Local memory chipmaker Winbond Electronics Corp (華邦電子) said yesterday it had exchanged views with state-owned Taiwan Memory Co (台灣記憶體公司) on possible collaboration.
Company spokesman Wilson Wen (溫萬壽) said the Hsinchu-based company was in talks with TMC on a broad range of issues, a stock exchange filing said yesterday.
No substantial conclusions had been reached yet, Wen said.
Winbond shares rallied 6.83 percent to NT$4.69 amid speculation that the chipmaker would supply memory chips to TMC. Winbond produces both commodity and specialized memory chips.
TMC head John Hsuan (宣明智) announced last week that the firm would form a technology partnership with Japan’s Elpida Memory Inc. He said TMC would adopt a business model similar to most other chip designers, which do not operate their own factories.
Separately, Powerchip Semiconductor Corp (力晶半導體), the nation’s top computer memory chipmaker, said yesterday it won final approval from a majority of its creditor banks for a six-month rollover on loans totaling NT$70 billion (US$2.09 billion), partly easing the financial pressure on the firm.
Creditor banks, led by Mega International Commercial Bank (兆豐國際商銀), made the decision at a meeting on Monday, Powerchip said in a stock exchange filing.
The chipmaker would have a six-month grace period to repay the principal amount, company spokesman Eric Tan (譚仲民) said.
Powerchip said last month it did not believe TMC would be an ideal partner.
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