Taiwanese foundry TSMC and its collaboration with major EDA partners make up a large part of this week’s news roundup. Other foundries are in the news as well. But first, a quick look at some market data and investment trends.
EDA record revenues
Record numbers are being reported for the Electronic System Design industry: as announced by the ESD Alliance, revenue increased 17.5% from $3,191.4 million in Q2 2021 to $3,748.7 million in Q2 2022. The four-quarter moving average, which compares the most recent four quarters to the prior four, rose 15.3%. As noted by Wally Rhines, the EDA industry in Q2 2022 posted the highest year-over-year increase in over a decade, and all product categories and geographic regions recorded growth in the quarter.
Fab capex reduction
Several chipmakers, however, are cutting their planned capital expenditure citing weaker consumer demand. Among them Taiwanese foundry UMC, which will reportedly reduce its capex by almost a fifth, and South Korean memory maker SK hynix, which has decided to cut its investment next year by more than 50% YoY, citing an unprecedented deterioration of the market conditions in the semiconductor memory industry as uncertainties in the business environment continue.
