Industry News

According to Digitimes, citing supply chain sources, Apple is actively discussing with multiple suppliers to apply glass substrate technology to chip development. Industry insiders generally believe that the application of glass substrates will bring revolutionary breakthroughs to chip technology and is expected to become one of the key directions for future chip development.    Traditional chips’ printed circuit boards ( PCBs) are typically made from a mix of fiberglass and resin. This material does not dissipate heat well, and the heat generated during operation of the chip can cause its performance to degrade ( thermal throttling). This means that the chip can only maintain maximum performance for a short period of time, and has to run at a reduced frequency once the temperature gets too high.    The glass substrate is resistant to high temperatures, allowing the chip to maintain peak performance for a longer period of time. At the same time, the ultra-flat properties of the glass substrate allow for more precise etching, allowing components to be arranged more closely together and increasing circuit density per unit area.    Currently, Intel leads the way in this technology, but other companies are trying to catch up. According to reports, Samsung has begun developing glass substrate technology, and Apple is also in close discussions with it and other undisclosed suppliers.    Industry experts point out that glass substrates are not only an innovation in materials, but also a global technology competition. In addition to substrate manufacturers, global IT equipment manufacturers and chip manufacturers will also actively participate. Samsung has a unique advantage in this area because the production process of glass substrates is similar to that of advanced multi-layer displays.    In the past, chip performance improvements mainly relied on continuous shrinkage of manufacturing processes, and this shrinkage is about to reach physical limits. The industry is skeptical about the future development of Moore's Law, so new materials such as glass substrates are regarded as the key to breaking through bottlenecks and maintaining chip performance growth.    However, glass substrates also have many technical problems, such as fragility, insufficient adhesion to metal wires, and difficulty in controlling the uniformity of through-hole filling. In addition, the high transparency of glass and the different reflectivity from silicon will also cause difficulties in the detection and measurement process. Many existing measurement techniques are designed for opaque or translucent materials, and measurement accuracy may be compromised when using these techniques on glass substrates.    Despite the challenges, glass substrates are still regarded by the industry as one of the future development directions of chip packaging. Apple's active participation may accelerate the maturity of gla...

March 22, 2024 | Brussels, Belgium, Global crude steel production in February 2024   In February 2024, the global crude steel output of the 71 countries included in the statistics of the World Steel Association was 148.8 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 3.7%. In February 2024, the global crude steel output of the 71 countries included in the statistics of the World Steel Association was 148.8 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 3.7%.   Crude steel production by region   In February 2024, Africa's crude steel production was 1.8 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 8.1%; Asia and Oceania's crude steel production was 109.7 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 3.9%; the European Union (27 countries) crude steel production was 10.6 million tons, a year-on-year decrease 3.3%; crude steel production in other European countries was 3.7 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 32.5%; Middle East crude steel production was 4.2 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 10.8%; North American crude steel production was 8.7 million tons, a year-on-year decrease of 1.3%; Russia and other The crude steel output of the CIS + Ukraine was 6.7 million tons, a year-on-year decrease of 2.5%; the crude steel output of South America was 3.5 million tons, an increase of 10.5% year-on-year.

(CWW) Since it was first proposed in September 2023, new productivity has become a hot word in the Chinese economy. At the National Two Sessions in 2024, new productivity was included in the government work report for the first time, and accelerating the development of new productivity was listed at the top of the top ten tasks in 2024. At a time when new productivity has become a hot word, how to speed up the development of new productivity has become a topic discussed by all walks of life.   On March 20, at the "2024 Mobile Resale Industry Ecological Development Conference" hosted by Xintong Media·Communication World All Media, hosted by the Internet of Industry, and co-organized by the Virtual Operation Branch of the China Communications Enterprises Association, Deputy Chief Engineer of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology He Wei said that after reviewing the content of new productivity in existing reports and meetings, it can be found that to accelerate the development of new productivity, it is especially important to give full play to the leading role of innovation and promote industrial innovation with technological innovation. Promoting industrial innovation through scientific and technological innovation is the core element of developing new productive forces. At the same time, industrial innovation will help accelerate the application and implementation of scientific and technological innovation achievements.   Talking about why technological innovation should be used to promote industrial innovation, He Wei explained that "innovation" is the entire chain from front-end basic research, applied basic research, to technology development, productization, and then to scale and industrialization. Technological innovation mainly focuses on the improvement of scientific and technological levels. Industrial innovation is the process of using scientific and technological innovation results to form new industries or transform existing industries. Its goal is to apply appropriate factor inputs, technical levels and organizational methods to obtain higher value output benefits. Therefore, accelerating the promotion of industrial innovation is particularly important for the development of new productive forces.     "Under the new situation, the need for industrial innovation is becoming more urgent." He Wei said, on the one hand, digitalization is integrating and penetrating into the industrial economy in an unprecedented way, and giving birth to digital economic forms, artificial intelligence, quantum information, humanoid robots, brain-computer Digital technologies such as interfaces will become the biggest variables of the times and technology. On the other hand, the global division of labor has driven the continuous adjustment of the competition pattern, factor structure and development direction of the value chain. Countries have seized the key hub position in the global innovation network. T...

From March 15th to 17th, the China Electric Vehicles 100 Forum (2024) with the theme of "Consolidating and Expanding the Development Advantages of New Energy Vehicles" was held at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing. At the Chelu City sub-forum on the 15th, Huang Gang, deputy general manager of China Mobile Research Institute, made a speech about the "four integrations" of the Internet of Vehicles industry, which attracted industry attention.  At the beginning of 2024, China Mobile Chairman Yang Jie proposed the idea of actively grasping the trend of the "AI+" era and promoting the extension of "5G+" to "AI+". Based on this, the Shanghai Research Institute has delved into 5G-A technology to build a new infrastructure of "ubiquitous integration" to provide integrated services of information perception, transmission, storage and processing for AI+ applications.  Technology Empowerment and Ubiquitous Integration Based on industry needs in the field of Internet of Vehicles, China Mobile continues to carry out innovative exploration and implementation practices with Chinese characteristics. It is against this background that the four integration concepts of 5G+V2X communication integration, vehicle-road computing power integration, vehicle+city+cloud integration, and people+vehicle+home integration were proposed.    From 5G to 5G-A, the Shanghai Research Institute has used China Mobile's strong basic network capabilities to keep pace with industry needs and continuously evolve to provide users with low-latency, wide coverage, stable and reliable communication services. China Mobile's 5G-A+V2X partially enhanced converged networking can ensure data follow-up delivery, entrance delivery and adaptive variable range delivery, achieving car cloud information service latency as low as 20ms@99%, Excellent results with wide area coverage and low comprehensive cost.    Vehicle-road computing power is integrated, with low-latency computing power to meet roadside perception calculations, and hierarchical large computing power to support vehicle-side data processing. The roadside is based on AI deep learning detection algorithms and improves the identification and prediction of traffic elements through perception models. Accuracy, achieving a fusion perception recognition rate of no less than 95%, effectively making up for the vehicle-side perception field of view and accuracy, and there is no shortage of intelligent computing and supercomputing to support large model training. The characteristics of cloud-edge collaboration and on-demand deployment ensure the computing power needs of different applications, reducing computing power investment by 10%-35%, forming a safe, trustworthy, stable and reliable unified operation and maintenance management and guarantee system.    Car + City + Cloud Integration is to connect and empower the dynamic traffic information provided by the city with the vehicle-side sensing shared i...

On March 12, Apple announced that it will expand its applied research laboratories in China to support product manufacturing. It will expand and add new laboratories in Shanghai and Shenzhen to provide intelligent manufacturing, product reliability, quality and material analysis. provide support.   This expansion is a continuation of Apple’s continued investment in R&D and development in China. Apple currently has R&D centers in Beijing, Shanghai, Suzhou and Shenzhen. Apple said the Shanghai laboratory will enhance the capabilities of the Shanghai research center, and the Shenzhen laboratory opened later this year will deepen cooperation with local suppliers and enhance testing and research capabilities for iPhone, iPad, Apple Vision Pro and other products. .   According to Apple’s official data, the company’s investment in China’s advanced applied research laboratories has exceeded 1 billion yuan, and this investment will continue to grow with the addition of new facilities in Shenzhen.   "The laboratory is located close to the production and assembly base, and engineers can work more closely with suppliers to share expertise in high-tech production processes to enable real-time adjustments and help suppliers improve efficiency and save valuable time." Apple Ge Yue, vice president and managing director of Greater China, said that the laboratory aims to provide resources for global engineering and design teams to help test prototypes, make improvements and ensure that each device can meet the corresponding quality and performance standards.   At the same time, the application laboratory team is also constantly innovating in smart manufacturing, product quality and the use of recycled materials.   Apple CEO Tim Cook said at the company's annual shareholder meeting on February 28 that Apple is significantly increasing its investment in artificial intelligence and plans to disclose more plans to use generative artificial intelligence later this year. .

The 400G all-optical interprovincial backbone network is a long-distance optical signal transmission network device that can connect edge, center and hub cluster computing power and is the connection hub of the computing power network. Through innovative breakthroughs in key technologies such as 400G QPSK high-performance encoding and decoding technology, C6T+L6T ultra-wide spectrum, and saturated optical power dynamic balance control, it provides ultra-large bandwidth, ultra-low latency, and ultra-high speed for hub cluster computing power integration and collaboration. Capacity, ultra-high security, ultra-high energy efficiency, ultra-high intelligent interconnection and other guarantees. Compared with the previous generation trunk network, the transmission bandwidth has been increased by 4 times, the network capacity exceeds 30PB, the inter-hub latency is less than 20ms, the latency of key active links has been reduced by 20%, the security capabilities have been fully upgraded, and the energy consumption per bit has been reduced by 65%. %, and the cost per bit is reduced by 20%.   The Central Economic Work Conference proposed that technological innovation should be used to promote industrial innovation, especially disruptive and cutting-edge technologies to spawn new industries, new models, and new drivers, and develop new qualitative productivity. The 400G all-optical inter-provincial backbone network will support the innovative cross-regional optimal allocation of production factors such as computing power and data, and support "Eastern data and west computing", "Eastern data and west storage", "Eastern data and west training", "Eastern data and west rendering", etc. The implementation of new applications will promote in-depth transformation and upgrading of the industry. Thanks to the blessing of computing power, applications such as speech recognition, smart factories, smart furniture, and autonomous driving will become more efficient and convenient.   Note: 400G QPSK is Quadrature Phase Shift Keying, which is a transmission encoding method for optical signals. C6T+L6T represents the spectrum resources occupied during optical signal transmission, that is, 6THz in the C-band and 6THz in the L-band.

CWW According to the WeChat public account of China Telecommunications Research Institute, on March 1, 2024, at the 105th meeting of 3GPP SA1, China Telecommunications Research Institute joined forces with vivo, AT&T, CITIC Mobile, Vodafone, MediaTek, China Unicom, Qualcomm, The "Study on satellite access - Phase 4" project led by 37 units including Nokia and Airbus was officially approved.   It is understood that this project is the third 3GPP international standard project breakthrough that China Telecom has achieved in the direction of space and earth integration. It lays a solid foundation for China Telecom to maintain standards leadership in the 3GPP R20 5G-A/6G stage, and also lays a solid foundation for the future NTN network architecture. The enhancement of research and key technology capabilities opens a new chapter. This project focuses on studying the business requirements of 5G-Advanced NTN network to support emergency communications, multi-orbit coordination, high-orbit IMS voice and other business requirements. Based on the actual needs of operators, it will lead the important technical direction of direct connection of mobile phones to satellites and is expected to further promote the satellite communications and mobile communications industries. deep integration.   China Telecom is the first telecom operator in the world to realize "direct connection of mobile phones to satellites". The China Telecom Research Institute has been actively carrying out the development and pilot verification of standards for the integration of space and earth, and hopes to work with industry partners to actively develop in the big science and technology innovation device environment. Promote the rapid implementation of the integrated industry of space and earth.

Communications World Network News (CWW) On February 27, during the 2024 World Mobile Communications Conference (MWC 2024), the China Telecom Cloud Network Summit Forum was successfully held. With the theme of "Unleashing the Digital Potential of Global Interconnection", this forum brings together communications industry leaders and heavyweight enterprise representatives from many countries and regions around the world to discuss the release of global interconnected data with the cloud as the driver and the network as the link.     Mats Granryd, Director General of the Global System for Mobile Communications Association, pointed out in his speech that China Telecom, as a guiding light in the journey of change, proactively deploys cloud services and strategic network expansion, not only reflects its role in transforming from an operator to a technology-based enterprise. The commitment to leading the way in transformation has also inspired the entire industry.     Ke Ruiwen, Chairman of China Telecom, said in his speech that as the first telecom operator in the world to propose the concept of cloud-network integration development, China Telecom adheres to the network as the foundation and the cloud as the core, grasps the development direction of artificial intelligence, actively promotes technological innovation, and has achieved a series of achievements. Important innovative breakthroughs. China Telecom will further expand high-level opening up to the outside world, further strengthen technological innovation, actively share its experience in cloud network integration, cloud-to-digital transformation, smart operations, technological innovation, etc., and actively explore and promote international business cooperation and scientific research cooperation, and cooperate with the world More industry chain enterprises, industrial capital, scientific research institutions and other relevant parties will work together to build a new ecosystem of open, shared and win-win cloud and network integration, jointly promote the rapid development of the new generation of information technology, and jointly create a better future in the digital era.     In recent years, China Telecom has been deeply involved in cloud and network integration, accelerating intelligent computing upgrades, promoting intelligent network interconnection, and integrating the world and the earth. It has actively promoted various important results achieved to a wider area around the world, and continues to create opportunities for high-quality development of the global economy and society. new value. During the sharing session, Tang Ke, deputy general manager of China Telecom, released three important results achieved by China Telecom's cloud network integration practice, and proposed a new vision for China Telecom's digital future of "co-discussion, co-construction, sharing, and win-win".     Achievements 1: Tianyi Cloud global capabilities released...

February 23, 2024 | Brussels, Belgium In January 2024, the global crude steel output of the 71 countries included in the statistics of the World Steel Association was 148.1 million tons, a year-on-year decrease of 1.6%. Global crude steel production in January 2024 In January 2024, the global crude steel output of the 71 countries included in the statistics of the World Steel Association was 148.1 million tons, a year-on-year decrease of 1.6%.   Crude Steel Production by Region In January 2024, Africa's crude steel output was 2 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 16.3%; Asia and Oceania's crude steel output was 107.6 million tons, a year-on-year decrease of 3.6%; the European Union (27 countries) crude steel output was 10.2 million tons, a year-on-year decrease 1.8%; crude steel production in other European countries was 3.9 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 22.5%; Middle East crude steel production was 4.7 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 23.1%; North American crude steel production was 9.2 million tons, a year-on-year decrease of 2.1%; Russia and other The crude steel output of the CIS + Ukraine was 7.2 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 4.0%; the crude steel output of South America was 3.4 million tons, a year-on-year decrease of 6.3%.   Top Ten Countries in Terms of Crude Steel Production January 2024, China’s crude steel output is estimated to be 77.24 million tons, a year-on-year decrease of 6.9%; India’s crude steel output was 12.5 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 7.3%; Japan’s crude steel output was 7.3 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 0.6%; U.S. crude steel production was 6.8 million tons, a year-on-year decrease of 0.3%; Russia’s crude steel output is estimated to be 6.2 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 1.2%; South Korea’s crude steel output was 5.7 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 1.5%; Türkiye’s crude steel output was 3.2 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 24.7%; Germany’s crude steel output is estimated to be 2.9 million tons, a year-on-year decrease of 0.9%; Iran’s crude steel output was 2.6 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 39.3%; Brazil’s crude steel output is estimated to be 2.5 million tons, a year-on-year decrease of 7.2%.

The green attributes of global photovoltaics are constantly increasing. The carbon footprint of the entire life cycle of photovoltaic products and the recovery and recycling of decommissioned photovoltaic modules have attracted great attention from the country. In August 2023, six ministries and commissions including the National Development and Reform Commission jointly issued the "On Promoting Decommissioning" Guiding Opinions on the Recycling of Wind Power and Photovoltaic Equipment" fills the gap in photovoltaic recycling industry policies and provides direction and guidance for the development of my country's photovoltaic recycling industry.   In order to promote the green, low-carbon and sustainable development of the photovoltaic industry, it is jointly sponsored by the Photovoltaic Recycling Industry Development Cooperation Center of the Photovoltaic Special Committee of the China Green Supply Chain Alliance, the State Power Investment Group Upper Yellow River Hydropower Development Co., Ltd., and the Jiaxing High-tech Industrial Development Zone Management Committee , the "Photovoltaic Recycling Industry Development Cooperation Center 2024 Annual Meeting and the 6th Photovoltaic Equipment Recycling and Recycling Technology Forum" hosted by Shanghai Haiyouwei New Materials Co., Ltd. was grandly held in Xiuzhou, Jiaxing on February 26, 2024, online There are nearly 20,000 viewers online.   As the "first gathering of the year" for the photovoltaic industry in the Year of the Dragon, this conference gathered big names, including representatives from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, China Green Supply Chain Alliance and industry associations, local government representatives, and the board of directors of the Photovoltaic Recycling Industry Development Cooperation Center More than 200 people, including representatives from units and member units, representatives from research institutions, investment and financing institutions, media, and industry guests, gathered together to discuss the development of the photovoltaic component recycling industry and develop new concepts, new thinking, and new models for the recovery and recycling of photovoltaic equipment. , the new plan was fully discussed. During the ceremony, the "2023 China Photovoltaic Recycling and Recycling White Paper" was first released. The book was jointly launched by the Photovoltaic Recycling Industry Development Cooperation Center of the Photovoltaic Special Committee of the China Green Supply Chain Alliance and industry companies and experts. The second annual industry white paper on photovoltaic recovery and recycling, with a total of 10 chapters and more than 70,000 words. A comprehensive introduction to the current status and future development trends of photovoltaic module recovery and recycling, including photovoltaic industry development overview, market forecast, technology development, industry status, business model and economics, standard patents...

Communications World Network (CWW) market research organization Canalys recently released a report, revealing the strong growth trend of the Middle East smartphone market in 2023. Data shows that in the fourth quarter of 2023, smartphone shipments in the Middle East (excluding Turkey) reached a staggering 12.2 million units, a 24% increase from the same period last year. Throughout 2023, smartphone shipments in the region climbed to 42.5 million units, achieving a significant growth of 11% compared with 2022.   Samsung still holds the top position in shipments, but its market dominance is no longer as stable as in previous years. At the same time, Transsion Holdings (whose brands include Tecno, Infinix, iTel), Xiaomi (including Redmi and Poco) and Apple performed well in shipments in the fourth quarter. Competition among them is extremely fierce, and the market structure may change. . Canalys analysis believes that various sales activities at the end of the quarter, such as the grand Dubai Shopping Festival, as well as Black Friday and Yellow Friday promotions organized by Amazon and Noon, have played a positive role in promoting sales growth. It is particularly worth mentioning that the UAE market performed particularly well, with a growth rate of 22%, although this is still a small growth rate in the entire Middle East.   Xiaomi is actively expanding its physical store presence in the UAE market. For example, the number of Xiaomi mobile phone stores in the well-known retailer Sharaf DG has rapidly increased from the original 4 to 12. Among them, popular mobile phone models such as Redmi 12C have been enthusiastically sought after by consumers.   The Iraqi market also showed strong growth momentum, with shipments increasing by an astonishing 86%. This is mainly due to the precise marketing activities carried out by Transsion Holdings and Xiaomi targeting young consumer groups. On the other hand, the Honor brand's Xa and Xb series and flagship models such as Magic 5 Pro have also received increasing attention in markets such as Iraq and Saudi Arabia.   Although Motorola did not rank among the top five in this statistics, its growth performance in the Middle East was impressive, with a growth rate of 49%. Motorola mobile phones have sales layout in many countries in the Middle East and Africa, and plan to further expand to more than ten new markets, showing strong expansion momentum.   Looking forward, Canalys is optimistic about the development of the Middle East smartphone market in 2024. Analysts generally believe that the booming tourism industry will become one of the important driving forces for market growth. Manish Pravinkumar, senior consultant at Canalys, noted: “In the long term, the upcoming launch of the unified tourist visa for the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), possibly in 2024 or 2025, is expected to attract more tourists to the Middle East. This will be beneficial. Several industries are growing, es...

On February 1, 2024, a symposium to commemorate the 74th anniversary of Comrade Mao Zedong’s “Develop Mining” inscription was held in Beijing. Xu Dachun, member of the Party Leadership Group and Vice Minister of the Ministry of Natural Resources, attended the meeting and delivered a speech. Zhu Xun, Secretary-General of the 8th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and former Minister of Geology and Mineral Resources, sent a congratulatory letter to mining workers across the country.   On February 17, 1950, Comrade Mao Zedong personally wrote the words "Develop Mining" when meeting representatives of students studying in the Soviet Union at the Chinese Embassy in the Soviet Union. Inspired by this inscription, generations of mining workers in our country have carried forward the "Three Glories", "Four Specials" and "Iron Man" spirit, providing rich mineral deposits for the construction of New China; providing a steady stream of resources for the development of the national economy. of industrial "food" and "blood".   Over the past 70 years, the types of minerals explored and developed by mining workers have increased from 18 to 173, raw coal production has increased from 32.43 million tons to 4.658 billion tons, crude oil production has increased from 120,000 tons to 208 million tons, and natural gas production has increased from 7 million tons. cubic meters increased to 219.7 billion cubic meters, iron ore production increased from 590,000 tons to 990 million tons, and the output of ten non-ferrous metals increased from 47,700 tons to 74.698 million tons, making my country move from a weak mining country to a large mining country, and then to Jump to the ranks of mining powerhouses.   At present, my country's mining development has changed from "waiting for rice to eat" in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China to "self-sufficiency", from the "export exchange" of reform and opening up to "there is import and export", and then to "the import is greater than the export" in the 21st century. , "Two resources, two markets." my country's mining industry is steadily advancing towards the goal of high-quality development. More than 4,000 green mines at all levels have been built, and 1,000 and 1,300 intelligent mining and excavation working faces have been built. The pace of digitization and intelligence of mines is accelerating. Deep underground exploration, Deep-sea exploration continues to expand the exploration and development space of mineral resources. Strategic minerals provide strong support to emerging strategic industries. The clean, efficient, low-carbon utilization of coal and "coal-to-liquid" and "coal-to-gas" have greatly improved my country's energy structure and further Consolidating the cornerstone role of energy, green development has become the consensus of building a beautiful China in mineral resource exploration.   Xu Dachun poin...