■ New TFT-LCD process unveiled
A breakthrough in TFT-LCD manufacturing technology was announced yesterday by the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) in Hsinchu. The technology, called "plasma processing and system technology for LC alignment," is particularly suitable for the manufacturing of large panels, according to Lee Chin-yang (李金揚), a researcher at ITRI's Mechanical Industry Research Laboratories and director of the program. It will enable the production of panels with resolutions so high that they can be used in medical equipment, Lee said. Furthermore, the manufacturing process does not generate dust or static, which can undermine the quality of the product. Rather, it will shorten the manufacturing process, enhance yields and thereby save on production costs, he said. In order to develop the new technology, the project has has already yielded two patents, with another six patents under application, he added.
■ Lenders invited
Bank of Taiwan (台灣銀行) and nine other arrangers of a record loan for Powerchip Semiconduc-tor Corp (力晶半導體) are inviting lenders to help provide NT$30 billion (US$926 million), a banker involved in the deal said. The loan has a five-year NT$4 billion tranche and a seven-year NT$26 billion tranche, the banker said. "We are going with a syndicated loan to diversify our funding source. Raising funds from selling shares or convertible bonds may dilute our shares," Eric Tang (譚仲民), a spokesman at Powerchip, said in an interview. "Our capital expenditure is more than last year, which is between NT$50 billion to NT$55 billion." Proceeds will help pay for NT$60 billion in equipment for a plant that Powerchip bought from Macronix International Co (旺宏電子), a maker of chips for game consoles. Powerchip paid NT$5.3 billion for the factory, which it expects to eventually produce 35,000 wafers per month, the company said in a statement on Jan. 18.
■ Imported cars selling well
Despite a decline in Taiwan's car market, sales of imported cars remained brisk in March, according to tallies released yesterday. A total of 6,116 imported cars were sold in the Taiwanese market during March, more than double the figure recorded in the previous month. The year-on-year fall in total car sales expanded from 17.8 percent in February to 30 percent in March. The top six imported car brands were Volkswagen, Toyota, Mercedes Benz, BMW, Suzuki and Mazda. While the number of Mercedes Benz E-Classes and Mercedes Benz S-Classes sold in March totalled 518, a total of 813 Volks-wagen Golfs and Volkswagen Passats were sold during the same period. In March, 1,084 Volkswagen cars were sold, up 34 percent from the same time last year. The brand seized a 17.7 percent share of the Taiwan market and remained the most popular imported car brand in the country.
■ Airport passengers down
The number of passengers traveling through Taiwan's airports totalled 6.93 million for the first two months of this year, down 0.7 percent from a year-earlier level, the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said on Tuesday. Among them, the number of passengers on international flights accounted for 3.73 million, marking an 8 percent year-on-year increase. However, domestic flight passengers fell 10.9 percent compared with the same period last year, totaling 2.79 million passengers. The number of transit passengers accounted for 410,000, up 4.6 percent from a year-earlier level. Meanwhile, the DGBAS said there were 27 million travelers on Taiwan's railways and 58 million Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) passengers during the same period.
■ BenQ supplying Volkswagen
BenQ Corp (明基) is supplying parts to Volkswagen AG as a result of taking over Siemens AG's mobile phone unit last year, the Economic Daily News reported, citing an unidentified Industrial Development Bureau official. BenQ is shipping multimedia products such as DVDs and affiliate AU Optronics Corp (友達光電) is sending flat panels, the Chinese-language newspaper said.
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],”
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained