The price of ProMOS Technologies Inc (茂德科技) stock yesterday tumbled by its daily limit amid media speculation that capital injections from Japanese chipmaker Elpida Memory Inc had fizzled out.
Shares of the local DRAM maker plunged 6.67 percent to NT$0.98, the lowest since hitting NT$0.92 on June 6, 2009, after the Nikkei business daily reported yesterday that Elpida would back down on its plan to invest in ProMOS to avoid financial risks.
Elpida chief executive Yukio Sakamoto had said more than once that the company intended to deepen its partnership with Taiwanese DRAM companies to topple industry leader Samsung Electronics Co from the No. 1 spot.
Hsinchu-based ProMOS reported a loss of NT$4.26 billion (US$149 million) for the first quarter, according to the financial statement filed to the Taiwan Stock Exchange. As of March 31, it had accumulated NT$69.85 billion in debt, while owning NT$74.48 billion in assets.
ProMOS sidestepped questions as to whether it was in talks to sell a stake to the Tokyo-based chipmaker.
“We are exploring cooperation [opportunities] in other areas [other than supplying chips to Elpida],” ProMOS spokesman Ben Tseng (曾邦助) said by telephone. “It is premature” to talk about selling equities to Elpida, he said.
Tseng said the chipmaker planned to sell up to 3.5 billion shares via private placement to bring in strategic partners.
“Companies from Taiwan and the US have shown interest in subscribing for the company’s shares last year in an aborted share sale. We will approach them first this year,” he said.
Tseng said that he did not mean to exclude Japanese companies from the shortlist, but wanted to avoid igniting more speculation.
The new fund-raising program would need approval from shareholders in an annual meeting scheduled for June 10.
ProMOS supplies DRAM chips to Elpida using technologies from the Tokyo-based company. It was joined by local rival Powerchip Technology Corp (力晶科技) earlier this year as both companies failed to generate enough cash flow to invest in developing advanced and cost-efficient technologies.
Shares of the nation’s two biggest DRAM companies, Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) and Powerchip, yesterday rose 0.37 percent and 1.67 percent to NT$13.4 and NT$5.49 respectively, as chip prices rebounded on easing oversupply.
The contract price for benchmark DDR3 2GB DRAM chips rose 2.74 percent in the first two weeks of this month from two weeks ago, market researcher TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said in a report issued on Wednesday.
A further uptick is expected in the second half of this year on falling supply and PC makers’ low inventories, the Taipei-based researcher 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],”