Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技), the nation’s biggest PC DRAM maker, yesterday said revenue rose 0.3 percent last month, hitting its highest level in a year, helped by higher chip prices.
Revenue rose to NT$3.42 billion (US$114 million) last month, compared with NT$3.41 billion in April, Nanya Technology said in a press release. That represented a year-on-year drop of 12.7 percent from NT$3.92 billion in the same period last year.
Nanya spokesman Pai Pei-lin (白培霖) attributed the monthly increase to higher chip prices, which rose 3 percent last month from the previous month.
Looking ahead, Pai said by telephone that “June revenue will be even higher and there is a chance prices will climb further.”
Inotera Memories Inc (華亞科技), a PC DRAM joint venture between Nanya Technology and US memory chipmaker Micron Technology Inc, said revenue expanded 9.7 percent month-on-month to NT$3.29 billion last month. That was a 10.3 percent decrease from NT$3.67 billion in May last year.
Memorychip maker Powerchip Technology Corp (力晶科技) yesterday said revenue grew 13.4 percent last month to NT$2.58 billion from April’s NT$2.27 billion, because of a price increase of PC DRAM chips and growing demand for its driver ICs ahead of sales of new tablets and smartphones in the second half of this year.
Year-on-year, Powerchip’s revenue last month plunged 37 percent from NT$4.07 billion.
A company spokesman expected PC DRAM chip prices to rise in the second half as Intel’s new Ivy Bridge chip and Microsoft’s Windows 8 are expected to spur PC replacement demand.
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],”
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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