Week 17 of 2025
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Weekly Highlights
● The U.S. continues to impose unreasonable pressure and restrictions on China’s chip industry:
1. Last week, the U.S. Department of Commerce suddenly announced that chips like NVIDIA H20 and AMD MI308, which are specially designed and supplied to China according to U.S. policies, must also obtain new licenses for export to China, and this policy is indefinitely valid.
2. Intel has informed its Chinese customers that a license is required to sell certain AI processors. According to Intel, if the total DRAM bandwidth of its chips reaches 1400GB/s or more, the input/output (I/O) bandwidth reaches 1100GB/s or more, or the total bandwidth of both reaches 1700GB/s or more, a license is required for export to China. Currently, its Gaudi series far exceeds these requirements.
Industry Data
● In the first quarter of 2025, China’s smartphone market shipments increased by 3.3% year-on-year, significantly higher than the global smartphone market’s growth rate during the same period. Xiaomi’s shipments reached 13.3 million units, a year-on-year increase of 39.9%, ranking first in both shipments and growth rate; Huawei’s shipments were 12.9 million units, a year-on-year increase of 10.0%; OPPO’s shipments were 11.2 million units, a year-on-year increase of 3.3%; vivo’s shipments were 10.3 million units, a year-on-year increase of 2.3%; Apple’s shipments were 9.8 million units, a year-on-year decline of 9%, making it the only company among the top five to experience a decline.
● In the first quarter of 2025, China’s import and export of electromechanical products reached 5.29 trillion yuan, an increase of 7.7%. Among them, the fastest-growing exports included household appliances, laptops, and electronic components; the fastest-growing imports included parts for automatic data processing equipment, ships, and marine engineering equipment. The number of imported integrated circuits increased by 8.1% to 131.25 billion units, with a value increase of 4.3% to 634.48 billion yuan; the number of exported integrated circuits increased by 22.0% to 76.13 billion units, with export value increasing by 12.0% to 293.48 billion yuan.
● OFweek Industry Research Center announced the Top 10 companies in China’s solid-state battery comprehensive competitiveness, which are CATL, TBL New Energy, and Qingtao Energy. Other companies include Zhongxin Innovation, SAIC Group, Guoxuan High-Tech, Weilan New Energy, BYD, FAW Group, and Geely Automobile.
Market Trends
● Spot Market:
1. Prices of high-value electronic components such as graphics cards are highly volatile, and some merchants in Huaqiangbei have ceased operations and paused quotations, holding stock for price increases.
2. The market expects that prices of some chips in channels, such as memory and MCUs, will continue to rise, while mid-to-low-priced products like AI terminals and wearable devices are still being shipped.
● Market Strategy: Many merchants have adjusted their market direction to the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa in advance, and some merchants are responding to tariffs by using order splitting and customs clearance methods.
Terminal News
● Several new energy vehicle manufacturers are about to launch self-developed chips, with XPeng’s autonomous driving chip, Turing, set to enter mass production in Q2, and Li Auto’s self-developed autonomous driving chip also nearing tape-out.
● Huawei released a megawatt ultra-fast charging product on April 22, with a maximum charging current of 2400 amperes and a maximum power of 1.5 megawatts, capable of supplying 20 kWh per minute, fully charging an electric heavy truck (approximately 300 kWh battery capacity) in 15 minutes.
Distribution Dynamics
● On April 19, distributor Liyuan Information released its financial report, showing a revenue of 7.821 billion yuan in 2024, a year-on-year increase of 31.58%; net profit attributable to the parent company was 98.4253 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 48.34%; gross profit margin was 9.33%, a year-on-year decrease of 5.01%. As of the end of 2024, the company’s inventory book value was 1.666 billion yuan. From the performance, downstream market demand is recovering, with growth in AI, communications, security monitoring, and new energy sectors driving the expansion of its distribution business.
● In response to the new U.S. tariff policy, distributors such as RS Components and PEI-Genesis have issued letters adjusting prices for in-transit and long-term orders.
Manufacturer News
● Several local chip manufacturers, including Cambricon, Huawei, Loongson Technology, Lihua Micro, and Zhaoxin Micro, stated that the impact of tariffs is minimal, mainly because some manufacturers are already on the U.S. Entity List, and some focus solely on the domestic market, resulting in little overall impact on their business.
● Micron: Initiated a major restructuring and established a new cloud storage business unit, focusing on customized HBM and storage solutions for hyperscale cloud service providers (such as Microsoft, AWS), and revealed its next-generation HBM4 technology mass production timeline, aiming for a technological breakthrough by 2026.
● China Electronics Technology Group: Successfully developed the country’s first diamond microwave laser, which will continue to promote industrialization and assist products in applications across deep space communication, radio astronomy, high-precision frequency standards, radar navigation, and quantum precision measurement.
● SmartSens: Launched a 3MP high-performance automotive-grade CMOS image sensor SC360AT, which has begun sample acceptance and is expected to achieve mass production in Q3 this year, aiding the acceleration of automotive intelligence and connectivity.
● Zhaoxin Micro: Faced lawsuits initiated by Murata in both China and South Korea, claiming that the MAX-SAW filter infringes on five of its core patents, with a total compensation amount of approximately 1.704 million yuan.
● GigaDevice: Announced the launch of the GD5F1GM9 series high-speed QSPI NAND Flash, which effectively addresses the industry pain points of slow response speed and susceptibility to bad block interference in traditional SPI NAND Flash, with read speeds reaching 2-3 times that of traditional SPI NAND products at the same frequency, widely applicable in security, industrial, and IoT fast-start application scenarios.
● Jieli Technology: Recently launched the AC706N multifunctional audio chip, equipped with a 32-bit single-core DSP processor with a clock speed of up to 192MHz, and integrates an IEEE754 single-precision floating-point unit, capable of efficiently executing complex algorithms such as FFT and matrix operations. This design not only provides sufficient computing power for real-time audio processing but also supports multi-task parallel processing, meeting the dual demands of response speed and energy efficiency for smart devices.
● Silicon Labs: Launched a new generation of automotive-grade CAN transceiver TPT1445Q series products, with a fully domestic supply chain, meeting ISO 11898-2:2024 standards, and IEC61000-4-2 contact discharge ESD capability reaching ±6kV, having passed the German C&S consistency test, widely applicable in vehicle CAN networks, including body electronic devices, power systems, in-vehicle infotainment/dashboard, ADAS/safety, and other automotive terminal products.
Media Summary
● Recently, the European Union announced an important consensus with China to initiate negotiations to replace the current tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles with a “minimum import price” mechanism. The market predicts that this minimum price may be between 35,000 to 40,000 euros, equivalent to approximately 280,000 to 330,000 yuan.
● The U.S. has initiated a Section 232 investigation into semiconductors, which will broadly cover all semiconductor imports, manufacturing equipment, and electronic products containing these components. Trump stated that the so-called tariff exemptions are merely transferred to another tariff category.
● Shenzhen released a notice on “Further Improving Financial Services for the High-Quality Development of the Private Economy,” continuing to increase financing support for private enterprises in fields such as artificial intelligence, embodied intelligent robots, new generation information and communication technology, new energy vehicles, new energy storage, and low-altitude economy.
● Hainan University officially released its self-developed core technology and series products for implantable brain-machine interfaces (BCI), including BCI-specific chips, neural signal acquisition systems, neural signal modulation systems, and neuron positioning systems, with a fully controllable technology chain, injecting Chinese chip power into brain science research and medical applications.
● Recently, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology organized the formulation of the mandatory national standard “Safety Requirements for Power Storage Batteries for Electric Vehicles” (GB38031-2025), which has been officially approved and will be implemented starting July 1, 2026. The new standard modifies the thermal diffusion testing technical requirements from “providing thermal event alarm signals 5 minutes before fire or explosion” to “no fire, no explosion (still requires alarm), and smoke does not harm occupants.”
Exhibitions and Events
● April 22-24: The 2025 China International Electronics Production Equipment and Microelectronics Industry Exhibition (NEPCON China 2025) will be held at the Shanghai World Expo Exhibition and Convention Center, with over 500 global circuit board assembly suppliers expected to participate. This year’s exhibition will host national day activities for Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia, inviting over 400 overseas business representatives for exchanges.
● April 24-26: The 24th Western Global Chip and Semiconductor Industry Expo (CWGCE Western Chip Expo) will grandly open at the Chengdu Century City New International Convention and Exhibition Center. Concurrent forums and events include the China International (Western) Smart Electronics and Advanced Manufacturing Expo, China International (Western) Optoelectronics Industry Expo, China International (Western) Artificial Intelligence and Smart City Expo, China (Chengdu) Advanced Manufacturing and Digital Industry Expo, China (Chengdu) Defense Technology Industry Expo, the Third China Western Semiconductor Industry Innovation Development Summit Forum, and the Sichuan-Chongqing Semiconductor Industry Trend Forum.
● April 25-28: The 15th Shenzhen International Mobile Electronics Exhibition will be held at the Shenzhen International Convention and Exhibition Center (Bao’an) concurrently with the Shenzhen Gift Exhibition, focusing on fields such as 3C electronics, smart personal care, outdoor electronics, automotive electronics, AI technology, mobile audio, mobile fast charging, and energy storage products.
● April 25 – May 2: One of the global automotive industry barometers, the “2025 Shanghai Auto Show (21st Shanghai International Automobile Industry Exhibition)” will be held at the Shanghai National Exhibition and Convention Center, showcasing the latest automotive technology trends, including automotive chips, autonomous driving systems, high-precision maps, radar, cameras, wireless communication technology, simulation, new energy technology, component products, and automotive manufacturing equipment and technology.
● May 8-10: The 7th Global Semiconductor Industry (Chongqing) Expo will be held at the Chongqing International Expo Center, with rapid development of the electronic information industry in the Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle in recent years, and Chongqing is positioned to transform from manufacturing to intelligent manufacturing, from processing to branding, harboring immeasurable market value.
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