■ SEMICONDUCTORS
No signs of inventory build
Qualcomm Inc, the world's second-biggest maker of mobile-phone chips, said manufacturers aren't stockpiling its IC chips ahead of a possible embargo by the US International Trade Commission (ITC) this week. "We haven't seen significant inventory build," chief executive officer Paul Jacobs told a Sanford C. Bernstein & Co conference in New York yesterday. The ITC is scheduled to rule on Thursday whether to ban phones with some Qualcomm chips after finding in December that they infringed a Broadcom Corp patent for a battery-saving feature.
■ SEMICONDUCTORS
Micron, IC makers win suit
Micron Technology Inc, the US' biggest memory IC maker chipmaker, and seven other chipmakers won dismissal of some claims they overcharged consumers by fixing prices of memory chips. US District Court Judge Phyllis Hamilton in San Francisco threw out claims that would have allowed lawyers for consumers and other indirect purchasers of memory chips in dozens of states to seek triple damages against chipmakers for alleged violations of state and federal antitrust laws. The other defendants are Infineon Technologies AG, Hynix Semiconductor Inc, Elpida Memory Inc, NEC Electronics America Inc, Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技), Mosel Vitelic Corp (茂矽) and Winbond Electronics Corp (華邦電子). Hamilton said that consumers lacked standing to pursue the antitrust claims because they didn't purchase DRAM chips directly.
■ STEEL
CSC inks iron ore deal
Kaohsiung-based China Steel Corp (CSC, 中鋼) signed a four-year contract on Friday with Samarco to secure its supply of iron ore pellets. Under the contract, the Brazilian mining company will supply 1.9 million tonnes of iron ore pellets from next year to 2011, securing 25 percent of CSC's annual iron ore pellet demand. The two companies have maintained good commercial relations since 1998, when CSC first contracted Samarco to buy iron ore pellets, said the state-run CSC, which produces 11 million tonnes of raw steel per year.
■ SOFTWARE
Oracle expands SAP suit
Business software maker Oracle Corp has added copyright infringement and breach of contract claims to a lawsuit alleging rival SAP AG trespassed on its computers to obtain secret product information so it would have a better chance to reel in new customers. The documents filed on Friday in San Francisco federal court expands on a complaint that Oracle filed against Germany-based SAP in late March. The lawsuit charges SAP with "corporate theft on a grand scale." Redwood Shores, California-based Oracle alleges that SAP trampled on its intellectual property rights by heisting computer code and claiming it as its own.
■ TELECOMS
Aborigines seek damages
Aborigines in western Canada are seeking compensation from a local telephone carrier for every cellphone signal that crosses their lands. The Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs determined at a recent economic development summit to negotiate revenue sharing with Manitoba Telecom Services for signals that cross their reserves and traditional territories. "[The request is] based on the understanding that we do have some fundamental rights as indigenous people to land, water and airspace," Chief Ovide Mercredi of the Grand Rapids First Nation told public broadcaster CBC.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the