Foxconn Aims To Become Solution Provider In Semiconductor Industry

The Foxconn Group’s development direction in the semiconductor industry will primarily focus on vertical integration, aiming to become a solution provider and devoting its investments mainly to light-asset businesses such as IC design, according to Bob Chen, vice president of the company’s Semiconductor Sub-Group.

Chen, during his speech at Semicon Taiwan 2019, noted that Foxconn’s goal is to become a full-solution provider that covers segments ranging from IC to software design. The group is also set to vertical integrate all its existing resources and deployments in fields such as semiconductor equipment, packaging and testing, foundry, IC design, system integration and channel, and to push for a modularized or even systemized platform

The company’s IC-design affiliate Socle Technology has formed tight partnerships with many IP players and its client base has also recently expanded to outside of the Foxconn Group.

In 2018, the Foxconn Group’s semiconductor procurement reached US$53 billion, accounting for 11% of the global semiconductor market’s overall value, Chen said.

Enormous amounts of data from IoT devices will have to be processed and analized by AI systems. The related AI technologies have already been broadly used in the manufacturing industry, but for most small- to medium-size enterprises, they still have difficulties implementing them in their operations and Foxconn Industrial Internet (FII) is currently developing solutions to assist these firms, Chen added.

Foxconn’s in-house developed Boxiedge AI edge computing solution has also been adopted for IIoT, medical care and smart retailing applications, Chen stated.―Digitimes