German semiconductor company Infineon Technologies AG signed an agreement yesterday to acquire the local integrated circuit design firm ADMtek Inc (上元科技) for 80 million euros in cash (US$100 million).
Munich-based Infineon noted that it is the company's first acquisition of a controlling stake in a semiconductor company in Asia.
It said that a new company, Infineon-ADMtek Co Ltd, will be set up in Hsinchu to focus on developing broadband customer premise equipment (CPE) integrated circuits and will enable Infineon to enter the rapidly-growing home gateway market in the Asian region.
"ADMtek's complementary competencies and technologies will enable us to successfully compete in the broadband CPE market with a complete system solution," said Thomas Seifert, head of Infineon's Wireline Communications business group.
Infineon said the deal also calls for it to supply products to Accton Technology Corp (
"With Infineon's technology support, I believe ADMtek will be able to expand its product lines," said ADMtek chairman Ken Lu (盧崑瑞).
The 80-million euro deal means that every ADMtek share was priced at about NT$62 to NT$65, Lu said.
ADMtek is expected to report US$43.2 billion in revenues for last year, but that will only allow the company to break even, he said.
Accton shares rose by 5.82 percent to end at NT$30.9 each on the TAIEX yesterday.
Infineon said the venture will strengthen its leading position in the fast-growing, broadband access market segment and also provides Infineon with a strong research and development base, favorable costs, and proximity to the leading original design manufacturing companies of Taiwan.
The broadband access market has topped 100 million users, according to recent studies. These users want advanced broadband services and delivering these services requires a single, easy-to-use and inexpensive home gateway, said Seifert.
The acquisition is expected to be completed in April, subject to ADMtek shareholders approval and various government approvals, including the competent anti-trust authorities.
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
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day