Catching up on some of the news from the last thirty days or so, let’s start with some market data: according to market research firm Omdia, in the third quarter of 2021 the semiconductor market surpassed $150 billion and Samsung Electronics overtook Intel as number one semiconductor firm in the revenue ranking, on the strength of its memory business. Moving to some fab updates, Samsung has officially confirmed it would build a new semiconductor manufacturing facility in Taylor, Texas, with an estimated $17 billion investment. TSMC, for its part, will build a specialty technology fab in Kumamoto, Japan, with Sony Semiconductor Solutions participating as a minority shareholder.
Credit: Omdia
FTC sues to block Nvidia’s acquisition of Arm
As widely reported by many media outlets, the United States’ Federal Trade Commission filed a law enforcement action to block Nvidia’s acquisition of Arm, “to preserve competition in markets for computer chips used in datacenters and in automotive advanced driver assistance systems.” The administrative trial is scheduled to begin on August 9, 2022. The FTC’s position about the “anticompetitive effects” of the proposed acquisition is described in detail in this twenty-four-page document.
