An estimated year-on-year growth of 10.7 percent in desktop computer sales is expected to absorb the oversupply of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) products, the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) said yesterday.
"The strength of the nation's memory industry lies in the cost competitiveness of our mainstream 12-inch wafer factories as opposed to other international firms, such as Samsung Electronics Co, whose 8-inch factories are still its major force," Chen Chao-yih (
In addition to the oversupply of DRAM products last year, the worse-than-expected demand for Microsoft Corp's Windows Vista operating system also contributed to plunging DRAM prices, the IDB said.
As a result, it is estimated that the production volume of Taiwan's memory industry dropped by 14 percent to NT$248.7 billion (US$8.04 billion) last year from the previous year, the IDB's latest report showed.
Powerchip Semiconductor Corp (力晶半導體), the nation's biggest memory chipmaker, predicted earlier this week that prices may rise in about a month after chipmakers scale back production, the Bloomberg newswire reported on Tuesday, citing Powerchip president Brian Shieh (謝再居).
The IDB's report also said the nation's DRAM production volume last year, at US$8.71 billion, accounted for 25 percent of the global market, making Taiwan the world's second-largest producer of DRAM products, behind South Korea.
Aside from continuing to push for the nation's lead in the DRAM industry global market, IDB said domestic firms have also been planning to enter the NAND Flash market, which is thought to have enormous business opportunities in the end product market.
"Although DRAM products currently account for the largest portion of the world's memory market, it is estimated that demand for NAND Flash will surge in the future owing to the fast growing low-cost computer market, such as Eee PC," Eric Lu (呂正欽), section chief of the IDB's information technology industries division, said yesterday.
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