NEWS
NOISE
Top semiconductor sales leaders H1 2020, in million dollars Rank 1 Rank 1 H20 H19
Company
1H20
1H19
Change (%)
38,951
32,038
22
1
1
Intel
2
2
Samsung
29,750
26,671
12
3
3
TSMC
20,717
14,845
40
4
4
SK Hynix
13,099
11,558
13
5
5
Micron
10,624
10,175
4
6
6
Broadcom
8,109
8,346
-3
7
7
Qualcomm
7,857
7,289
8
8
10
Nvidia
6,525
4,674
40
9
8
TI
6,241
6,884
-9
10
16
Hisilicon Top-10 total
5,220
3,500
49
147,093
125,980
17
Innovation
Corona prompts meteoric rise of health passport in Hype Cycle
Technologies rarely enter the Gartner Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies with a 5-20 percent market penetration, but this year, one did: health passports. This is mostly because of widespread adoption in populous countries such as China and India, where large numbers of citizens and visitors are required to use an app that indicates Covid-19 status if they want to use public transportation, for ex-
Compared to the first half of last year, the sales of the ten biggest semiconductor companies surged by 17 percent in the first half of 2020 – more than three times the industry-wide 5 percent increase. Three top-10 companies saw their sales jump by a whopping 40 percent or even more. TSMC, ranked third behind Intel and Samsung, mainly profited from a surge in sales of 7nm application processors to Apple and Hisilicon. Nvidia, at rank 8, strongly recovered from a ‘crypto hangover’: after seeing demand for graphics cards explode during the cryptocurrency mining boom, Nvidia’s sales were in the doghouse for quite a while when the boom ended. And finally, a 49 percent sales increase catapulted Huawei’s chip subsidiary Hisilicon into to the top 10, though its time in there may be short in light of US sanctions. PvG
Artificial intelligence
David Attenborough narrates Reddit threads
Garett MacGown decided that the world cannot not do without Sir David Attenborough’s narration. Using audio samples obtained from Youtube, the software programmer employed machine learning to mimic the sonorous voice of the British wildlife documentary broadcaster, now aged 94, and had him read out loud content on the community website Reddit, including threads on relationship advice. It’s not exactly the most riveting material, but the result, most people will agree, isn’t bad at all. Though the somewhat tinny sound gives away the fact that the audio is computer generated and there are some strange mispronunciations, there’s definitely an Attenborough-esque quality to it. The deepfake was created using Google’s text-to-speech software, improved by employing a software-generated voiced model trained on Attenborough’s real speech. PvG
Credit: Gartner
Source: IC Insights
ample. Gartner currently classifies health passports as being on the “peak of inflated expectations” but expects them to reach the “plateau of productivity” in less than two years. Other emerging trends to watch, according to the market researcher, include beyond-silicon electronics (such as carbon-based transistors and DNA computing and storage), the ‘digital me’ (digital representations of people) and algorithmic trust (models that ensure privacy and security of data). PvG
Semicon
A death sentence for Huawei
The global chip and smartphone industries are bracing for a major disruption after the American government yet again tightened restrictions for Huawei. US sanctions already made it impossible for the telecom company to design its own chips – because that requires software from American companies – or to have them manufactured at TSMC – because the foundry uses American semiconductor equipment for that. That still left Huawei with one option: buying off-the-shelf chips. This escape route has been all but cut off now that the US also requires a license for the sale of any chip developed or produced using US technology to the battered Chinese company. “Huawei is probably finished as a maker of 5G network equipment and smartphones once its inventories run out early next year,” stated Gavekal Research in a report. This, in turn, will hit Huawei suppliers, though the impact may be (partially) offset by competitors regaining market share. PvG 4
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