Infineon Technologies AG, Europe's second-largest maker of semiconductors, said it reached an agreement with Microsoft Corp to supply chips that help make financial transactions secure.
"Under the agreement, Infineon is working with Microsoft to develop specialized security chips that incorporate key technologies from Infineon," the Munich-based semiconductor company said in an e-mailed statement yesterday.
The chips will be used by Microsoft, the world's largest software maker, for its plans to expand personal-computer ownership in emerging markets.
The computers will be sold at half price up front, with the rest on a monthly subscription or pre-paid plan, according to Microsoft.
Infineon is moving the company away from memory chips used in personal computers to focus on semiconductors which are tailor-made for customers from a wide range of industries such as mobile phone makers and car manufacturers.
The deal with Microsoft "reflects the success" of Infineon's strategy, said Peter Bauer, head of the company's automotive, industrial and multimarket unit.
The chips will help to "develop easy-to-use and secure access rights to subscription and prepaid computing devices," the company said. Financial details of the agreement between Infineon and Microsoft weren't disclosed.
Infineon plans an initial sale of shares in its memory-chip unit on the New York Stock Exchange in the second half. The memory-chip division has been hurt by demand swings in past years, leading the company to report its fifth straight quarterly loss last month.
Microsoft is trying to seed new markets as PC sales slow in the US and western Europe. Typically less than 5 percent of households in emerging markets have PCs, according to Will Poole, a senior vice president of Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft. Microsoft would like to get its software on computers in such countries, where piracy rates are high and governments push the free Linux software as a Window alternative.
The subscription system with Infineon components is "expected to be available in the second quarter of next year," the chip maker 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],”
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