SAN JOSE— Capital expenditures and installed semiconductor manufacturing capacity is on the rise, and 2011 will be a record year for equipment expenditures, according to the SEMI World Fab Database.
SANTA CLARA, CA – Whitebox vendors are the fastest growing segment of the worldwide tablet PC market, says DisplaySearch. Whitebox tablet PC players increased shipments to 1.9 million units in the first quarter of 2011, up 235% sequentially.
China represented the largest market for whitebox tablet PCs, accounting for 44% of worldwide shipments, says the firm. Overall shipments of the tablet PC category were down 5.2% sequentially, to 9.7 million units, but up nearly thirteen-fold year-over-year.
Apple remains the leader in the tablet PC market with a 54% share, and is the leader in many aspects of the segment in terms of usage experience, hardware design and price, says DisplaySearch. The growing size of the whitebox tablet PC market, with nearly a 20% share in the first quarter, is a sign of increasing demand by the mainstream market for tablets.
The whitebox tablet PC space is made up of screen sizes primarily in the 7" and 10.1" wide categories, but also includes screens mirroring the Apple/HP form factor of a 9.7" 4:3 format.
The whitebox tablet market in emerging regions is price sensitive and is partially able to exist because whitebox tablet makers use panels left unused by major brands with slightly lower quality levels, like lower brightness, according to the research firm. Using panels from what is essentially a secondary market allows device makers to offer aggressive pricing compared to iPads. Despite some quality issues of these whitebox tablets, they remain appealing to value conscious buyers, such as students, who are shopping based on price.
Cross checks with tablet supply chain participants, such as chipset providers, indicate potential growth opportunities for the whitebox tablet market in the future. While China is the biggest market for whitebox tablet PCs, other emerging regions are also adopting these tablets, including Asia Pacific, Latin America, and parts of EMEA.
The other segments of the mobile PC market, mini-note and notebook PC, experienced sequential and year-over-year growth rates similar to tablet PCs. The mini-note segment grew 17.3% sequentially in China as a result of holiday demand, but year-over-year results declined 10.2%. The opposite occurred in the notebook segment, where shipments sequentially declined 5.9%, while shipments year-over-year slightly rose 1.6%.
FRAMINGHAM, MA -- International Data Corp. today lowered this year's forecast for worldwide PC unit shipment growth to 4.2%, citing the overall economic outlook and market saturation.
TEMPE, AZ – Economic activity in the manufacturing sector expanded in May for the 22nd consecutive month, but both new orders and production took hits.
SAN JOSE – North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $1.6 billion in orders in April (three-month average basis), up 10.8% year-over-year and up 1.1% sequentially, says SEMI.
The book-to-bill ratio was 0.98.
A book-to-bill of 0.98 means $98 worth of orders were received for every $100 of product billed for the month.
AUSTIN – Package-on-package volumes will continue to grow, with a CAGR of 31% from 2009 to 2015, a leading research firm says.
Applications driving this double-digit growth include mobile phones (especially smartphones), tablets, games, iPods, and digital cameras, TechSearch International says.
“When Amkor ramped PoP in 2005, the mobile processor clock was 330 MHz with a 0.65mm pitch interface to the top SDRAM/NOR combo memory," said Lee Smith, VP of marketing and business development at Amkor Technology. "Now processor speeds exceed 1 GHz with a 0.4mm pitch interface to the top low power DDR, with near term roadmaps exceeding 2.5 GHz and high-density PoP interfaces supporting two channel LP DDR2. With more than four billion mobile processors forecasted for smart device applications in the next four years, PoP growth and advancements will continue at a high rate.”
PoP provides a cost/performance solution that solves business and logistics issues associated with stacking devices directly – something that cannot yet be met by 3D TSV technology, according to TechSearch. Memory and the logic packages can be tested separately before assembly. Standardization of the top memory package footprint allows memory packages from various suppliers to be interchanged. Memory devices are wire-bonded in the top package, but the logic device in the bottom package is migrating to flip chip, including copper pillar.
