The government is speeding up efforts to settle a land shortage problem in the face of the increasing needs of local flat-panel makers, who are building new factories as the highly cyclical industry starts to trend up, a government official said yesterday.
"To meet local manufacturers' needs, we are gearing up an attempt to get a piece of land adjacent to the science park," said Yang Wen-ke (
Yang said the administration is in intensive talks with the Ministry of Defense to acquire a 120 hectare piece of land owned by the ministry, which accounts for a third of a total 380 hectares planned for new tenants after the original 413 hectares of land available were leased out.
Yang said the administration hopes to wrap up the talks by the end of this month.
AU Optronics Corp (
AU Optronics plans to spend NT$400 billion to build four factories there in the future, according to Yang.
To meet the growing demand for LCD displays at a time when the industry is on an upswing, AU Optronics last month announced it would resume construction of a 7.5-generation factory worth NT$35 billion in another area of the park.
AU Optronics recently ramped up production of a sixth-generation (6G) plant there, enabling the company to produce 37-inch TV screens more cost-effectively.
In the latest report, market researcher iSuppli Corp said global supply of large-sized LCD panels would reach parity with the demand this year due to slow ramp up of new capacity.
That bode well for flat panel makers as quarters-long supply glut since the second quarter of 2004 has driven most players into losses.
In the near term, iSuppli predicted supply would tightened in the current quarter due to increasing demand for panels used for computer monitors and LCD TVs.
Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd (
"We did express our concern about the land problem as we are scheduled to start constructing new fabs in the first half of 2006 at the latest, earlier than previously planned," Liu said.
"We have to act in response to the changing industry," he said.
Liu said that the company has several scenarios under consideration now, including building a fifth-generation plant mainly for computer monitors, as well as a 7.5-generation plant.
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],”