Laid off workers protest
More than 20 former employees of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest chipmaker, protested against the company yesterday, saying it had unfairly forced them out of their jobs.
The protesters also requested that the Hsinchu Science Park Administration resolve the dispute with the company after accusing TSMC of forcing them to sign a document certifying they left the company voluntarily.
They also insisted that TSMC apologize for describing their redundancies as a company policy to “eliminate the less competent and retain able employees” and demanded that they be given preference if TSMC expands its workforce.
In response, the company said that it would demonstrate the greatest sincerity in helping the former employees resolve their problems.
Hsinchu Science Park Administration secretary-general Kao Shih-nan (高誓男) said his office had accepted the former employees’ applications and would help arbitrate the dispute between the two sides.
Taipower denies resignation
State-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) yesterday denied speculation that company chairman Chen Kuei-ming (陳貴明) had tendered his resignation to the Ministry of Economic Affairs over the company’s failure to complete the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant on schedule.
“The Fourth Nuclear Power Plant is near its final stage. The next step is to extensively test the utility-scale reactors. Through nuclear fission technology, these utility-scale reactors heat water to produce steam, which is then converted into electricity,” Taipower said in a statement.
Taipower said it had requested approval for more funding from the ministry.
Because of repeated construction delays, bankrupt suppliers, a rise in natural resource prices and sandstone shortages, Taipower said yesterday that it would take another two years to complete construction of the nuclear plant.
Ethylene plant back online
Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑), Taiwan’s only publicly traded oil refiner, restarted its No. 1 ethylene plant yesterday after obtaining government approval to resume production.
Output at the plant will return to normal in two or three days, after the cause of a blast earlier this month was “clarified,” spokesman Lin Keh-yen (林克彥) said by telephone in Taipei yesterday.
The company will shut its No. 3 ethylene plant tomorrow to repair a mechanical fault, Lin said.
“We can proceed now with the resumption of production” after the government inspection, Lin said, declining to disclose the cause of the accident, which killed one person. A compressor that was affected by the explosion will remain shut, he said.
The 700,000 tonne-a-year No. 1 plant had been shut since January because of weak demand for the chemical that’s used to make plastics. Formosa Petrochemical, based in Mailiao, has three ethylene plants with a combined annual capacity of 2.94 million tonnes, including the No. 3 unit’s 1.2 million tonnes.
The No. 3 plant will be halted for about two weeks, Lin said. Supplies to customers won’t be affected by the stoppage because of the resumption of output at the No. 1 unit and as the market hasn’t recovered, he said.
There was a blast at an instrument panel at Formosa Petrochemical’s No. 1 ethylene plant about 11pm on March 2, Lin said on March 3.
Formosa Petrochemical cannot disclose the cause of the accident until the government verifies it, he 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],”
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