IF / News

Chipsets

OPPO and vivo have both reportedly decided to use MediaTek Helio P30 series chips in their upcoming models slated for launch in 2H17. In addition, with an inventory correction in the China smartphone industry supply chain coming to an end, MediaTek is expected to see demand from its China-based clients pick up starting the end of 2Q17. (My Drivers, Digitimes, press)

Samsung Electronics will spin off its foundry operation from the System LSI division to create an independent business unit. With this move, Samsung’s two-pronged organization consisting of memory and system LSI will be split into three including the foundry business. (EE Times, Korea Economic Daily, CN FOL, Caijing)

Touch Display

Touch panel maker TPK Holdings has reportedly quoted USD18~22 for 3D Touch solution for use in Apple’s new OLED iPhone and Apple has accepted the quote. For 3D Touch solution used in existing iPhone series, TPK and fellow maker General Interface Solution (GIS) quote USD7~9 per smartphone. (Apple Insider, Digitimes, press, UDN, Laoyaoba, Sohu)

Corning announces Samsung Display’s selection of Corning Lotus NXT Glass as the carrier glass for its line of polyimide (PI) low-temperature polysilicon (LTPS) organic light-emitting diode (OLED) panels, which the Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+.  (BM, Laoyaoba, Globe Newswire, TechNews)

Memory

Intel’s Optane Memory tech showcases what 3D Xpoint memory can do on a limited scale, but the potential for Optane extends well beyond hard-drive acceleration. Intel began shipping Optane DIMMs to partners for testing early this year, and the company committed to delivering Optane DIMMs as a product called “Intel persistent memory” alongside a refresh of its Xeon Processor Scalable family called Cascade Lake. Both the persistent memory product and Cascade Lake CPUs will arrive sometime in 2018. (My Drivers, CN Beta, Tom’s Hardware, Tech Report, PC Gamer)

According to the analyst of DRAMeXchange Avril Wu, the consolidated DRAM revenue for 1Q17 rose by 13.4% versus the prior quarter. From the supply side, additional DRAM manufacturing capacity will become available in 2H17 at the earliest mainly to meet the demand related to shipments of new smartphones and PCs during that period. As for 2Q17, the mobile DRAM market has cooled down temporarily, but the server DRAM market is still quite hot. (TrendForce, press, TrendForce[cn], press, Laoyaoba)

Biometrics

Synaptics has announced an advanced anti-spoofing security suite called SentryPoint, which the company claimed is the “industry’s highest level of secure biometric fingerprint authentication.” Synaptics said that its software can make the difference between a spoofed fingerprint and a real finger. The company achieves this by checking for the fingerprint’s “liveness.” (CN Beta, Laoyaoba, Hot Hardware, Tech Report, Tom’s Hardware)

Connectivity

Samsung Electronics is the latest company to announce that they have been elected to the board of the 5G Automotive Association Board, also known as 5GAA. (Yonhap News, Android Headlines, Samsung)

Smartphones

Spotify has announced the acquisition of Niland, a small machine learning startup whose technology will help deliver song recommendations to users.  (Apple Insider, Spotify, Sohu, Sina)

OPPO has allegedly scrapped the Find series along with its N series, replacing both with the mid-range R series and the A series. OPPO will also release a high-end flagship at 2H17. (Gizmo China, Sohu)

PCs / Tablets

The upstream supply chain’s shipments for Apple’s new 10.5” iPad Pro have been increasing recently and the device’s monthly shipment volume is expected to grow to 600K units in Jul 2017, up from around 500K units currently, helping its annual shipments to reach 5M units in 2017, according to Digitimes. The 10.5” iPad Pro began mass production in Mar-Apr 2017. (Digitimes, press, Apple Insider, Sina, Laoyaoba)

There will be 35.08M tablets shipped globally during 2Q17, decreasing 5.7% on quarter and 13.7% on year, according to Digitimes Research. iPad models will account for 25.4% of the shipments, tablets launched or to be launched by other international vendors for 47.3% and white-box units for 27.3%, Digitimes Research indicated. (Digitimes, press)

Wearables

According to SuperData Research, corporate R&D spend on virtual reality (VR) technologies will hit USD4.03B in 2017, topping 2016 figure by almost USD700M. It also suggests that the number is expected to rise to over USD4.56B in 2018, which would represent an increase of more than 10% on year.  (Android Headlines, VR Focus, The Virtual Report, 936VR)

Internet of Things

The world’s largest private equity fund, backed by Japan’s Softbank Group and Saudi Arabia’s main sovereign wealth fund, said it had raised over USD93B to invest in technology sectors such as artificial intelligence and robotics. (CN Beta, TechCrunch, Business Insider, WSJ, Reuters)

Microsoft’s co-founder Bill Gates says these 3 fields have the most potential to change the world: AI, Energy and Biosciences. (CN Beta, CNBC)

According to Digital Times using IHS Markit’s data, after acquiring Harman on 11 Mar 2017, Samsung has jumped to top 8 of global automotive electronics company. In 2014 and 2015, Harman was ranked at top 9, and in 2016 with mere infotainment system, Harman has generated USD3.36B revenues, a 19% increase on year, and jumped to top 8. (Laoyaoba, EE Focus, Yonhap News, IHS Markit)