Category Archives: Device Architecture

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), representing U.S. leadership in semiconductor manufacturing, design, and research, this week presented its Congressional Leadership Awards to Senator Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) and Congressman Peter Roskam (R-Ill.) for their leadership in enacting tax reform legislation, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. The Semiconductor Industry Association believes the corporate provisions included in the new law will strengthen the U.S. semiconductor industry by making it easier for semiconductor companies to continue to grow and innovate in the United States.

“We applaud Senator Crapo and Congressman Roskam for their steadfast support of policies that strengthen the semiconductor industry, the tech sector, and the U.S. economy,” said John Neuffer, SIA President & CEO. “We especially appreciate the award winners’ resolute leadership in advancing critical corporate tax reform legislation that will help sustain U.S. leadership in semiconductor research, design, and manufacturing. The new law has helped modernize the corporate tax code and improve the competitiveness of the U.S. semiconductor industry.”

“Semiconductors are foundational to America’s economic strength, national security, and technology leadership,” Neuffer said. “Corporate tax reform was urgently needed to help the industry take the next innovative steps forward and promote America’s global competitiveness. We salute Senator Crapo and Congressman Roskam for their instrumental work in helping to push the final bill across the goal line.”

SIA presented the Congressional Leadership Award in recognition of efforts to support policies that are vital to sustaining a strong and vibrant U.S. semiconductor industry.

Mobile Semiconductor, a Seattle WA based company, today announced the inclusion of its new 22nm ULL (Ultra Low Leakage) memory compilers in the industry leading GLOBALFOUNDRIES FDXcelerator Program.  This new embedded SRAM technology on 22nm FDX offers the best in class memory solution using the GLOBALFOUNDRIES low leakage FDSOI bit cells and ultra-low leakage devices.

Cameron Fisher, CEO and Founder of Mobile Semiconductor, said, “This is a very important technology for low cost industrial and consumer products.  Our customers come from a wide range of markets, but one thing they share in common is the need to drive the power usage down to allow maximum battery life.”

This new compiler, equipped with multiple speed grades, allows the customer to maximize performance of their end product balancing power vs speed.  These low leakage memories make intelligent use of the reverse body bias capabilities of the FDSOI technology to control leakage and enhance performance.

Mobile Semiconductor’s 22nm ULL memory complier is unique in the industry and comes with the same high-quality design, testing, and support that customers have come to expect from their products.

Fisher said, “Mobile Semiconductor remains the leader in providing low power solutions and this complier removes the roadblocks that engineers have struggled with in their previous designs. Almost every single product developed for the IoT Market, will have new and more stringent demands placed on them.  We believe that Mobile Semiconductor is meeting the most important one – power!”

A current area of intense interest in nanotechnology is van der Waals heterostructures, which are assemblies of atomically thin two-dimensional (2D) crystalline materials that display attractive conduction properties for use in advanced electronic devices.

A representative 2D semiconductor is graphene, which consists of a honeycomb lattice of carbon atoms that is just one atom thick. The development of van der Waals heterostructures has been restricted by the complicated and time-consuming manual operations required to produce them. That is, the 2D crystals typically obtained by exfoliation of a bulk material need to be manually identified, collected, and then stacked by a researcher to form a van der Waals heterostructure. Such a manual process is clearly unsuitable for industrial production of electronic devices containing van der Waals heterostructures

Now, a Japanese research team led by the Institute of Industrial Science at The University of Tokyo has solved this issue by developing an automated robot that greatly speeds up the collection of 2D crystals and their assembly to form van der Waals heterostructures. The robot consists of an automated high-speed optical microscope that detects crystals, the positions and parameters of which are then recorded in a computer database. Customized software is used to design heterostructures using the information in the database. The heterostructure is then assembled layer by layer by a robotic equipment directed by the designed computer algorithm. The findings were reported in Nature Communications.

Robot developed for automated assembly of designer nanomaterials. Credit: 2018 SATORU MASUBUCHI, INSTITUTE OF INDUSTRIAL SCIENCE, THE UNIVERSITY OF TOKYO

Robot developed for automated assembly of designer nanomaterials. Credit: 2018 SATORU MASUBUCHI, INSTITUTE OF INDUSTRIAL SCIENCE, THE UNIVERSITY OF TOKYO

“The robot can find, collect, and assemble 2D crystals in a glove box,” study first author Satoru Masubuchi says. “It can detect 400 graphene flakes an hour, which is much faster than the rate achieved by manual operations.”

When the robot was used to assemble graphene flakes into van der Waals heterostructures, it could stack up to four layers an hour with just a few minutes of human input required for each layer. The robot was used to produce a van der Waals heterostructure consisting of 29 alternating layers of graphene and hexagonal boron nitride (another common 2D semiconductor). The record layer number of a van der Waals heterostructure produced by manual operations is 13, so the robot has greatly increased our ability to access complex van der Waals heterostructures.

“A wide range of materials can be collected and assembled using our robot,” co-author Tomoki Machida explains. “This system provides the potential to fully explore van der Waals heterostructures.”

The development of this robot will greatly facilitate production of van der Waals heterostructures and their use in electronic devices, taking us a step closer to realizing devices containing atomic-level designer materials.

Nexperia, a developer of discretes, logic and MOSFET devices, today announced the successful completion of a refinancing of its current facilities with USD 800 million equivalent of senior credit facilities. This includes a significant proportion of Revolving Credit facility. The proceeds will be used to refinance existing outstanding debt and for Capex expenditure to fund future growth.

The facilities were arranged by Bank of America Merrill Lynch and HSBC, acting as Global Coordinators, and were syndicated by a group of nine global banks. The refinancing is fully supported by JAC Capital and Wise Road Capital, Nexperia’s two main shareholders, and provides a flexible financing package at very attractive terms to support the further growth of Nexperia going forward.

Comments from Frans Scheper, Nexperia’s CEO: “This is the first time that Nexperia has approached the financial markets as an independent company, so we are very pleased with the enthusiastic response. Refinancing the outstanding debt will result in significant savings and give us greater flexibility, while the extra credit will enable us to pursue our ambitions fully with investment in new facilities and manufacturing technology.”

Nexperia is a Netherlands-headquartered, global manufacturer of discrete semiconductor components. The company is investing in increasing its capacity and footprint, having recently made a significant expansion to its Guangdong Assembly and Test Facility in China.

Getting better by design


April 18, 2018

By Ajit Manocha, President and CEO of SEMI

Mantra by Design

SEMI’s mantra is: Connect, Collaborate, Innovate. This mantra has delivered industry-enabling value to our members since SEMI’s beginnings in 1970. It has been essential for SEMI members to grow and prosper locally, while being synchronized globally. As the electronics manufacturing business has become more complex and interdependent, SEMI’s mantra has increasingly been applied across the full span of electronics manufacturing.

With the IC industry now worth over $400 billion in annual revenue, developing a single new chip can cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Consequently, industry players now connect, collaborate, and innovate in new, but more often, deeper ways. This is especially true with IC design – what’s possible in chip design is only possible if the manufacturing processes can be developed as projected. It makes sense, as complexity grows and the stakes get higher, that design and manufacturing are closely linked and apply the SEMI mantra together.

Where Electronics Begin

“Where Electronics Begin” is the tagline of the Electronics System Design Alliance, or the ESD Alliance. It aptly distills the fact that all IC manufacturing begins with design – and the design ecosystem. This week, SEMI announced it reached an agreement with the ESD Alliance to join SEMI as a SEMI Strategic Association Partner. The ESD Alliance will become part of the SEMI organization in 2018. With the ESD Alliance and its community joining SEMI, its membership will complete the full electronics design and manufacturing span.

This is a momentous step forward. The ESD Alliance’s ecosystem is vital and thriving and includes the world’s leading EDA and IP companies. Within the ESD Alliance community, Aart de Geus (Synopsys), Wally Rhines (Mentor, a Siemens Company), Simon Segars (Arm), and Lip-Bu Tan (Cadence), among others, are already familiar figures, having brought their thought leadership to SEMI platforms in the past. Now they, and the rest of the ESD Alliance members, will be able to more directly work with semiconductor equipment manufacturers, devices makers, and the rest of SEMI’s membership.

At events like SEMICON China, which recently concluded in March and attracted over 90,000 attendees, SEMI and the ESD Alliance members will be able to efficiently connect and engage the supply chain players and find new areas for collaboration. As SEMI’s membership looks out towards new applications and systems opportunities, having both ecosystems together will find possibilities faster and innovate approaches more practically.

The ESD Alliance will maintain its distinct community identity and governance while having access to, and the ability to augment, SEMI’s global platforms including seven regional offices, programs and expositions (including SEMICONs), advocacy (including trade, tax, talent, and technology), industry research and statistics, and other SEMI Strategic Association Partner and technology communities.

SEMI will gain direct access to the electronics design ecosystems to provide a deeper and wider value – to its combined membership – with SEMI’s mantra. SEMI and its more than 2,000 corporate members and more than 1.2 million stakeholders look forward to connecting, collaborating, and innovating with the ESD Alliance and its members. SEMI’s global reach and wide span of membership with ESD Alliance’s deep expertise in design and IP is truly the best of both worlds for all stakeholders.

Connect:  Design & Manufacturing

SEMI’s members have been reaching into the electronics design ecosystem and the ESD Alliance members have been reaching into SEMI’s ecosystem to optimize design and manufacturing process for lowest cost and highest yield. This week’s announcement is a step forward to directly and more intimately connect electronics design and manufacturing for the supply chain to work more closely together in full synchronization.

 

Connect-image1

Collaborate: From Beginning to End in Electronics Applications

With the ESD Alliance joining SEMI as a Strategic Association Partner, SEMI members can better collaborate across the full supply chain. Gone are the days when it was enough to collaborate only with one’s direct customer. Today, for example, components and c-subs suppliers frequently collaborate not just with their OEM equipment manufacturer customers, but with device manufacturers – and even system integrators. To be successful, companies are striving for connection to their customers’ customers.

The ESD Alliance, with its design ecosystem and linkage to the fabless community, will join three existing SEMI Strategic Association Partners: Fab Owners Alliance (FOA), MEMS & Sensors Industry Group (MSIG), and FlexTech (the association representing the flexible hybrid electronics ecosystem). These relationships now cover the entire span of electronics manufacturing.

To provide focused collaboration across the full supply chain, SEMI has developed five vertical application platforms: IoT, Smart Manufacturing, Smart Transportation, Smart MedTech, and Smart Data. These have been chosen because of unique and pressing needs to synchronize the supply chain and to engage and develop solutions collectively.

Collaborate-image1

Innovate:  Faster Future

With the confluence of emerging digital disruptions and new demand drivers, forecasts suggest the IC industry could grow to over $1 trillion in annual revenue by 2030. To deliver this growth, the supply chain must efficiently innovate together. SEMI’s value proposition is to speed the time to better business results for its members across the global electronics (design and) manufacturing supply chain. The addition of the ESD Alliance as a Strategic Association Partner is a key contributor to deliver this value proposition for the industry to grow and prosper now and in the future.

Global-Semi-Sales

Originally published on the SEMI blog.

Toyoda Gosei Co., Ltd. has achieved state-of-the-art high current operation1 in a vertical GaN power semiconductor developed using gallium nitride (GaN), a main material in blue LEDs.

Power semiconductors are widely used in power converters2 such as power sources and adaptors for electronic devices. However, simultaneous achievement of both high breakdown voltage3 and low loss4 (low conduction loss and switching loss) at high levels has been difficult with conventional silicon due to its material properties.

In its power semiconductors, Toyoda Gosei uses GaN, which has material properties of high breakdown voltage and low loss, and employs a vertical device structure in which electrical current flows vertically from or to a substrate. These changes have enabled a GaN power transistor chip with operating current of over 50A, highest ever reported for vertical GaN transistors2, and high-frequency (several megahertz) operation. Some prospective applications are shown below.

Promising areas of use (examples)

Power converters
More compact & lighter weight, higher efficiency

 Power control units (PCUs) for automobiles, etc.
DC-DC converters

High frequency power sources
Higher output

 Wireless power supply

Toyoda Gosei will continue development of these power semiconductors for improved reliability, aiming to achieve practical applications in cooperation with semiconductor and electronics manufacturers.

The newly developed vertical GaN power transistors (MOSFET)5 and Schottky barrier diodes6 will be presented on panel displays at the Techno-Frontier 2018 Advanced Electronic & Mechatronic Devices and Components Exhibition, held at Makuhari Messe, Chiba, Japan from April 18 to April 20. The world’s first full vertical-GaN DC-DC converter equipped with these devices will also be demonstrated at the company’s booth (6F-11, Hall 6).

1 According to internal Toyoda Gosei survey (as of April 2018).
2 Power conversion refers to conversion between direct and alternating current, direct current transformation, alternating current frequency conversion, etc.
3 The property of withstanding the high breakdown voltage during power conversion and not allowing current flow during off operation (non-conductance).
4 Heat loss generated by electrical resistance during electric conduction or when switching on/off.
5 Semiconductor used in power on/off.
MOSFET: Metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect-transistor.
6 Semiconductor used in converting (rectification) from alternating current to direct current. Toyoda Gosei uses a trench MOS structure, in which trenches are formed at fixed intervals in the chip surface of the diode, achieving low leakage current operation at high temperatures.

SEMI today announced that it has signed a memorandum of understanding to integrate the ESD (Electronic System Design) Alliance as a SEMI Strategic Association Partner this year. Under the partnership, the Redwood City, Calif.-based association and its system design ecosystem membership will join SEMI, deepening ESD Alliance’s global reach in the electronics manufacturing supply chain and enabling SEMI members to connect and directly collaborate with the semiconductor design sector.

As a SEMI Strategic Association Partner, the ESD Alliance will continue to pursue its mission representing companies in the semiconductor design ecosystem by addressing technical, marketing, economic and legislative issues affecting the entire industry. The ESD Alliance will retain its own governance and lead its overall direction and initiatives while leveraging SEMI’s robust global resources. With the addition of the ESD Alliance, SEMI adds the product design segment to the electronics manufacturing supply chain, streamlining and connecting the full ecosystem.

“Design is the very foundation of semiconductor innovation and manufacturing, and the ESD Alliance complements SEMI’s existing membership in bringing smarter, faster, more powerful, and more affordable electronic products to more people every day,” said Ajit Manocha, president and CEO of SEMI. “ESD Alliance members bring key insights to SEMI vertical application platforms such as Smart Transportation, Smart Manufacturing and Smart Data to enhance collaboration and innovation across the collective SEMI membership. We welcome ESD Alliance members to the SEMI family of Strategic Association Partners as we continue to broaden SEMI’s scope to include the full global electronics product design and manufacturing supply chain.”

“The integration of the ESD Alliance with SEMI’s event and global platforms will enable us to extend our design expertise in the worldwide electronics industry,” said Bob Smith, executive director, the ESD Alliance. “ESD Alliance members will be better able to more efficiently engage with the electronics manufacturing supply chain on technical and business issues and gain access to comprehensive global resources and platforms.”

Those resources include SEMI’s technology communities and activities in areas such as advocacy, international standards and environment, health and safety (EH&S), industry statistics, trade and regulatory initiatives.

The integration is a key step in streamlining collaboration and connection of SEMI members with the electronic system design, IP and fabless communities. Among other benefits, the integration promises to tighten the industry coordination and collaboration necessary to developing specialized artificial intelligence (AI) chips for a host of smart applications.

“The semiconductor industry has grown and matured since the EDA Consortium was formed,” said Dr. Aart de Geus, chairman and co-Chief Executive Officer of Synopsys. “Many of the previously disparate areas within the industry now overlap and it’s obvious we need to address the supply chain from manufacturing all the way through design. The ESD Alliance represents the system design ecosystem and perfectly aligns with SEMI’s vision to support the entire supply chain. As an international organization with offices around the globe, SEMI gives the ESD Alliance an opportunity to further expand its reach and grow to its full potential.”

All ESD Alliance member companies, including global leaders ARM, Cadence, Mentor, a Siemens business, and Synopsys, will join SEMI’s global membership of more than 2,000 companies while retaining the ESD Alliance’s distinct self-governed community within SEMI.

Trapping light with an optical version of a whispering gallery, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed a nanoscale coating for solar cells that enables them to absorb about 20 percent more sunlight than uncoated devices. The coating, applied with a technique that could be incorporated into manufacturing, opens a new path for developing low-cost, high-efficiency solar cells with abundant, renewable and environmentally friendly materials.

This is illustration shows the nanoresonator coating, consisting of thousands of tiny glass beads, deposited on solar cells. The coating enhances both the absorption of sunlight and the amount of current produced by the solar cells. Credit: K. Dill, D. Ha, G. Holland/NIST

This is illustration shows the nanoresonator coating, consisting of thousands of tiny glass beads, deposited on solar cells. The coating enhances both the absorption of sunlight and the amount of current produced by the solar cells. Credit: K. Dill, D. Ha, G. Holland/NIST

The coating consists of thousands of tiny glass beads, only about one-hundredth the width of a human hair. When sunlight hits the coating, the light waves are steered around the nanoscale bead, similar to the way sound waves travel around a curved wall such as the dome in St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. At such curved structures, known as acoustic whispering galleries, a person standing near one part of the wall easily hears a faint sound originating at any other part of the wall.

Whispering galleries for light were developed about a decade ago, but researchers have only recently explored their use in solar-cell coatings. In the experimental set up devised by a team including Dongheon Ha of NIST and the University of Maryland’s NanoCenter, the light captured by the nanoresonator coating eventually leaks out and is absorbed by an underlying solar cell made of gallium arsenide.

Using a laser as a light source to excite individual nanoresonators in the coating, the team found that the coated solar cells absorbed, on average, 20 percent more visible light than bare cells. The measurements also revealed that the coated cells produced about 20 percent more current.

The study is the first to demonstrate the efficiency of the coatings using precision nanoscale measurements, said Ha. “Although calculations had suggested the coatings would enhance the solar cells, we could not prove this was the case until we had developed the nanoscale measurement technologies that were needed,” he noted.

This work was described in a recent issue of Nanotechnology by Ha, collaborator Yohan Yoon of NIST and Maryland’s NanoCenter, and NIST physicist Nikolai Zhitenev.

The team also devised a rapid, less-costly method of applying the nanoresonator coating. Researchers had previously coated semiconductor material by dipping it in a tub of the nanoresonator solution. The dipping method takes time and coats both sides of the semiconductor even though only one side requires the treatment.

In the team’s method, droplets of the nanoresonator solution are placed on just one side of the solar cell. A wire-wound metal rod is then pulled across the cell, spreading out the solution and forming a coating made of closely packed nanoresonators. This is the first time that researchers have applied the rod method, used for more than a century to coat material in a factory setting, to a gallium arsenide solar cell.

“This is an inexpensive process and is compatible with mass production,” said Ha.

 

SEMI, the industry association representing the global manufacturing supply chain, today announced postponement of SEMICON Southeast Asia from 8-10 May 2018 to 22-24 May 2018. The postponement avoids a timing conflict with the recently announced Malaysian election planned for 9 May 2018. The venue for SEMICON Southeast Asia, the newly constructed Malaysia International Trade and Exhibition Centre (MITEC), remains unchanged

The postponement is in respect to Malaysian exhibitors and visitors to exercise their right to vote, said Ng Kai Fai, President of SEMI Southeast Asia. The decision was made in view of the election date and following discussions with SEMICON Southeast Asia stakeholders.

“We highly value and respect the country’s election process, which is very important for Malaysia and Malaysians,” Kai Fai said. “We also want to ensure that SEMICON Southeast Asia achieves its primary objective of forming connections and collaborations for exhibitors and visitors, both regionally and globally. We have received very strong support from our stakeholders and are confident and reassured that this will be the largest SEMICON Southeast Asia show to date.”

 

Worldwide PC shipments totaled 61.7 million units in the first quarter of 2018, a 1.4 percent decline from the first quarter of 2017, according to preliminary results by Gartner, Inc. The PC market experienced a 14th consecutive quarter of decline, dating back to the second quarter of 2012.

Asia/Pacific and the U.S. experienced declining shipments, while other regions saw some minimal growth, but it was not enough to drive overall growth for the PC industry. In the first quarter of 2018, PC shipments in Asia/Pacific declined 3.9 percent compared with the same period last year, while shipments in the U.S. decreased 2.9 percent.

“The major contributor to the decline came from China, where unit shipments declined 5.7 percent year over year,” said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner. “This was driven by China’s business market, where some state-owned and large enterprises postponed new purchases or upgrades, awaiting new policies and officials’ reassignments after the session of the National People’s Congress in early March.

“In the first quarter of 2018, there was some inventory carryover from the fourth quarter of 2017,” Ms. Kitagawa said. “At the same time, vendors were cautious in overstocking due to the upcoming release of new models in the second quarter of 2018 with Intel’s new eighth-generation core processors.”

The top three vendors — HP, Lenovo and Dell — accounted for 56.9 percent of global PC shipments in the first quarter of 2018, compared with 54.5 percent of shipments in the first quarter of 2017 (see Table 1). Dell experienced the strongest growth rate among the top six vendors worldwide, as its shipments increased 6.5 percent.

Table 1
Preliminary Worldwide PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 1Q18 (Thousands of Units)

Company

1Q18 Shipments

1Q18 Market Share (%)

1Q17 Shipments

1Q17 Market Share (%)

1Q18-1Q17 Growth (%)

HP Inc.

12,856

20.8

12,505

20.0

2.8

Lenovo

12,346

20.0

12,305

19.7

0.3

Dell

9,883

16.0

9,277

14.8

6.5

Apple

4,264

6.9

4,199

6.7

1.5

Asus

3,900

6.3

4,458

7.1

-12.5

Acer Group

3,828

6.2

4,189

6.7

-8.6

Others

14,609

23.7

15,637

25.0

6.6

Total

61,686

100.0

62,569

100.0

-1.4

Notes: Data includes desk-based PCs, notebook PCs and ultramobile premiums (such as Microsoft Surface), but not Chromebooks or iPads. All data is estimated based on a preliminary study. Final estimates will be subject to change. The statistics are based on shipments selling into channels. Numbers may not add up to totals shown due to rounding.
Source: Gartner (April 2018)

HP Inc.’s worldwide PC shipments increased 2.8 percent in the first quarter of 2018 versus the same period last year. In EMEA, HP Inc. recorded double-digit growth in both desktop and mobile PCs. This was contrasted with a small decline in other regions. HP Inc. was adversely impacted by declining demand in the U.S., which generally accounts for one-third of its total shipments.

Lenovo’s global PC shipments remained flat in the first quarter of 2018. Lenovo achieved 6 percent growth in EMEA and double-digit shipment growth in Latin America. However, in Asia/Pacific (its largest market), PC shipments declined 4 percent.

After record holiday sales for consumer and gaming products in the fourth quarter of 2017, Dell continued to perform well in the first quarter of 2018. With double-digit shipment increases in EMEA, North America and Latin America, Dell grew in all regions except Asia/Pacific. Desktop and mobile PCs grew in equal measures, showing Dell’s strength in the business segment.

Rising ASPs

The average selling prices (ASPs) of PCs continue to rise. Acknowledging deceleration in the smartphone market, and uncertainty in PC replacement demand, component companies remain cautious about expanding their production capabilities. Therefore, persistent component shortages and a rising bill of materials continue to create an environment conductive to higher prices.

“In contrast to other DRAM-related price spikes, PC vendors are not reacting by reducing DRAM content. Rather they have passed the cost increase to consumers,” Ms. Kitagawa said. “With fewer people buying new machines, manufacturers need to get the highest profit margin from each sale. To do that, they are raising the selling points and focusing on customer experience or perception of value.”

Regional Overview

In the U.S., PC shipments totaled 11.8 million units in the first quarter of 2018, a 2.9 percent decrease from the first quarter of 2017. Dell moved into the No. 1 position in the U.S. based on shipments, as its market share increased to 29.1 percent. HP Inc. moved into the No. 2 position as its shipments declined 4.8 percent, and its market share totaled 28.4 percent in the first quarter of 2018 (see Table 2).

Table 2
Preliminary U.S. PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 1Q18 (Thousands of Units)

Company

1Q18 Shipments

1Q18 Market Share (%)

1Q17 Shipments

1Q17 Market Share (%)

1Q18-1Q17 Growth (%)

Dell

3,440

29.1

3,198

26.2

7.6

HP Inc.

3,363

28.4

3,532

29.0

-4.8

Lenovo

1,632

13.8

1,714

14.1

-4.8

Apple

1,491

12.6

1,484

12.2

0.5

Acer Group

321

2.7

429

3.5

-25.1

Others

1,586

13.4

1,836

15.1

-13.6

Total

11,833

100.0

12,193

100.0

-2.9

Notes: Data includes desk-based PCs, notebook PCs and ultramobile premiums (such as Microsoft Surface), but not Chromebooks or iPads. All data is estimated based on a preliminary study. Final estimates will be subject to change. The statistics are based on shipments selling into channels. Numbers may not add up to totals shown due to rounding.
Source: Gartner (April 2018)

PC shipments in EMEA totaled 18.6 million units in the first quarter of 2018, a 1.7 percent increase year over year. Enterprise shipments increased as many Windows 10 projects that were put on hold in 2017 began to be implemented. The fast approach of the compliance deadline for the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe, as well as earlier reports of cybersecurity breaches, made security a strong priority in the hardware refresh cycle among enterprises. Eurasia continued to be a bright spot for EMEA, as several countries, such as Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, saw strong demand in the first quarter of 2018.

PC shipments in Asia/Pacific totaled 21.9 million units in the first quarter of 2018, a 3.9 percent decline from the first quarter of 2017. As previously mentioned, the PC market in China drove the decline in Asia/Pacific. There is no significant sign of strong upgrading to the special version of Windows 10 from the Chinese government institutions. Consumer demand was weak as most buyers already took advantage of the aggressive promotions offered in the fourth quarter of 2017.

These results are preliminary. Final statistics will be available soon to clients of Gartner’s PC Quarterly Statistics Worldwide by Region program. This program offers a comprehensive and timely picture of the worldwide PC market, allowing product planning, distribution, marketing and sales organizations to keep abreast of key issues and their future implications around the globe.