1. Micron's products sold in China failed the cybersecurity review

According to the "Cyberspace of China" wechat official account released on May 21, the cyber security review office recently conducted a network security review of Micron's products sold in China.

The review found that Micron's products have serious hidden network security problems, which cause major security risks to China's key information infrastructure supply chain and affect China's national security. To this end, the network security review office made not to pass the network security review conclusion.

In accordance with the Cyber Security Law and other laws and regulations, operators of key information infrastructure in China should stop purchasing Micron's products. The network security review of Micron's products is designed to prevent product network security problems from endangering the security of national key information infrastructure, and it is a necessary measure to maintain national security. China firmly promotes high-level opening-up. As long as it abides by Chinese laws and regulations, foreign enterprises and platform products and services are welcome to enter the Chinese market.

2. Silicon wafer contract price loosening, manufacturers to expand production or slow down

According to the Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily quoted Taiwan, China Economic Daily, the semiconductor market recovery is not as expected, gradually hit the upstream silicon wafer market conditions. Prices have also loosened for some sizes. Looking ahead to the overall market, silicon wafer companies admit that the economy is not as good as expected, and that supply chain inventory levels are too high to bottom out until the third quarter and start to stabilize slowly.

Industry insiders believe that with the poor memory market and still high wafer stocks, if the downturn continues, subsequent wafer expansion may slow.

3. Applied materials: Memory customer spending is at the lowest level in more than a decade

Sales of applied materials, a major semiconductor equipment company, rose 6.2 percent in the fiscal second quarter of 2023 to $6.63 billion, according to Taiwan, China Electronics Times. Operating profit margin was 29.1%, down 1.5% year on year.

Looking ahead to the quarter, App expects sales will fall, but the decline may not be as dramatic as analysts generally fear. Fiscal third-quarter sales are expected to reach about $6.15 billion (fluctuating up to $400 million). Applied said memory customer spending is at its lowest level in more than a decade, but demand for equipment needed to produce chips in the automotive and industrial markets remains fairly strong, helping to offset slowing orders for smartphones and PC chip devices.

4. NXP and TSMC will jointly launch the first 16nm embedded MRAM for vehicles

On May 16, NXP and TSMC jointly announced the launch of the industry's first embedded magnetic random memory (MRAM) for vehicles using the 16nm FinFET process.

MRAM can update 20MB of code in about three seconds, compared with current standard flash memory in about a minute, which maximizes downtime resulting from software updates and allows automakers to eliminate bottlenecks caused by long module programming times. MRAM also provides up to a million times of wiping, which is about 10 times higher than flash memory and other new memory technologies of RRAM. With the requirement of the software-defined vehicle era, this feature will make MRAM ideal.

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