Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (
The center will focus on nanotechnology and precision-optical machinery.
"We hope the establishment of the new R&D center will expedite our R&D process and, therefore, enhance our competitiveness," Hon Hai's founder and chairman Terry Gou (
Hon Hai, which might replace Singapore's Flextronics International Ltd to become the world's largest EMS provider, plans to expand its R&D manpower to a maximum of 3,000 people and pour NT$12 billion into the center for the next three years.
The company has lodged up to 17,000 applications for patents and has patented around 12,000 inventions so far, Gou said.
The center is expected to facilitate the company's transformation into "high-tech Hon Hai" from merely "manufacturer Hon Hai" by attracting overseas researchers and cooperating with foreign R&D centers, Gou said.
The project has three stages. Hon Hai plans to complete the first-stage of construction by next July and recruit 1,000 R&D specialists at the same time.
The company posted consolidated revenue of NT$327.79 billion last year, up from NT$245.09 billion in 2002. It has generated sales of NT$166.05 billion for the first half of this year, around 37.74 percent of the forecasted NT$440 billion worth of revenue for this year.
"The company often sets aside 10 percent to 15 percent of its annual revenue for the R&D work," said Chen Ga-lane (
Strong R&D capability would back up the company's plan to expand its layouts of computer, communication, consumer electronics (3Cs) into 6Cs domains (3Cs plus cars, channels and [digital] contents), he said.
According to Chen, R&D work in the new center will begin in two years on nanotech stampers, nanotech optics and nanotech heat conductivity, in collaboration with the National Nano Devices Laboratories under the National Science Commission and Tsinghua University in Beijing.
These technologies could be applied in the manufacture of component parts such as nanotech batteries for notebooks or hand-sets, which have double the energy capacity of current batteries, and printer-reader heads for better printing quality, he said.
Hon Hai has set up several R&D centers, including one in Tokyo for precision machinery, Beijing for academic nanotech research, San Jose, California, for e-papers and Finland for wireless technology.
The company's Beijing center is focusing on developing nanotechnology for electronic circuits and devices from single atoms and molecules, but will turn its focus toward miniature batteries and heat-dissipation products within three years, according to a report in a Chinese-language newspaper yesterday.
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
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],”