The Taiwan Memory Co (TMC, 台灣記憶體公司), which was launched by the Ministry of Economic Affairs last week to help reorganize the computer memory chip industry, will seek as much as NT$30 billion (US$867 million) from the government, company chief John Hsuan (宣明智) said yesterday.
TMC plans to ask the National Development Fund for about NT$30 billion in next two months, Hsuan told local cable channel USTV during a press conference in Hsinchu. The investment proposal will need approval from lawmakers, he said.
Hsuan, honorary vice chairman of United Microelectronics Corp (聯電), said the government hoped to spend as little as possible on restructuring the dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chip industry.
Some overseas private funds and a local memory module maker have already expressed interest in investing in TMC, Hsuan said, adding that the company would seek capital from local institutional investors, banks and component makers. He declined to name names, but said he would meet potential investors this week.
To defuse public concern over the creation of the company — and fears that it would be a waste of taxpayer’s money — Hsuan said he would limit the company’s cumulative losses to NT$15 billion.
He plans to visit Japan’s Elpida Memory Inc and Micron Technology Inc of the US in two weeks to discuss patents and intellectual property rights.
He said that TMC was not a short-term rescue program. Its goal was to help Taiwanese DRAM companies stay alive and turn a profit in three years by helping enhance their technological competitiveness, he said.
TMC was a revitalization plan for the DRAM industry, not a consolidation plan or a merger plan, which was what most investors and industry analysts had expected, Hsuan said.
Local DRAM companies had to solve their own financial problems, he said, not rely on TMC.
CHIP RACE: Three years of overbroad export controls drove foreign competitors to pursue their own AI chips, and ‘cost US taxpayers billions of dollars,’ Nvidia said China has figured out the US strategy for allowing it to buy Nvidia Corp’s H200s and is rejecting the artificial intelligence (AI) chip in favor of domestically developed semiconductors, White House AI adviser David Sacks said, citing news reports. US President Donald Trump on Monday said that he would allow shipments of Nvidia’s H200 chips to China, part of an administration effort backed by Sacks to challenge Chinese tech champions such as Huawei Technologies Co (華為) by bringing US competition to their home market. On Friday, Sacks signaled that he was uncertain about whether that approach would work. “They’re rejecting our chips,” Sacks
NATIONAL SECURITY: Intel’s testing of ACM tools despite US government control ‘highlights egregious gaps in US technology protection policies,’ a former official said Chipmaker Intel Corp has tested chipmaking tools this year from a toolmaker with deep roots in China and two overseas units that were targeted by US sanctions, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter. Intel, which fended off calls for its CEO’s resignation from US President Donald Trump in August over his alleged ties to China, got the tools from ACM Research Inc, a Fremont, California-based producer of chipmaking equipment. Two of ACM’s units, based in Shanghai and South Korea, were among a number of firms barred last year from receiving US technology over claims they have
BARRIERS: Gudeng’s chairman said it was unlikely that the US could replicate Taiwan’s science parks in Arizona, given its strict immigration policies and cultural differences Gudeng Precision Industrial Co (家登), which supplies wafer pods to the world’s major semiconductor firms, yesterday said it is in no rush to set up production in the US due to high costs. The company supplies its customers through a warehouse in Arizona jointly operated by TSS Holdings Ltd (德鑫控股), a joint holding of Gudeng and 17 Taiwanese firms in the semiconductor supply chain, including specialty plastic compounds producer Nytex Composites Co (耐特) and automated material handling system supplier Symtek Automation Asia Co (迅得). While the company has long been exploring the feasibility of setting up production in the US to address
OPTION: Uber said it could provide higher pay for batch trips, if incentives for batching is not removed entirely, as the latter would force it to pass on the costs to consumers Uber Technologies Inc yesterday warned that proposed restrictions on batching orders and minimum wages could prompt a NT$20 delivery fee increase in Taiwan, as lower efficiency would drive up costs. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi made the remarks yesterday during his visit to Taiwan. He is on a multileg trip to the region, which includes stops in South Korea and Japan. His visit coincided the release last month of the Ministry of Labor’s draft bill on the delivery sector, which aims to safeguard delivery workers’ rights and improve their welfare. The ministry set the minimum pay for local food delivery drivers at
RSS