Global semiconductor sales look strong for 2020, despite the COVID-19 crisis. And some industry analysts predict that we could see a nice boost in 2021. Semiconductor companies in Asia and the Americas are leading way. In other news, the US NSF reports that electron teleportation is a real possibility. Here is your weekly industry update.
 
Semiconductor Sales Update, Electron Teleportation, and More

Global Semiconductor Sales Look Up

According to the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), global semiconductor sales increased 5.8% (year-to-year) in May. Worldwide semiconductor sales hit $35 billion in the month. As for regional sales (month-to-month basis), China rose 5.8%, Japan rose 2.8%, and the Americas rose 1.9%. Asia Pacific and all other dipped -1.7%, and Europe fell -6.5%. Furthermore, the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) predicts that global sales will increase 3.3% this year and 6.2% in 2021. 

Chinese Chipmakers Raise Big Money

According to the Nikkei Asian Review, Chinese chip companies have raised twice as much from the equity market in 2020 than in all of last year. "Chinese chipmakers have received 144 billion yuan ($20.5 billion) so far this year, including commitments," Nikkei Asian Review reports. The Chinese companies leading the way are Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (contract chip manufacturing), Unisoc Technologies (chip design), and Tianjin Zhonghuan Semiconductor (silicon wafers).

Electron Teleportation Is a Possibility

The United States National Science Foundation (NSF) claims that teleportation between two electrons is not outside the realm of possibility. "In a paper published in Nature Communications and one to appear in Physical Review X, the researchers, including Rochester physicists John Nichol and Andrew Jordan, explore new ways of creating quantum-mechanical interactions between distant electrons," the NSF reports.

Raspberry Pi Supports OpenVX 1.3

Raspberry Pi announced last week that it is bringing the Khronos OpenVX 1.3 API to RPI devices for computer vision applications. The Foundation posted: "OpenVX enables a performance and power-optimized computer vision processing, especially important in embedded and real-time use cases such as face, body, and gesture tracking, smart video surveillance, advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), object and scene reconstruction, augmented reality, visual inspection, robotics, and more." Details and a sample application are available on the Raspberry Pi site.

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