Toshiba Fails to Pick Winner as Three Groups Bid for Chip Unit

Toshiba Corp. disclosed it’s in talks with three consortiums for its memory chip unit and that it’s still unable to make a final decision on a buyer.
There’s one group that includes Western Digital Corp., a second that includes Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. and a third comprised of Bain Capital, the Innovation Network Corporation of Japan and Development Bank of Japan. The board hasn’t been able to choose a winner even though the company “exercised its best efforts to reach a mutually satisfactory definitive agreement with one of the consortia,” Toshiba said in a statement Thursday.
The Japanese electronics conglomerate has been negotiating for months to sell off its chips business and pay for multibillion-dollar losses in its U.S. nuclear business. Although Toshiba identified the Bain-led group as the preferred bidder in June, the process has been complicated by legal action from Western Digital, which argues that it should have a say in any sale because of its partnership with Toshiba in the chips business.
Toshiba needs to raise the money by March to avoid being delisted from the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Any delay could result in it missing that deadline because of the time needed to get regulatory approval and close the deal.
“They need to come to an agreement in September to get all of the anti-trust approvals in place, but it’s really beginning to feel like they don’t really want to sell.” said Hideki Yasuda, an analyst at Ace Research Institute. “They could still keep the business. If Toshiba is not so hung up on staying public, they can get delisted and still survive.”

Any successful bidder would need to be able to pay enough cash to repair Toshiba’s balance sheet and finance large capital investments in the chip business after the purchase, the Japanese company said in its statement. The buyer would also need to possess the ability to make decisions flexibly and quickly, it said. The Tokyo-based company said it’s aiming to reach an agreement at the “earliest possible date.”

Bain Capital had previously submitted a 2.1 trillion yen ($19 billion) offer with INCJ and Development Bank of Japan. Western Digital is offering about 2 trillion yen, according to people familiar with the matter. Hon Hai founder Terry Gou has indicated his willingness to pay as much 3 trillion yen.
Apple Inc. is also wading into into the middle of the battle. The iPhone maker is in talks with Bain Capital , people familiar with the matter said this week. Apple depends on flash memory from Toshiba in its iPhones and iPods, and wants a continued supply so it’s not dependent on rival Samsung Electronics Co.
In recent weeks, Japan’s powerful Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry had encouraged Toshiba to accept the offer from the Western Digital consortium, the people said, in an effort to end the litigation and reach a deal quickly. Top Toshiba executives and its deal advisers are resisting the current offer, arguing it doesn’t do enough to protect the interests of the chips unit or the parent, the people said.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-31/toshiba-says-in-talks-with-3-groups-no-decision-on-chip-sale

Winbond announces equipment purchases

Winbond Electronics, a memory chipmaker specializing in specialty DRAM and flash memory chips, has disclosed two purchases of machinery equipment from Lam Research and Tokyo Electron for a total of about NT$3.31 billion (US$109 million).

Winbond said previously its capex for 2107 will reach a record NT$17.4 billion, up from the NT$16.6 billion estimated previously.

Winbond plans to expand production capacity at its 12-inch fab in Taichung, central Taiwan to 48,000 wafers monthly by the end of 2017 from the current 44,000 units, the company was quoted in previous reports. The monthly capacity will grow further to 53,000 units in 2018.

Winbond also plans to build a new 12-inch wafer plant in Tainan, southern Taiwan, according to the company. Details of the new plant will be given later in 2017.

Winbond saw its net profits reach a nine-quarter high of NT$990 million in the second quarter of 2017. EPS for the quarter came to NT$0.28. Winbond posted consolidated revenues of NT$11.41 billion in the second quarter, up 9% sequentially. Gross margin climbed to 32% from 29% in the prior quarter.

http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20170823VL201.html

Counterfeit products caught out by machine-learning tool

Nearly every high-value object – from watches to helicopters – will suffer from the manufacture of counterfeits.
The growth of the market for counterfeit consumer products has proved a major problem all around the world. Researchers have found that counterfeit trafficking has increased by 10,000 per cent in the past 20 years and now makes up 5-7 per cent of the world’s trade. Profits collected by counterfeit traders have been shown to be a major source of funding for activities such as human trafficking and terrorism.
Existing methods to detect counterfeit products tend to be invasive and risk damaging high-value products. Researchers at New York University have now developed a new, non-invasive detection method which only requires a high-quality photograph of the product.
“The underlying principle of our system stems from the idea that microscopic characteristics in a genuine product or a class of products – corresponding to the same larger product line – exhibit inherent similarities that can be used to distinguish these products from their corresponding counterfeit versions,” said Professor Lakshminarayanan Subramanian, who leads the Open Networks and Big Data Lab at New York University.

The hardware necessary for their detection method is a wide-angle microscopy device, compatible with a smartphone. This allows the user to capture a microscopic image of the object being tested. Based on these microscopic images, supervised machine-learning algorithms – trained on a dataset of known genuine and counterfeit products – are able to classify the product.
According to the researchers, the use of microscopic photographs allows for the detection of “‘super-fake’ counterfeits observed in the marketplace that are not easily discernible [by] the human eye.”
Professor Subramanian and his team put the system to the test with images of fabric, pills, leather, electronics, toys and shoes. They found that the system returned accurate results approximately 98 per cent of the time
The counterfeit detection system is being brought to market by Entrupy Inc, a start-up founded by Professor Subramanian and colleagues. So far, Entrupy has assessed $14 million of products for authenticity.

https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2017/08/counterfeit-products-caught-out-by-machine-learning-tool/

Single molecule transistors work at room temperature

For the first time a team of researchers from Columbia University in the city of New York claims to have reproducibly demonstrated current blockade – the ability to switch a device from the insulating to the conducting state where charge is added and removed one electron at a time – using atomically precise molecular clusters at room temperature.

According to the research team, this could enable smaller electrical components and improve data storage and computing power.
To create the transistor, the researchers developed a single cluster of geometrically ordered atoms with an inorganic core made of 14 atoms and positioned linkers that wired the core to two gold electrodes.
The researchers then used a scanning tunneling microscope technique to make junctions comprising a single cluster connected to the two gold electrodes, which enabled them to characterise its electrical response as they varied the applied bias voltage. The technique is said to allow them to fabricate and measure thousands of junctions with reproducible transport characteristics.
"We found that these clusters can perform very well as room-temperature nanoscale diodes whose electrical response we can tailor by changing their chemical composition," says Professor Latha Venkataraman.
"Theoretically, a single atom is the smallest limit, but single-atom devices cannot be fabricated and stabilised at room temperature. With these molecular clusters, we have complete control over their structure with atomic precision and can change the elemental composition and structure in a controllable manner to elicit a certain electrical response."
"Most of the other studies created single-molecule devices that functioned as single-electron transistors at 4K, but for any real-world application, these devices need to work at room temperature. And ours do," says postdoctoral researcher Giacomo Lovat.
The team evaluated the performance of the diode through the on/off ratio. At room temperature, they observed an on/off ratio of about 600 in single-cluster junctions, which they claim is higher than any other single-molecule devices measured to date.

http://www.newelectronics.co.uk/electronics-news/single-molecule-transistors-work-at-room-temperature/159602/

Nvidia invests in China self-driving startup

Tusimple, a Beijing-based startup focused on developing autonomous trucks, has disclosed that Nvidia will make a strategic investment to take a 3% stake in the company. Nvidia's investment is part of a a Series B financing round, Tusimple indicated.

Tusimple has plans to raise more than US$30 million through this financing round in the fourth quarter of 2017. The company previously completed its Series A financing round in early 2016 and raised a total of CNY50 million (US$7.5 million).

Nvidia's investment in Tusimple is part of the GPU vendor's GPU Ventures program, industry observers believe.

According to Nvidia, its GPU Ventures program is aimed at supporting startups across the globe as they build their businesses around GPU-based platforms. Nvidia is targeting startups that are aligned with its strategy in fields as diverse as artificial intelligence (AI) and life sciences to automotive, robotics and virtual reality (VR). The GPU vendor has invested in more than 25 companies, building relationships that span strategy, technology, sales and marketing, development and distribution, and beyond.

Momenta, another China-based self-driving startup, has also drawn investments from an international vendor. Mercedes-Benz parent Daimler has reportedly participated in a US$46 million funding round for Momenta.

http://digitimes.com/news/a20170808PD216.html

ON Semiconductor reports whopping jump in profit, sales thanks to healthy sector

ON Semiconductor Corp. reported a 266 percent increase in profit and a 52 percent increase in revenue year over year due to a healthy semiconductor market.

The Phoenix-based semiconductor manufacturer (Nasdaq: ON) announced its second-quarter earnings today.

ON reported net income of $94.4 million, or 22 cents per share, on revenue of $1.3 billion for the quarter ended June 30.

That compares to net income of $25.8 million, or 6 cents per share, on revenue of $877.8 million for the same quarter a year ago.

Keith Jackson, president and CEO of ON Semiconductor, said “impressive margin expansion and strong free cash flow generation in the second quarter clearly demonstrate the strength of our operating model.

“Along with expansion in our margins, our revenue momentum remains strong, driven by strengthening customer engagement for power, analog and sensor semiconductor solutions,” Jackson said. “Customers are increasingly relying on us as a provider of enabling technologies for automotive, industrial and communications applications.”

The good news continues as Jackson said “commentary from our global customers and macro-economic data point to steadily improving demand for our products from most end-markets and geographies.

“Along with steadily improving demand environment, industry-wide supply side dynamics remain generally healthy with stable inventory levels and disciplined capacity additions,” he said.

ON’s stock closed trading today at $16.33, which is closer to its 52-week high of $16.93 than its low of $10.03.

https://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2017/08/07/on-semiconductor-reports-whopping-jump-in-profit.html

Toshiba to Cut Off Western Digital's Future Supply of Chips

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-04/toshiba-escalates-western-digital-fight-by-cutting-off-supply

The latest escalation of the fight between the two centers on a new factory called Fab 6. Toshiba said it will build the plant without any participation from its U.S. partner, thereby cutting off Western Digital from chips made with the factory’s new technology. Western Digital inherited its stake in the joint venture when it bought SanDisk Corp.
“Toshiba is dismayed by Western Digital’s pattern of exaggerating SanDisk’s rights under the relevant agreements,” the Tokyo-based company said Friday in a statement. “Despite claims to the contrary, Western Digital does not now possess any legal ‘rights’ to participate in this phase of investment, which is an important investment in the next generation of flash memory.”
Western Digital soon countered with a statement of its own, saying Toshiba’s position is wrong and affirming its rights.
“The terms of the agreements and our related legal rights are clear, and we remain confident that we will receive our share of any capacity from Fab 6,” the San Jose, California-based company said. “We are continuing our constructive dialogue with Toshiba on this and other matters.”
The two companies are locked in a legal fight over Toshiba’s plan to sell its share of the joint venture to make up for multibillion-dollar losses in its nuclear power operations. Western Digital argues that it has a say in the sale, as well as right of first refusal. Further legal wrangling could delay the sale to a group of preferred bidders, putting Toshiba at risk of being delisted.

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Aspects of the dispute have spilled over into court. Western Digital said a judge in San Francisco on Friday agreed to change a temporary restraining order -- prohibiting Toshiba from blocking Western Digital employees access to shared databases and other joint-venture facilities -- into a preliminary injunction. The order also requires Toshiba to continue to supply materials and sample wafers to Western Digital in the U.S.
Western Digital needs to retain access to output from new Toshiba factories as improvements in manufacturing technology are one of the key determinants of success in the memory chip industry. Newer plants and equipment typically produce better semiconductors more cheaply.
Toshiba said the talks haven’t proved fruitful.
“Toshiba provided an investment proposal to SanDisk earlier this year,” it said in the statement. “Despite numerous meetings and negotiations, including at the CEO to CEO level, Toshiba’s proposal was not accepted on the timetable set out in the agreements. ”
Western Digital shares declined 4 percent Friday to close at $81.17 in New York. The stock has gained 19 percent this year.
Toshiba, in its current partnership with Western Digital, is the second-largest producer of flash memory chips used to store data in mobile devices. Demand for that component is exploding as its use spreads to computers and data centers. Samsung Electronics Co. is the largest manufacturer.

Memory supply to remain tight in 3Q17, says Transcend

Supply of DRAM and NAND flash memory chips is expected to remain tight through the third quarter of 2017, according to memory module firm Transcend Information.

Due to the ongoing tight supply, memory contract prices will continue their growth in the short term, Transcend indicated.

Tight supply of NAND flash chips, particularly triple-level cell (TLC) ones for use mainly in consumer flash devices, negatively affected Transcend's sales performance in the second quarter. The company posted revenues of NT$5 billion (US$165.5 million) in the second quarter of 2017, down 6.3% on year.

However, with Transcend putting increased focus on niche-market products, the company saw its gross margin increase to 26.2% in the second quarter of 2017 from 21.1% a year earlier. Operating profits for the quarter came to NT$930 million, rising 33.8% compared to the same period in 2016.

Of Transcend's second-quarter revenues, industrial control products accounted for 43.6%, followed by standard DRAM products with 19%, consumer flash devices 18.9% and strategic products 18.5%.

Transcend reported net profits of NT$776 million for the second quarter of 2017, with EPS reaching NT$1.80.

http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20170804PD202.html