Apple Brings Three Big Trends in IC Manufacturing
After Apple brings portable consumer electronics trend, 3 big trends is worth to pay close attention to in IC manufacturing:
Wafer OEM market
If Apple next-gen AP chip OEM transfers from original Samsung OEM to TSMC OEM, it will benefit TSMC to promote its OEM market share in the global market, and the disparity between rivals widens, thus the leading position of TSMC in OEM market will be more stable.
Process technology development
The phenomenon including the iPhone and iPad sell like hot cakes; really drive portable electronic products market fast growth. Thanks to many requirements of portable electronic products, such as low power consumption, high efficiency, and thin short, wafer OEM industry will accelerate the ascension of high order process technology research and development from 45 nm to 20 nm and the import volume production speed, value proportion from the high order process will also promote quickly.
IC stacked technology
In portable electronics technology development, in addition to considering low power consumption, high efficiency, high capacity, high integration characteristics, and cost reduction is also the important factor, therefore, 2.5 D System in Package; SiP and 3D Through Silicon Via: TSV 3 D IC technology development and popularization will speed up.
After Apple releasing portable multimedia playback device iPod, iPhone and, iPad tablet device etc. series of products, it really drive a wave of portable electronic product sales boom, which also let apple annual revenue grow year by year from 2006 $19.3 billion to $65.22 billion in 2010, operating performance completely ignored the financial tsunami attacks in the second half of 2008.
However, from market to observe, Apple faces the challenge from partner OEM Samsung Electronics, besides Apple has taken action to safeguard the rights and interests, the cooperation relationship with Samsung, and the transformation of the main semiconductor OEM and purchase orders from Samsung, will influence the next few years global IC manufacturing industry layout.
Moreover, thanks to portable electronic products sales boom caused by Apple, it also leads to the rivals to launch portable electronic specification go beyond apple for target, which also prompted IC manufacturers in miniature advanced process and IC pile technology research is to speed up the pace.
Chip stack technology development
The iPhone and iPod series product of Apple really drives portable electronic product market fast growth. Under the condition of portable electronic product toward the short light, saving energy save electricity, high integration, high efficiency, high capacity five major development characteristics, semiconductor technology will also develop towards the end products demand. After entering the 20 nano process, miniature processing technology development will ease, and therefore, IC manufacturing technology will move toward 2.5 D System in Package (SiP) and 3D Through Silicon Via (TSV) 3D IC technology development.