■ Semiconductors
Powerchip, Elpida eye tie-up
Powerchip Semiconductor Corp (力晶半導體) and Elpida Memory Inc may form a venture with initial capital of about NT$10 billion (US$304 million) to make computer memory chips in Taiwan, the Chinese-language Com-mercial Times said. The venture will take over an existing Powerchip plant in central Taiwan, the paper reported Saturday, without saying where it got the information. A Powerchip spokesman declined to confirm or deny the report. But he said the 12-inch plant, located in Taichung, is on schedule to start initial output of computer memory chips in the third quarter of next year and mass production by the end of next year. Powerchip already uses technology from Elpida at the Taichung plant and its other factories in Taiwan.
■ Aviation
All Nippon mulls cheap lines
All Nippon Airways is considering launching two discount carriers -- one domestic and another offering international services -- next year amid intensifying competition from other low-cost airlines, a major newspaper reported yesterday. ANA, Japan's No. 2 carrier, plans to launch the new airlines in the first half of next year as subsidiaries specializing in discount airfares, through cost cutting of in-flight services, the Yomiuri said, without citing sources. The plan comes ahead of the scheduled 2009 completion of a fourth runway at Tokyo's Haneda international airport, where the number of flights are expected to increase by 40 percent, including short-distance international flights, the report said.
■ Sports
NFL offers games over Web
Football fans outside North America will be able to watch most NFL games live over the Internet under a subscription package, the league announced on Friday. The NFL Game Pass service, available through Yahoo Inc for US$25 a week or US$250 for the 17-week regular season, is aimed primarily at the most avid football fans, including Americans who have moved abroad. Those fans currently have access to few games on television, said Brian Rolapp, the league's vice president for media strategy. Individual games will be blocked from certain countries abroad when a broadcaster has rights there, Rolapp said.
■ Semiconductors
Broadcom hikes expenses
Broadcom Corp, a supplier of semiconductor chips used in communication devices, said on Friday it may need to record expenses of US$1.5 billion or more for stock option accounting flaws -- double what it had estimated in July. The company said it had uncovered additional stock option grants with inaccurate dates. Broadcom is one of about 100 companies under scrutiny for possibly backdating stock option grants or dating options retroactively to coincide with share price lows. The practice increases the potential windfall for the recipient of the award.
■ Telecoms
Miami most gabby in US
Residents of Miami are the most talkative over mobile phones, making and receiving 298 calls a month -- nearly 10 calls per day, Verizon Wireless announced on Friday. Los Angeles comes in a distant second place, where residents complete just 260 calls a month, fewer than nine calls a day, the company said. "Our study offers an interesting snapshot of how Americans have come to rely on their wireless service every day at home and on the road," Verizon vice president Dick Lynch said in a statement.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to