Combined shipments of the global top 5 notebook brand vendors dipped 5% on month and went down over 30% on year for the second consecutive month in August due to ongoing demand shrinkage as a result of the weak global economy, slower-than-expected digestion of the vendors’ channel and raw material inventory, the vendors having pessimistic outlook of the notebook market, and the influence of the power curb in China’s Sichuan Province, according to DIGITIMES Research’s latest Notebook Tracker figures.

Global NAND flash makers are on track to start a new round of competition in producing 3D NAND chips with over 200 layers after Micron Technology announced commercial production of the world’s first 232-layer NAND at its Singapore fab in late July 2022. Geopolitical tensions may add unpredictable variables to the future development of the industry.

Taiwan’s IC design houses including MediaTek, Novatek Microelectronics and Realtek Semiconductor have sharply increased their new development projects for the next 1-2 years despite cutting orders placed with foundry partners amid weakening demand from downstream consumer device clients, according to industry sources.

MediaTek is set to mass produce its new HPC chips at TSMC in 2023 using advanced process node and CoWoS (chip on wafer on substrate) packaging technology, according to backend supply chain sources.