Texas Instruments Sees Chip Sales Growth in Auto, Industrial

Texas Instruments Inc., which has one of the biggest customer lists in the semiconductor business, gave an outlook suggesting demand remains strong for components across industries from cars to factory equipment.
The company “saw strength across the board,” Chief Financial Officer Rafael Lizardi said. It posted its first quarter of revenue growth above 10 percent since 2010, and Lizardi forecast sales and profit in the current quarter that may be better than analysts’ projections.
The results were “driven by continued strength in industrial and automotive,” Lizardi said. “That’s where semiconductor content is growing. We believe that’s the place to be for the next 10 or 20 years.”
Texas Instruments chips are used in almost everything that has an on-off switch, making its earnings an indicator of demand across the economy. The increasing addition of electronic functions to industrial equipment and attempts to make even simple machinery smarter is driving demand for the semiconductors. The company has about 100,000 customers.
Chief Executive Officer Rich Templeton has tried to spread the company’s bets as widely as possible. Texas Instruments has moved away from digital products that are concentrated on one end device, such as modems for smartphones, and now has the broadest product lineup in the industry.
“The industrial market is doing really nicely,” said Tore Svanberg, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus & Co. “It’s the largest end market for the analog industry.”
Second-quarter profit will be 89 cents to $1.01 a share, the Dallas-based company said Tuesday in a statement. Revenue will be $3.4 billion to $3.7 billion. Analysts on average projected profit of 90 cents a share on sales of $3.5 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The company said its profit forecast includes a $30 million “discrete” tax benefit.
Texas Instruments’ first-quarter net income climbed to $997 million, or 97 cents a share, from $771 million, or 69 cents a share, a year earlier. Sales rose 13 percent to $3.4 billion. Analysts’ estimated $3.31 billion.
Shares were little changed in extended trading, following the report. They had earlier gained 1.6 percent to $82.36 at the close in New York, leaving them up 13 percent this year.
The company is the biggest maker of analog chips, electronics components that perform functions such as regulating power within a device or converting a physical action, such as button push, into an electronic signal. Its chips perform functions as varied as allowing an industrial robot to sense the environment around it to processing sound in a wireless headset.
Unlike many of its analog competitors, Texas Instruments has upgraded some of its factories to build chips on more advanced production. That’s helping it to improve its profitability.

The company also led the industry in prioritizing returning cash to investors via share repurchases and dividend payments, spending $3.8 billion on that last year. It’s also stayed away from industrywide consolidation and hasn’t made a major purchase since its 2011 acquisition of National Semiconductor, lightening its debt load and freeing up more cash.
Texas Instruments’ forecast may diffuse concern that demand was declining from the automotive industry. On March 20, Maxim Integrated Products Inc. said the U.S. auto market was weakening, while government incentives in China to help sales of electric vehicles were slowing, hurting demand for battery-management components. Maxim gets more than 20 percent of sales from the automotive market.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-25/texas-instruments-seeing-strong-chip-demand-in-auto-industrial

Self-charging battery could put an end to your phone dying

It is one of modern life’s great frustrations: for all of technology’s achievements, smartphones still have batteries that often last less than a day between charges.
The unreliable battery life on many handsets means owners are often left with the choice of waiting at home for their device to charge, or going out and running the risk of a flat battery.
But charging your phone could become a thing of the past after scientists took steps towards developing a phone battery that runs off solar power.
The researchers believe in the future it could mean phones that recharge themselves, or at least have their lifespan dramatically increased.

While solar-powered external chargers that plug into a phone already exist, the scientists at McGill University in Montreal and Hydro-Quebec, the Canadian province’s utility, have found a way to incorporate light-harvesting materials into the in-built battery.
By adding molecules with a photosensitive dye to the cathode - the battery terminal through which a phone is powered from the mains - they were able to simulate the charging process using solar power.
Tests showed it was possible to generate a small amount of power from the photo-sensitive molecules, according to the findings outlined in Nature Communications.
The scientists said they must now develop an appropriate anode, the terminal that stores and releases energy when powering a device. They said if they are successful, they will have created the first self-charging lithium-ion battery, although it is likely to take years.
“Theoretically speaking, our goal is to develop a new hybrid solar-battery system, but depending on the power it can generate when we miniaturise it, we can imagine applications for portable devices such as phones,” said Hydro-Quebec’s Andrea Paolella, who led the study.

Prototypes of a solar-powered phone have been created, but they rely on separate solar panels, which take up valuable space in the device. The self-charging battery would itself be solar-sensitive, although phones would have to be redesigned to let light into the battery.
Despite advances in processors, displays and other smartphone components in recent years, the technology in batteries has hardly changed. Advances have largely been brought about by phones getting bigger, meaning they can fit higher-capacity batteries within them.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2017/04/25/self-charging-battery-could-put-end-phone-dying/

Innovation not sole factor for growth: Morris Chang

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chairman Morris Chang (張忠謀) yesterday said that growth and innovation are two permanent values for enterprises, but innovation is not the only thing that leads to growth.
Businesses pursue growth of added value, or profits, rather than revenue growth, Chang said at an event in Taipei.
When a company grows its profits, everything becomes easy and even solving problems such as insufficient electrical and water supplies look like easy tasks, Chang said, citing his 50 years of experience as a high-ranking executive at chipmakers Texas Instruments Inc and TSMC.
Innovation, or making valuable changes, is a good approach to create added value, but it is not the only way leading to growth, Chang said, adding that capital investment expansion and creating more jobs can also spur growth.
Business model innovation is actually the most valuable and most well-known, Chang said, citing novel business models introduced by McDonald’s Corp and Starbucks Corp in the 1970s and 1980s respectively that impressed him.
McDonald’s brought fast food to the public, while Starbucks created a cult of coffee drinkers, he said.
Despite higher costs, Starbucks made enormous profits by selling coffee at US$2 per cup, much more than US$0.5 for a bottomless cup at the time, he added.
Other companies — such as Facebook Inc, Google, Amazon.com Inc and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) — have also invested in their own business models, allowing their founders to become billionaires, he said.
TSMC has demonstrated another way of business model innovation, he added.
“We create different groups of customers and offer different service models,” Chang said, adding that TSMC’s clients are other semiconductor companies, instead of computer firms such as International Business Machines Corp or Hewlett-Packard Co.
“We make wafers like other companies do ... [but] we offer custom services. Other [semiconductor] companies make commodity products,” Chang said.
However, innovation only happens in concert with market mechanisms, he said, adding that it does not occur overnight.
The steady supply of electricity and water, as well as environmental impact assessments, are some of the barriers that local manufacturers need to overcome, Chang said.
Such problems should be tackled by the government, he said.
Asked whether the central bank would help local exporters deal with the appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar, Chang said he doubts it.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2017/04/21/2003669102

Samsung completes 2nd gen 10-nanometer process

Samsung Electronics has completed the development of its second-generation 10-nanometer process, the company said.
The 10-nanometer Lower Power Plus (10LPP) increases performance by 10 percent and consumes 15 percent less power than its predecessor the 10-nanometer Lower Power Early (10LPE) process, the company added.
Samsung began mass production of 10-nanometer processors, using the 10LPE process, last year in October. It used the process for its own System-on-a-Chip (SoC), the Exynos 9, and Qualcomm's Snapdragon 835, which powers the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus.
The newer process will likely be used to make SoCs that power the Galaxy Note 8 in the fall.
The company said it will diversify its client base with the second-generation 10-nanometer process to not only mobile clients, but for computing, wearables, the Internet of Things, and networks.
Samsung will also expand its S3 line at Hwaseong to prepare for increased demand for its 10-nanometer process.
The company built 14-nanometer chips up until last year.
Samsung previously said it plans to move to 7-nanometer after 10-nanometer.

 http://www.zdnet.com/article/samsung-completes-2nd-gen-10-nanometer-process/

AUTOSHOW-Daimler says yet to choose semiconductor partner for autonomous cars

German automaker Daimler AG has yet to select a semiconductor provider for its autonomous cars' development partnership with supplier Robert Bosch, Mercedes-Benz research and development chief Ola Kaellenius said on Wednesday.
Earlier this month, Daimler and Bosch announced a strategic partnership to develop self-driving cars.
"We have not selected the computing supplier, and there are several capable options in the market," Kaellenius told reporters at a roundtable discussion at the Shanghai Motor Show.
"We are working with several partners in pre-development. What we see being available in the coming years looks very promising," he said.
Semiconductor manufacturers including Intel Corp, Nvidia, and Qualcomm have started expanding their automotive product offerings in recent months as self-driving cars drive an "arms race" among suppliers. (Reporting by Joseph White; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)

http://www.reuters.com/article/autoshow-shanghai-daimler-idUSL3N1HR1YX

INCJ looking at Toshiba chip unit auction; didn't bid in first round

The state-backed fund Innovation Network Corp of Japan is looking at the auction of Toshiba Corp's (6502.T) chip unit but did not participate in first-round bidding, INCJ Chairman Toshiyuki Shiga said on Tuesday.
Sources familiar with the matter have told Reuters INCJ may invest in the business as a minority partner - a move that would help the government prevent a sale to bidders it deems risky to national security.
"Given the size of the deal, I cannot say we won't have anything to do with it," Shiga told reporters, adding that INCJ has set up a team to look at publicly available information regarding the deal.
Shiga said, however, that INCJ is not conducting due diligence and that it would be unable to bid by itself.
The auction of Toshiba's prized chips asset is essential to the company's plans to cover multi-billion dollar writedowns at its U.S. nuclear unit Westinghouse.
Toshiba has narrowed the field of bidders for its chip unit to four suitors, sources have said: U.S. chipmaker Broadcom Ltd (AVGO.O), which has partnered with private equity firm Silver Lake Partners LP; SK Hynix (000660.KS); Western Digital (WDC.O); and Foxconn (2317.TW), the world's largest contract electronics maker.


Broadcom Ltd has put in the highest first-round offer of 2.5 trillion yen ($23 billion) while Taiwan's Foxconn, the world's largest electronics contract manufacturer, offered 2 trillion yen, one person familiar with the matter has said.
INCJ was established in 2009 to promote new and innovative technologies, with a limited fund life of 15 years. About two dozen private-sector companies including Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) and Sony Corp (6758.T) are also minority participants in the fund. Its past investments include Japan Display Inc (6740.T). 

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-toshiba-accounting-incj-idUSKBN17K0EA

Taiwan fabless IC firms seeing ramp-up of orders from China

Taiwan-based IC design houses have seen orders placed by their China-based smartphone customers ramp up for the second quarter, with demand coming from China's first-tier smartphone vendors being particularly strong, according to industry sources.

Taiwan-based fabless firms are expected to see orders from China's first-tier smartphone companies including Huawei, Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi and Gionee ramp up as much as 30% sequentially for the second quarter, said the sources.

Meanwhile, chip orders from China's second-tier and lower smartphone players for the second quarter will see up to 10% growth sequentially, the sources indicated. In fact, China-based smartphone companies with smaller scales have been hit by shortages of memory, panel and other key components in recent months, losing competitiveness against their larger peers, the sources said.

Taiwan-based IC firms have generally predicted a 15-25% sequential increase in the overall demand for Android smartphones in the second quarter of 2017, the sources suggested.

In other news, the top-five China-based smartphone vendors continue to expand their local presence in China. In 2017, the players are set to collectively take a more than 70% share of the China smartphone market, according to sources at Taiwan's IC design industry.

http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20170413PD207.html