Apple requires foundries to reduce the number of workers, and some production lines target to reduce the number of general workers by half

Good morning! On June 25, after OpenAI announced that it would terminate its services to China, domestic large model manufacturers such as Ali Tongyi Qianwen, Baidu Wenxin Yiyan, and Zhipu AI have taken action to provide free OpenAI migration solutions. Users have gradually realized "Token freedom", where should the second half of the large model go?

Hot headlines

Apple requires foundries to reduce the number of workers, and some production lines target to reduce the number of general workers by half

The Information reported that Apple has asked foundries to reduce the average manpower demand of iPhone assembly lines in the next few years, and the average manpower demand of some production lines can be reduced by about 50% compared with the past.

It's worth noting that the cost of automated iPhone assembly equipment can be hundreds of millions of dollars per year, and Apple requires foundries to bear most of the equipment investments, which were previously shelved due to cost issues. Under the leadership of Peter Thompson, Apple's vice president of operations, Apple has successfully introduced automated assembly equipment at foundries such as Foxconn, Luxshare Precision, and Pegatron, including equipment that can assemble metal brackets and flexible printed circuit boards without human intervention.

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❶ According to Apple's annual supply chain report, the total number of full-time employees at its manufacturing partners fell from 1.6 million in 2022 to 1.4 million in 2023. Among them, Foxconn disclosed information that the workshops in the Industrial Fortune Union Jiyuan Park have achieved a high degree of automation and intelligence. Among them, in the A03 and A05 workshops, nearly 500 pieces of equipment are running normally, but only more than 40 production technicians shuttle between the machines.

❷ Although the initial investment in automation is large, in the long run, it can greatly reduce the ordinary manpower demand, realize round-the-clock operation, and theoretically reduce the production cost of iPhones and other products. In the past year, Apple has acquired DarwinAI and Drishti, two companies related to production line automation. DarwinAI's AI Recognition Inspection technology is able to inspect printed circuit boards or components for defects, while Drishti's video analytics technology can identify bottlenecks or issues encountered in the production line in real time.

The "mobile AI era" is open, how do Huawei, Honor, and ZTE play?

On June 26, Mobile World Congress Shanghai (MWC Shanghai) was unveiled. The first year of 5G-A commercialization and the first year of AI entry collided, and the "mobile AI era" began. Manufacturers including Huawei, ZTE, and the three major operators exhibited core products and applications related to computing power bases and large models at the conference, and ZTE released a Nebula large model in the field of communications.

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What do the bigwigs think about the changes brought about by the mobile AI era?

Wang Tao, Executive Director of the Board of Directors and Chairman of the ICT Infrastructure Management Board of Huawei, believes that the mobile AI era will bring about three changes: the first is the transformation of human-computer interaction, the second is the transformation of content production, and the third is the transformation of the mobile device itself. He predicts that by 2030, AI robots will enter more than 80% of factories in developed countries and penetrate more than one-third of the world's jobs.

Zhao Ming, CEO of Honor, believes that the embodiment of AI in terminals is divided into four levels, including AI device-cloud collaboration, AI application on the device side, AI reconstruction of the operating system, and AI cross-system integration. He proposed that as a terminal manufacturer, it should make efforts at the second layer, that is, the "AI reconstruction operating system", especially in the fields of battery, screen, image, communication and audio.

Xu Ziyang, executive director and president of ZTE, believes that AI development is currently facing four challenges: there are still various bottlenecks in the supply of computing power; AI still has errors in serious scenarios; focused training but insufficient inference; There are still huge challenges in closing the business loop. Talking about the key to the commercialization of AI applications, Xu Ziyang said that the simultaneous training and promotion is the key to driving the take-off of the real economy.

The highest market capitalization in the industry! The lidar faucet landed in Shenshan

Shenzhen Suteng Mars Technology Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Shenzhen Suteng Juchuang Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Suteng Juchuang"), has completed its registration in Shenzhen Shenzhen-Shantou Special Cooperation Zone.

Its main business is the development and sales of lidar and perception solutions, and provides intelligent lidar systems with information understanding capabilities through the closed-loop of three core technologies: chips, lidar platforms and perception algorithms. At present, it is the world's largest listed lidar company by market capitalization.

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❶ Benefiting from the domestic new energy vehicle market rushing into the field of autonomous driving, more than 95% of Suteng Juchuang's revenue in the first quarter of this year came from China. Among them, the total sales volume of lidar was about 120,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 457.4%; The sales volume of ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) products was about 116,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 542%. According to the data of the Gasgoo automobile supporting enterprise database, in the first quarter of this year, Suteng Juchuang topped the industry with an installed capacity of 116,100 sets and a market share of 51.6%. Huawei Technologies followed closely behind, accounting for 18.6% of the market share with 41,800 sets. Hesai ranked third with 34,300 units, with a market share of 15.2%.

❷ In the face of new heights of competition in the auto market, the "price war" continues to intensify, and lidar manufacturers "reduce prices and promotions". The average unit price of the company's ADAS application lidar products in the first quarter decreased from about 4,000 yuan in the same period last year to about 2,600 yuan, a decrease of about 35%.

Company events

Han's Laser: Invested in a new semiconductor technology company in Chengdu

Chengdu Hanzhiyun Semiconductor Technology Co., Ltd. was established with a registered capital of 5 million yuan, and its business scope includes sales of special equipment for semiconductor devices, sales of power electronic components, sales of electronic components and electromechanical components, manufacturing of special equipment for semiconductor devices, etc., which is indirectly wholly owned by Han's Laser.

GONGDA Laser: Released the first near-single-mode 2000W CW green laser

The laser is the world's highest average power quasi-single-mode CW fiber green laser. It provides more energy for the processing of high-reflective materials, and the near-single-mode output ensures the high quality and consistency of the laser beam, which is expected to bring higher welding quality, higher efficiency and penetration depth to the processing of thick copper materials.

Siemens: The motion control project was officially put into operation

The Siemens Motion Control R&D and Innovation Center was officially put into operation in Shenzhen. The R&D and innovation center is the first innovation organization established by Siemens Digital Industries in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area to integrate hardware and software research and development, aiming to promote the innovative research and development of motion control technology and the transformation of achievements, and develop and test a new generation of motion control systems for global customers.

Intel: It plans to mass-produce glass substrates as soon as 2026

AMD and Samsung are also interested in using glass substrate technology. Intel pointed out that the glass substrate can increase the chip area in a single package by 50%, so that more chiplets can be crammed; And because of the flatness of the glass, the optical proximity effect (OPE) can be reduced by 50% and the depth of lithography focus can be increased.

Ruisheng Technology: The semiconductor project is expected to be put into production in July

Ruisheng Technology is a second-level subsidiary of Ningbo Jiangfeng Electronics. With a total investment of 1 billion yuan, the industrialization project of key components for integrated circuit manufacturing equipment mainly builds a production line for large-scale sputtering equipment parts of integrated circuits, and produces products such as transmission platforms, reaction cavities, transmission cavities, and welding reaction cavities. After reaching production, it can achieve an annual production capacity of 6,000 sets of products, and is expected to achieve an annual output value of 1.5 billion yuan. It is expected to be officially put into operation in July.

Texas Instruments: Announced a long-term partnership with Delta Electronics

The two companies will jointly develop on-board charging and power solutions for next-generation electric vehicles. The first phase focused on the development of a lighter and lower cost 11kW on-board charger using the new C2000 real-time microcontroller (MCU) and proprietary active electromagnetic interference (EMI) filtering products. In the second phase, the new C2000 real-time MCUs will be integrated into automotive applications to help automakers achieve ASIL D automotive safety integrity levels. A three-phase collaboration to develop next-generation automotive power solutions.

More Quick Facts:

• Baidu: Join hands with Weichai Group to explore the application of large models in the fields of intelligent manufacturing and intelligent driving of commercial vehicles
• EHang: It has received all the payment for the purchase order of the first batch of 30 EH216-S unmanned manned aircraft from Zhejiang Wencheng Transportation Development Group, and has delivered 27 of them so far, mainly for cultural tourism business

What's new in the market

China's first large-scale humanoid robot model was released

China's first humanoid robot task generative R-DDPRM model based on visual diffusion architecture was officially released, which can handle various complex tasks "silky" without hesitation. The model has the absolute advantages of more stability, greatly improved task execution success rate, more agile decision-making, geometric reduction of computing power dependence, and stronger ability to deal with complex scene tasks, which will greatly improve the task execution ability and efficiency of humanoid robots, and reduce the cost of computing power and energy consumption.

The demand for CoWoS is growing faster than expected

Equipment manufacturers said that the current CoWoS supply gap is quite serious, and the demand growth rate is completely beyond expectations, TSMC has placed urgent orders to equipment factories, and the visibility of orders in the hands of Hongsu, Xinyun and Junhua has reached 2027. It is estimated that in the second half of 2024, the monthly production capacity of TSMC CoWoS is expected to be increased from the original 32,000 pieces to 40,000 pieces per month, and the monthly production capacity will be increased to 58,000 pieces in 2025, and the production capacity of the new factory in Chiayi will be opened in 2028.

A number of new display projects have been signed and landed in Qingdao

A total of 12 new display and integrated circuit projects have been signed and landed, with a total investment of billions of yuan. The signed projects include: South Korea's pan-semiconductor material project, display new material project, Xinshengjie small and medium-sized backlight display module project, Beslan wet equipment project, Kexin microelectronic chip design headquarters project, Hanhai semiconductor project, etc.

DRAM prices are expected to rise by 8-13% in Q3

According to TrendForce's latest survey, the average price of DRAM will continue to rise in the third quarter due to the recovery of demand for general-purpose servers and the further increase in the proportion of HBM production by DRAM suppliers. DRAM prices increased by 8~13%, of which conventional DRAM increased by 5-10%, slightly shrinking from the increase in the second quarter.

图源： TrendForce

Finance and economics have long known

Foxconn's precision industry company increased its capital to 4 billion yuan

The registered capital of Shenzhen Fulian Fugui Precision Industry Co., Ltd. increased from about 3.838 billion to about 4.052 billion. The business scope includes R&D, sales and business information consulting of servers, memory, data terminal equipment, etc., data communication multimedia system development, industrial Internet software development, auto parts and accessories manufacturing, etc. It is wholly owned by Foxconn's subsidiary, Foxconn Industrial Fortune Union.

Viet Jiang Technology submitted a listing application to the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange

The funds raised in this Hong Kong IPO will be used for: the development of cutting-edge technology of intelligent collaborative robots; develop the company's production lines and manufacturing capabilities; strategic alliances, investment and acquisition opportunities; Develop overseas sales channels; Working capital and other general corporate purposes.

Micron's third-quarter revenue was $6.811 billion

Micron's financial report shows that the company's total revenue in the third quarter of fiscal 2024 was US$6.811 billion, an increase of 81.5% year-on-year, slightly better than market expectations (US$6.661 billion); In the same period, the net profit was 332 million US dollars, and it continued to maintain profitability. The reason for this rebound is that the storage industry has improved, which has driven the price increase of DRAM and NAND products.

AdvanSol received angel+ round of financing

AdvanSol, a third-generation inverter and MLPE (module level management) company in China, completed an angel+ round of financing. The funds raised will be used for product research and development and talent recruitment to further enhance the comprehensive competitiveness of the enterprise.

AdvanSol is a R&D and manufacturer of third-generation inverter system solutions, committed to creating a cost-effective third-generation microstring inverter technology with independent intellectual property rights.

Photovoltaic company Yongzhen shares were listed

On June 26, Yongzhen Co., Ltd., a photovoltaic company, was successfully listed on the main board of the Shanghai Stock Exchange. The IPO company plans to raise 1.725 billion yuan, and the actual net amount of funds raised is 1.303 billion yuan, which will be mainly used for the first phase of the photovoltaic frame project of the new aluminum alloy photovoltaic frame bracket and energy storage battery tray project in Wuhu, Anhui Province.

Overseas wind

HSG Hongshan Laser Thailand manufacturing base opened

The plant is expected to have an annual production capacity of 2,000 units. With this opening, Hongshan's globalization strategy has been upgraded again, and its business scope has been upgraded from stand-alone equipment to comprehensive solutions, from international sales and service to international manufacturing, and brand localization construction has been carried out to meet the needs of localized products and services and better match the local market demand.

More Quick Facts:

• LG Electronics is considering an IPO for its Indian subsidiary, which manufactures and sells home appliances

Big guy moves

Nvidia Jensen Huang: The time is ripe for automation in heavy industry

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said at the company's annual shareholder meeting that "the time is ripe for heavy industry to automate in the next wave of artificial intelligence," driven by Nvidia's advanced chips. Huang said AI has permeated a wide range of industries, from technology to healthcare. But there are many more avenues for growth in larger areas of the global economy where AI has not yet been widely adopted.

ASE Wu Tianyu: 2024 will be a year of semiconductor recovery

Wu Tianyu, chief operating officer of ASE Group, said that 2024 will be a year of recovery, and it is expected that the inventory will be destocked in the first half of the year, and the growth will accelerate in the second half of the year. The semiconductor industry is gradually showing the light of day, and sales are expected to resume growth.

News source: 8 a.m

About ITES Shenzhen Industrial Exhibition:

The 2025 ITES Shenzhen Industrial Exhibition focuses on the whole process of precision manufacturing, promotes the application and development of high-end equipment and intelligent manufacturing, and presents digital, flexible and customized parts processing solutions and a series of automation solutions around assembly, testing, logistics, packaging and other industries in a scenario-based manner, empowering the development of other industries such as electronics and product manufacturing, new energy and automobile manufacturing, and semiconductors.