Hynix Semiconductor Inc, the world’s second-largest maker of computer-memory chips, said the industry may recover in the second half as production cutbacks by manufacturers help ease a glut.
“With all the adjustments in supply, I cautiously predict that the fourth quarter could’ve been the bottom,” chief executive officer Kim Jong-kap told reporters in Seoul yesterday.
“We hope the situation will get better towards the second half,” Kim said, declining to comment on whether the company may post a profit this year.
The Ichon, South Korea-based chipmaker said last month it plans to cut production by 20 percent to 30 percent at the end of the month, joining Japan’s Toshiba Corp, Micron Technology Inc and Taiwanese chipmakers in reducing output as the global recession worsened an oversupply of semiconductors.
Chip prices may increase in the second half because of changes in supply, Kim Ji-bum, senior vice president at Hynix, said yesterday. Capital spending by computer-memory chipmakers worldwide will probably decline by as much as 50 percent this year, according to Taipei-based Dramexchange Technology Inc (集邦科技), operator of Asia’s biggest spot market for chips.
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