■ UMC, Rambus expand IP deal
United Microelectronics Corp (聯電) said yesterday that it and Rambus Inc, a top US technology licensing company specializing in high-speed chip interfaces, will expand their licensing agreement. Under the agreement, UMC customers will gain access to Rambus' broad portfolio of PCI Express-based interfaces drawing on UMC's 0.18 micron, 0.15 micron 90-nanometer (nm) processes, adding to the 0.13 micron technology made available last year. The PCI Express interface standard is one of the industry's most successful for chip-to-chip interconnects and can be found in system applications ranging from supercomputers to PCs and digital TVs. "We are pleased to expand our licensing agreement with Rambus to make its proven IP solutions available to a broader range of technologies, including our mainstream 90nm process," Ken Liou (劉康懋), director of UMC's IP and Design Support Division, said in a statement.
■ Mega board endorses M&A plan
Mega Financial Holding Co (兆豐金控), Taiwan's second-largest financial company by assets, has endorsed chairman Cheng Shen-chih's (鄭深池) plan to seek merger and acquisition opportunities. Cheng was "authorized by the board of directors to represent the company for talks in mergers and acquisitions with others at the appropriate time," the company said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange late yesterday. The government wants to halve the number of financial holding companies in the nation in two years, to help them compete with overseas rivals such as Citigroup Inc and HSBC Holdings Plc. It's offering merger incentives to the nearly 50 banks and 300 community-level lending associations that compete for business among about 23 million people. Taishin Financial Holding Co (台新金控) on July 22 agreed to pay NT$36.6 billion (US$1.14 billion) for management control of Chang Hwa Commercial Bank (彰化銀行), creating the second-largest banking group in Taiwan in terms of assets.
■ IDB eyes pharmaceuticals
The Industrial Development Bureau (IDB) is working to form a pharmaceutical export strategic alliance as part of its efforts to help local manufacturers make inroads into overseas markets, bureau officials said yesterday. Ten pharmaceutical companies have expressed a willingness to join the alliance, which will be aimed at seeking generic drug export and overseas OEM orders, as well as at trying to gain market share in the US and Japan for Taiwan drug makers. According to the IDB, the output of the pharmaceutical industries in Europe, Japan and the US accounts for more than 80 percent of the global total. As Japan enacted a new law in April regulating the separation of the production and sale of pharmaceuticals and as the US government has been encouraging the use of generic drugs, now is the perfect time for Taiwanese pharmaceutical companies to make inroads into these markets, the officials said. The bureau has plans to form three strategic alliances to push for the export of 10 to 15 kinds of generic drugs. It's expected that in five years, Taiwan's pharmaceutical exports will increase NT$10 billion (US$3.1 billion) , posting an annual growth rate of over 20 percent.
■ NT dollar declines
The New Taiwan dollar lost ground against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, declining NT$0.151 to close at NT$32.280. A total of US$1.06 billion changed hands during the day's trading.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by