HannStar charged in S Korea
HannStar Display Corp (瀚宇彩晶) has received an investigation report issued by South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission alleging it and other LCD panel makers violated Seoul’s competition law, the company said in a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
The commission has not detailed fines, the statement said.
HannStar is reviewing the report and will take appropriate action, it said.
Another Taiwanese maker, AU Optronics Corp (友達光電), said on Tuesday it was studying the case and would appeal the ruling.
Cracker to shut for 40 days
Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化), the nation’s only publicly traded oil refiner, said its No. 2 naphtha cracker was running at full capacity as it prepared to close one unit and another remained shut following a fire.
The No. 3 cracker will close for maintenance for 40 days starting on Monday next week, spokesman Lin Keh-yen (林克彥) said yesterday. The No. 1 unit has been halted since a fire in May.
Formosa Petrochemical does not have a timetable for the resumption of work at the No. 1 cracker, Lin said.
“We’ll restart it only when we’re sure it’s safe,” he said.
ITRI offers App 123 for free
The government-funded Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) yesterday said it had made its application writing software, called App 123, open to the public for free to help the country beef up its software talent.
The ITRI said writers, painters, bloggers and others who want to tap the apps market, but are not that tech-savvy, would be able to use the software to upload content such as images and words to create their own apps.
TSMC issue to buy assets
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) plan to issue corporate bonds is aimed at raising funds for acquisitions to expand its non-core business to weather a cyclical slowdown in the global foundry industry, an analyst said yesterday.
“I expect TSMC to announce the acquisition of assets in the renewable energy sector and to finance the deal through the bond sale,” Grand Cathay Securities (大華證券) analyst Mars Hsu (徐振家) said. “The move to raise funds from the current interest rate environment is a good deal for TSMC.”
On Tuesday, TSMC said its board of directors had approved a plan to issue up to NT$35 billion (US$1.2 billion) in corporate bonds “to secure long-term, low fixed-cost funding.” The company did not elaborate.
Central bank sells T-bills
The government sold NT$30 billion of 273-day treasury bills at an average interest rate of 0.855 percent in an auction yesterday, the central bank said in a statement.
Bank denies Cathay interest
Union Bank of Taiwan (聯邦銀行) yesterday denied Internet reports that Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控) was interested in acquiring the lender, the bank said in a statement to the stock exchange. Cathay Financial is the nation’s largest financial services provider.
NT dollar up on US stock surge
The New Taiwan dollar rose against the US currency yesterday, adding NT$0.04 to close at NT$29.01, as the local stock market rebounded after US stocks surged overnight, dealers said.
The central bank intervened in late trading, buying the greenback and helping the local currency recoup part of its early losses, they said.
Turnover totaled US$1.273 billion yesterday.
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],”