IC design industry previously due to the end of the market demand is not vibrant, tight control of inventory, inventory has recently reached a relatively low level, the client began to bet on the end of the year in Europe and the United States, the mainland shopping season buying opportunities, restart the replenishment tide. Some industry players said bluntly, "Even if the traditional peak season is not very strong, the second half of the year seems to be not as bad as imagined.

It is understood that this wave of IC design industry at the end of the replenishment wave is not comprehensive, mainly individual manufacturers, the same application groups may not be a full recovery. The industry is still prudent to respond to the relevant order momentum, to prevent "today's pulling goods, and become tomorrow's inventory to be demineralized", the focus still depends on the traditional shopping season such as Double 11, Thanksgiving, Christmas and other end of the shopping season the actual buying power.

Market demand continues to be affected by the war, inflation and other factors, some end-use applications are still weak, IC designers said that some downstream customers want to "gamble", order in response to the mainland double 11, double 12 and Europe and the United States at the end of the shopping season, want to sprint a wave of end of the year performance. Clients have been stocking up from August and September, driving related performance, and the performance should still be good in October even if both sides of the Taiwan Strait have a long vacation.

There are also IC design houses pointed out that the first half of this year is still in the inventory adjustment period, the performance is poor, the second half of the year because the agents and the client's inventory has been digested more or less, the performance gradually tends to normal.

IC design industry before the order visibility is mostly poor, the industry mentioned, compared with the previous, now see the short-term rush single situation has improved a lot, order visibility is gradually recovered.

In terms of product categorization, the outlook for cell phone applications is still not good. For Huawei's re-emergence, whether it adds more market variables, IC designers assessed that with Huawei's brand positioning, the first to bear the brunt of Apple, and the other industry players are affected by the relatively light degree.

As for PC/NB applications, some industry insiders believe that this quarter will return to the normal seasonal effect of the electronics industry, meaning that the performance may be slightly lower than that of the 3rd quarter.

As for IC quotes, some IC designers said that it is now back to the normal quarterly bargaining mode. Another IC design industry admitted that the offer is still on the low side at this stage, and the gross profit is not good.

TSMC advanced packaging capacity bottleneck improvement, coupled with non-TSMC system of back-end sealing and testing co-factory capacity to help, the industry is optimistic that the AI chip supply chain is not smooth situation is expected to improve faster than expected, in favor of this year's fourth quarter to next year's AI chip shipments continue to release.

Legal analysis, semiconductor advanced packaging types of diversified, previously the attention of the CoWoS production capacity tight part, because TSMC actively expand the front part of the process, the relevant new production capacity to open, coupled with the back section of more customer certified partners to join, help improve the tight production capacity situation, the previous big traffic jam of the AI chip order is expected to be smooth volume, leading to more key components and materials demand.

Phaidon has recently confirmed for the first time that it has certified the production capacity of other CoWoS packaging suppliers as backup to ease the tight production capacity situation. The legal person speculates that the certified CoWoS packaging suppliers, in addition to TSMC is the main supplier actively expanding production, will also be part of the front section outsourcing, expanding the back section of the collaborative sealing partners, including the UMC, Sun Micron and the U.S. sealing and testing maker Eckel (Amkor) and so on.

Among them, UMC will prepare silicon intermediary layer (Interposer) capacity for the front section of the CoW process, while SPIL and Amkor, a subsidiary of Sun Micron, will be responsible for WoS packaging in the back section, making it another non-Taiwanese CoWoS supply chain.

Legal person pointed out that, in addition to Phaidon to develop supplier sources, so that there is a mass production performance partners to join the follow-up long power, Samsung Group, Smart Road Capital / Hon Hai system of advanced packaging is also invested in the relevant research and development, long-term material demand growth, in addition to the Wahlap has been positioned CoWoS materials, Chong Yueh Technology is also the agent of the relevant materials.

TSMC Chairman Liu Deyin mentioned in an interview after his speech at the "SEMICON Taiwan 2023 Masters Forum" in September that the shortage of AI chips is not a shortage of chips but a shortage of CoWoS advanced packaging capacity. TSMC is doing its best to support its customers and expects that its technical capacity will catch up with customer demand in a year and a half, and the current shortage is a temporary, short-term phenomenon.

The memory market has recently been reduced for nearly a year due to major memory chip factories, and the supply continues to decrease. With the end demand warming up slightly, the prices of DRAM and NAND Flash memory have risen synchronously. The company expects that the end of the shopping season in Europe and the United States and the Chinese Lunar New Year purchasing season in mainland China early next year will continue to drive DRAM and NAND Flash prices upward.

Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron and other memory chip makers continue to regulate production capacity, the market supply has been reduced in recent quarters, the market demand from the third quarter onwards began to show signs of a gradual warming, so that the recent channels to stay below the healthy level of the success of the brewing of memory prices for a new wave of upward trend.

The industry pointed out that OEM / ODM factory locked the second half of this year in Europe and the United States before Thanksgiving and Christmas shopping season, as well as early next year in mainland China's Lunar New Year shopping demand, began to restart pulling the demand, driven by DRAM, NAND Flash and other memory quotes rose.

Even if the market demand warms up, the industry still expects that global memory makers will not blindly increase the amount of film casting this year, and will restart production expansion only at the end of the first quarter or the beginning of the second quarter next year at the earliest.

On the other hand, due to the machine into the idle (idle), at least may take one to two months to join the ranks of the re-production, so the production capacity may have to wait until the end of the second quarter or the beginning of the third quarter, on behalf of the recent quarters of the DRAM, NAND Flash supply is still "only reduced, not increased," becoming one of the main driving forces of the rise in prices.

According to the latest report from research organization TrendForce, the average price of NAND Flash is expected to remain flat or rise slightly in the fourth quarter of this year. Meanwhile, the DRAM market is also expected to rise synchronously from next year due to the output control effect of memory makers.