Toshiba Announces the Opening of New Thai-Based Semiconductor Facility

Toshiba have today announced that their Thai-based Group company, Toshiba Semiconductor Thailand (TST), has completed its relocation to a new semiconductor manufacturing facility.

Situated 140km north-east of Bangkok, this state of the art facility has already started mass production, marking the company's recovery from the devastating 2011 flooding.

Construction of the plant began in July 2012 and limited production started in April of this year, the facility is now operating at its current target capacity and is 1.4 times the size of the flood damaged plant.

TST carries out back-end processes, the assembly and packaging of small signal devices and photocouplers, both product areas where strong demand growth is expected. Small signal devices control current and voltage in digital consumer products and are essential components in products such as smart phones and tablets. Photocouplers are widely used in industrial products, including inverters.

To read the press release in full, please visit the Toshiba website.

DRAM Prices Set to Rise in 2013

According to semiconductor market research company, IC Insights, DRAM average selling prices have increased each month throughout 2013. The price jumped an estimated 42% in quarter 2 2013, compared to the same period in 2012 following a 22% rise in quarter 1 2013.

IC Insights forecast that the DRAM average selling price will grow to $2.53 by quarter 3 which will be 50% greater than quarter 3 2012. It is then expected to decrease slightly in quarter 4 to $2.52. Please see image below.

IC Insights believe that one contributing factor to the increase in DRAM price is that fewer suppliers are participating in the DRAM market today compared to 2010. Also DRAM capital spending as a percent of sales has declined from 31% in 2011, to 19% in 2012 and is forecast to be only 12% in 2013.

With a reduced amount of new capacity being added, the supply-demand balance is now favouring DRAM suppliers, as demand is beginning to overtake supply, resulting in the increase in price.

Also with the computer industry moving more towards smart phone and tablets over the traditional notebook and desktop, most suppliers have scaled back their output of lower priced PC DRAM and transitioned to higher priced mobile DRAM.

To read the article in full or to download the report, please visit the IC Insights website.

If you are being affected by price increases, why not try Atlantis' Scheduling Service. Your orders can be scheduled up to 12 months in advance, so you get fixed prices, meaning no surprise price fluctuations!

6 Substances Added to the SVHC Candidate List

In June 2013, the European Chemical Agency (ECHA) updated the Candidate List of Substances of Very High Concern (SVHC) to include 6 more substances. The current list contains 144 substances which will be added to over time. Follow this link to see the SVHC list in full.

According to the draft multi-annual work programme 2014 – 2018 which was published back in May of this year, ECHA expects to receive 50 substance proposals per year in this five year period.

The table below shows the new additions to the list. To read this article in full, please visit the SGS website. The notification deadline for the 6 new substances added to the Candidate List is 20 December 2013. 

Welcome to Atlantis Electronics' New Blog!

I would like to personally welcome you to Atlantis' new blog where we intend to post news, updates and information regarding the electronics industry and to keep you up to date with what's going on here at Atlantis.

We strongly believe in sharing industry information openly and freely with our customers and anyone within the electronics industry. We will aim to regularly post about topical industry news, including any updates on counterfeiting, shortages and lead times.

We intend this information to be informative and relevant and by no way just a sales pitch. We would also love to hear your comments and feedback, so I encourage you to leave any comments in the box below.

Also if there is anything you would like us to write about or research, any topics that are worrying you or any problems you encounter, please get in touch and let us know!