Beefing up its competitiveness in the tablet PC chase, Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶電腦), the world’s second-largest portable PC contract maker by revenue, yesterday said it would invest NT$2 billion (US$68 million) in subsidiary Henghao Technology Co (恆顥科技).
“The ‘media pad’ demand will report strong growth in the coming years. Investing in touch panel production can shorten such product design cycles and enhance product competitiveness,” Compal said in a statement.
The total investment amount to Henghao will be NT$2 billion through installments, it said.
Of that, NT$1.4 billion is earmarked for the purchase of a so-called 4.5-generation color-filter facility and related equipment from Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd (中華映管).
Henghao is Compal’s new wholly-owned subsidiary that was set up this month to engage in the glass-type projected capacitive touch-panel business.
Henghao’s production lines are expected to begin mass production by the second quarter next year at the earliest.
Compal said the initial output would be 70,000 sheets per month, which will be supplied mainly to Compal.
In addition to the touch panel foray, Compal and Sitronix Technology Co (矽創電子) will establish a joint venture to design touch controller ICs specifically for use in tablets, the Chinese-language DigiTimes reported early this month.
Compal will invest more than NT$40 million for a stake of less than 50 percent in the venture. Sitronix, a developer of touch controller ICs for handsets, will be the main operating entity, Compal spokesman Gary Lu (呂清雄) was quoted as saying.
The investment comes in the wake of tablets’ global market potential, which is expected to take off next year, Lu said.
Among Taiwanese notebook contract manufacturers, Compal has led in developing touch controller solutions and has been cooperating with several PC brands, including Acer Inc (宏碁), Toshiba Corp and Dell Inc, to develop tablet PCs, DigiTimes said.
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],”