Taiwan Semiconductor Manufac-turing Co (TSMC,
Rainfall in Hsinchu, where most of the nation's electronics companies are based, reached 958mm in the last six months of last year, or about 12.6 percent of the average rainfall in past years, according to the Water Resources Agency under the Ministry of Economic Affairs. Other areas in the north received about 44 percent of the average in the same period.
The government said it will impose strict water rationing next month amid the lack of rainfall. But Chen Shen-hsien (陳伸賢), director-general of the agency, said companies in Hsinchu would not be affected by the impending water shortage.
The agency has encouraged industrial companies to recycle waste water and take advantage of groundwater resources, and would also ask companies in other industrial parks in the north of the island to improve water recycling, the ministry said.
According to a ministry report, the rate of recycled water usage has reached over 95 percent among semiconductor manufacturers, which allows them to maintain operations for one to one-and-a-half months if their water supplies were completely cut off.
The ministry has been building water recycling stations in major industrial zones in the Taoyuan and Hsinchu regions, which are expected to begin operating by the end of March. The stations will save an estimated 60,000 tonnes of water per day, Chen said.
Chen said the cost of using recycled water is NT$300 to NT$400 higher per tonne than regular water. The companies using recycled water will be required to share operation fees of the stations, Chen said. The same proposal was also brought to the Hsinchu Science Park for evaluation, he added.
The current water shortage has had little impact on the park's production, said Charlie Hsu (
"Companies here were trying to save water allocated for consumer use for industrial use, but we hope to alleviate the problem soon," Hsu said.
TSMC, the world's largest custom chip maker, and other Hsinchu chip makers recently cut water consumption by about 3 percent, company spokesman Tzeng Jinnhaw (曾晉皓) said. TSMC's production hasn't suffered yet, he said.
Tzeng declined to say how much water the company consumes daily because the information could be used to estimate the company's output level.
Companies in Hsinchu faced a halt in production in March 2002 because of a drought. They had to truck in water to wash away chemicals used to etch circuits on chips and flat-panel displays.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six