally reduce chip production, disobeying the industry’s trend of reducing production to meet mid-term to long-term demand.

“We plan to stand behind our original infrastructure investment plans,” Han Jin-man, executive vice president of memory business at Samsung, said then.

Source: money.usnews.com

Micron Technology Inc, a competitor in memory chips, announced last week that it would reduce its financing in fiscal 2023 somewhere between 7 billion USD and 7.5 billion USD, down from 12 billion USD in fiscal 2022. It would also significantly reduce capital expenditure plans in fiscal 2024, according to the firm.

Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC reduced its 2022 annual fund budget by at least 10 percent in October, sounding more careful than usual about future demand.

“The chip industry downturn will add to the difficulties of No. 2 and below chip companies, and have a positive impact on the market control of top companies such as Samsung,” Greg Roh, head of research at Hyundai Motor Securities, said in a client note on Monday.

Source: money.usnews.com
Xilinx Inc

Xilinx Inc – The Company Behind Programmable Semiconductor Chips.

Based in San Jose, California, Xilinx, Inc. is one of the leading programmable logic device manufacturers in America. The company is over 37 years old and has a glorious history of success. Xilinx is the inventor of the field-programmable gate array (FPGA) and is known for manufacturing the first fabless manufacturing model. The company is operating globally, and around 5000 people are working for the company. As of 2020, the annual revenue made by Xilinx is around US$ 3.16 billion.

The Founding Story of Xilinx Inc

Ross Freeman, Bernard Vonderschmitt, and James V Barnett II, work-fellows from Zilog (a microprocessor manufacturing company), founded Xilinx in 1984 in San Jose. The main idea behind starting the company was to develop reprogrammable chips that could be used like blank tapes. The founders could not convince Zilog to invest in FPGA, but they were able to raise $4.5 million in venture capital and design the company’s first FPGA in 1984, which they started to sell in 1985. The idea was successful. As a result, Xilinx made around $14 million in revenue in 1987.

Xilinx Inc
Image Source: flickriver.com

The Growth and Expansion

The company profits were rising year by year, and in 1989, Xilinx went public on the NASDAQ. The success also led to a new 144,000-square-foot manufacturing unit in the same area, and Xilinx had bagged contracts from companies like HP, Apple Inc., IBM, and Sun Microsystems. In 1990, the company sales crossed $100 million, and Xilinx was dominating the FPGA market. During the same time, it also expanded its operations and started to experiment with EPLDs (EPROM technology-based Complex Programmable Logic Devices). By the mid-90s, the company was also operating in Europe and Asia.

In 1994, the company launched one of the most successful series of FPGA chips and, the XC5000. These chips were a cost-effective alternative to high-volume non-field-programmable gate array products. XC3100L and XC4000L were some of the most loved chips under the same chip family. Xilinx also started to manufacture low-power devices like portable computers, peripheral devices, wireless communication gear, and digital cameras, etc. Only after ten years of Xilinx’s inception, in 1995, its annual revenue reached $550 million, and around 1000 workers were employed at different office locations of Xilinx in three continents.

Xilinx appeared in the “100 Best Companies to Work For” in 2001 for the first time at no. 14, and later, it ranked 6the (2002) and 4the (2003) in the same list. The next innovative product from the company was in 2011, the Virtex-7 2000T. It is the first product that used the 2.5 stacked silicon to offer a bigger FPGA. At the same time, Xilinx combined the  FPGA with transceivers to enhance the bandwidth with low power consumption. The company started from making programmable chips and was successful to achieve its aim of making “all things programmable”, when it introduced the 28nm SoC devices, combining an ARM core with an FPGA and new tools software under the Zynq-7000 family.

The next year, the company launched an advanced electronic design system named  Vivado Design Suite, and in 2014, Xilinx released the first 20 nm UltraScale. In 2017, Xilinx partnered with Amazon and developed new software development tools. Xilinx is also actively working in the field of machine learning and has acquired a Chinese machine learning startup named DeepPhi Technology in July 2018. In November of the same year, the Zynq UltraScale+ family microprocessor got their  Safety Integrity Level (SIL) certification, which certified that these microprocessors are safe to use in  AI-based safety- applications of up to SIL 3, in industrial 4.0 platforms of automotive, aerospace, and AI systems. Xilinx acquired Solarflare Communications, Inc in 2019 and launched a single-chip FPGA-based 100G NIC jointly with the newly acquired company. The company made revenues worth $3 billion in 2019.

The CEO at Xilinx

Victor Peng is the current CEO of Xilinx Inc. He was born in Taipei, Taiwan in 1960 and holds American citizenship. Peng has got a B.E. degree in electrical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and an M.E. degree in the same subject from Cornell University.

Peng started his career at Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in 1982, and in 1996, he joined Silicon Graphics, switching to few more jobs in  MIPS Technologies, Tzero Technologies, ATI, and later AMD in the following years. In 2008, Peng joined Xilinx and was appointed as the  Senior Vice President of the programmable platforms group in 2013. He also served the company as the senior vice president (2014) and the CFO (2017). On January 29, 2018, Peng became the CEO of Xilinx.