Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技), the nation’s biggest computer memory chipmaker, said yesterday that company executives would meet today to decide whether it would submit a proposal asking for government financial assistance for a technological upgrade ahead of a coming deadline.
Three months ago, the Ministry of Economic Affairs unveiled a much-anticipated plan to rescue the nation’s dynamic random access memory (DRAM) industry from the brink of collapse through financial support.
Tomorrow is the deadline for local DRAM companies to send their proposal for public funding.
Taoyuan-based Nanya is widely seen as the major and only competitor of government-backed Taiwan Memory Co (TMC, 台灣創新記憶體公司), vying for a share of state funds as it will need as much capital as possible to fund a technological migration to new-generation 50-nanometer technology.
“We have yet to reach a final decision. We will hold meetings tomorrow [Oct. 19] for further discussions after I come back to Taiwan,” Nanya Technology spokesman Pai Pei-lin (白培霖) said by telephone. Pai was on a business trip to Beijing yesterday.
TMC recently submitted its business plan to the ministry and requested a NT$5 billion (US$155 million) capital injection from the government, half the original estimate, the ministry said.
Two months ago, Pai said Nanya would submit a proposal in collaboration with Micron Technology AG before the deadline. The company has been in discussions with ministry officials to ensure it met all requirements.
The chipmaker now seems unsure, however, about whether obtaining a small amount of capital by the government in exchange for consolidating capacity with local DRAM firms — as requested by the government — is the best choice.
Some chipmakers, including Nanya, have begun making money after DRAM prices rebounded above cost levels.
Spot prices bounced back to US$2.4 per unit, something unseen in the past 18 months, DRAMeXchange Technology Inc (集邦科技) said.
Initially, Nanya had planned to use government funds on technological migration.
It would take less than NT$20 billion for Nanya to upgrade its 68-nanometer technology to 50-nanometer, allowing it to make new DDR3 DRAM chips at lower costs, the company said.
In June, Nanya raised NT$12.22 billion by issuing 1 billion new shares, mostly subscribed by fellow Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團) companies to buy new equipment for technological migration and to repay debts. Nanya could issue 800 million shares to raise more funds.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”