Gallium Price ($US/KG)
28 June 2024 : Price $816.40
1 January 2024: Price $755.80
Gallium up, SK keyfoundry to deliver GaN power semiconductors to Tesla in 2H 2024
Below we highlight a special podcast by Bloomberg’s Odd Lots team. It’s Titled: Why Tom Lee Thinks We Could See S&P 15,000 by 2030. Tom Lee, the founder of Fundstrat and FS Insight has been bullish for a long time, having caught the correct side of this lengthy trend. In this episode, the former JPMorgan strategist talks about how he thinks about the market, what he sees happening in macro and demographic trends, and why he thinks it’s plausible that the market could roughly triple in the next six years.
We include a snippet below where Tom addresses AI adoption. That’s where G50 Corp believes the anchor for significant power demand will come from to ultimately support building more efficiency and redundancy into power systems including the widespread use of GaN hardware.
“That’s like AI, the adoption rate for AI is staggering, but the use case is important because there’s a labor shortage. So to me, I think it’s very likely we’re underestimating how much revenue all these companies will make. I can give you some simple math.
Yeah, please.
The global labor shortage by the end of this decade is close to 40 million worker equivalents, and that’s three trillion of wages. We’re turning labor costs into silicon or into tech automation, of which we know today 80% is hardware or silicon. So does that mean whoever is supplying the chips might have a two trillion revenue? Probably. And right now, the largest share of that would go to a company like Nvidia. So if Nvidia is 100 billion in revenues now, by the end of this decade, is it an 800 billion or trillion-dollar revenue company? And then, what should we discount that rate at, I’d say there’s probably a lot of upside.”
https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/odd-lots/id1056200096?i=1000660027009
We also point to an article below on SK keyfoundry which has achieved notable progress in the development of Gallium Nitride power semiconductors and will begin producing them for Tesla in the 2H of 2024. This is the first time we have seen a major customer like Tesla incorporate GaN power semiconductors into their EV’s. Recent independent research (by Yole) believe that EV’s alone can incorporate up to 90 power GaN devices per vehicle. See G50’s recent mid-year update.
Gallium up U$2.10 / kg for the week.
SK keyfoundry Advances in GaN Power Semiconductors, Reportedly Producing for Tesla Soon
SK keyfoundry, a subsidiary of memory giant SK hynix, has achieved notable progress in the development of Gallium Nitride (GaN) power semiconductors. According to the latest report by Business Korea, the foundry would begin producing power semiconductors for Tesla in the second half of 2024.
According to the report, SK keyfoundry announced in early June that it has achieved the primary device characteristics of a 650V GaN High
Electron Mobility Transistor (HEMT), which surpasses traditional silicon-based semiconductors in both efficiency and durability. This advancement aligns with SK keyfoundry’s plan to finalize the development of GaN power semiconductors by the end of this year.
It is worth noting that TSMC has also entered the GaN market a few years ago, as it provides GaN process for manufacturing 100/650V discrete GaN power devices for customers. For instance, in 2020, the world’s largest foundry has announced to collaborate with STMicroelectronics. According to its press release, ST’s GaN products will be manufactured using TSMC’s leading GaN process technology, including applications relating to automotive converters and chargers for hybrid and electric vehicles.
Yole Group / Lam Research (LRCX.US Mkt Cap: U$139 billion)
Independent research house Yole collaborated with Lam Research on “GaN – from innovation to high volume manufacturing’. It’s an hour-long reference piece for anyone interested in GaN’s key properties and how the semiconductor compound is changing modern electronics. Lam Research is a market leader in designing and building developer tools for semiconductor manufacturing.
Some select quotes:
- “Specialty technologies like sensors, RF devices, power devices and optoelectronics and in this space looking at new material which enable these technologies….. GaN is a really critical material…..one material is enabling multiple applications “
- “GaN is an incredibly versatile semiconductor“
- On Power GaN adoption in data centers – (we are) “seeing more GaN power device products to service data centers especially Infineon and roadmaps designed by ST Micro – new power efficiencies are required with existing and increasing EU regulation“
AWS flexes data center muscles as AI workloads increase cloud use
The battle for AI workloads is intensifying and, to keep its lead, Amazon’s cloud division is investing more than $50 billion in U.S. infrastructure.
Cloud usage is climbing steadily as enterprises leverage hyperscaler infrastructure to modernize operations, shutter on-prem data centers and shift to a service-based IT model. Consumption, in turn, brings revenue. Gartner expects global cloud spending to surpass $675 billion in 2024, a 20% year-over-year increase.
https://www.ciodive.com/news/aws-flexes-cloud-infrastructure-data-center-build-outs/719959/
Korea, US, Japan to prioritize chips, battery supply chain resilience
Top economic policymakers from South Korea, the United States and Japan agreed to deepen their trilateral cooperation on semiconductors and key minerals supply chains in a meeting held in Washington on Wednesday.
Korean Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy Ahn Duk-geun, US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo and Japanese Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Saito Ken held the inaugural three-way ministerial meeting to discuss measures to promote the development of core and emerging technologies and strengthen the economic security of the three countries, according to the Korean ministry on Thursday.
The three countries shared concerns over “the weaponization of economic dependencies on certain supply sources for strategic goods,” a joint statement issued by the leaders read.
“There is an urgency to our three sides working closely together to identify potential supply chain vulnerabilities for strategic goods that have resulted from a wide range of non-market policies and practices.” Although they avoid directly singling out China, the ministers expressed concerns over recent “non-market measures” that may lead to supply chain disruptions for critical minerals such as gallium, germanium and graphite.
China began restricting exports of chip minerals gallium and germanium in August last year and added graphite, a key raw material in electric vehicle batteries, to the list in December. “We are determined to take appropriate actions where necessary to secure sustainable and resilient global supply chains,” the statement read.
https://www.koreaherald.com/mobile/khpad_view.php?ud=20240627050712