Elan sues over infringement
Elan Microelectronics Corp (義隆電子), one of Taiwan’s integrated circuit designers for touch device use, has sued a Chinese company for alleged patent infringement in a Beijing court.
In a statement released on Friday, the Taiwanese IC designer — which specializes in touchpad module solutions for notebook computers — said that it is suing Suzhou-based Pixcir Microelectronics Co (瀚瑞微電子) and one of its distributors for infringing on a patent related to capacitive touch devices.
Elan said it has asked the court to order the Chinese firms to immediately cease their patent violating activities and pay damages.
The lawsuit was the second in a week initiated by Elan against companies it alleges stole its technology.
On Thursday, Elan said it filed a complaint with Taiwan’s Intellectual Property Court alleging that Egalax Empia Technology Inc (禾瑞亞科技), another Taiwanese IC designer, infringed its capacitive touch IC patent.
Elan settled a patent infringement complaint it made against Apple Inc last year, with the California-based company agreeing to pay US$5 million to the Taiwanese firm.
Optical sector sees record sales
Sales of precision optical components hit a historic high last year, on stronger demand from big-name mobile device and camera companies, the Photonics Industry and Technology Development Association (PIDA, 光電科技協進會) said on Saturday.
Optical components generated NT$80.7 billion (US$2.7 billion) in revenue last year, a rise of 6 percent annually, as business was boosted by companies such Apple Inc, which rolled out new smartphones and other devices, the association said.
The association also attributed the stellar sales figures to expansions by Taiwanese contract manufacturers into producing lenses for mobile phones and for Japanese camera maker Canon Inc.
Taiwan managed to ride the wave of strong demand for lenses used in smartphones and digital cameras, which guaranteed the stable growth of the optics industry amid a sluggish global economy, PIDA said.
Mobile phone camera lenses are projected to account for a greater portion of sales in the optics sector at 48 percent, the association added.
Foxconn sees 49% fall in sales
Foxconn Technology Co (鴻準), a Hon Hai Group (鴻海) subsidiary that produces metal casings for Apple’s iPhones and iPads, on Friday reported consolidated sales of NT$5.85 billion for last month, down 49.92 percent from a month earlier, and a drop of 22.78 percent from the previous year.
The company’s consolidated sales for the first two months of the year rose 20.18 percent year-on-year to NT$17.53 billion.
With the global gaming console business entering its low season, Foxconn’s sales for the quarter ending March 31 could fall more than 30 percent from fourth-quarter sales of NT$55.38 billion, according to analyst forecasts.
Firms join Vietnam coffee fair
Taiwanese firms are promoting coffee which was grown in Vietnam at an international coffee festival.
The festival opened on Saturday in Buon Ma Thuot, the capital city of Dak Lak Province in central Vietnam.
Nearly 200 Vietnamese and foreign coffee businesses set up 725 booths to promote their products at the event.
The festival is held every two years to promote Vietnamese coffee and boost coffee exports and will run through March 12.
China inflation to stay steady
China’s inflation could be kept under control this year, making it difficult to predict whether the central bank will need to increase interest rates, Bank of China Ltd (中國銀行) president Li Lihui (李禮輝) said.
The world’s second-largest economy is in “steady mode” and recovering, Li said in an interview in Beijing, where he was attending the annual session of the National People’s Congress, the country’s legislature.
“The consumer price index will still be controlled relatively well this year,” Li said. “Our projection is that it can be maintained at about 3 percent.”
“Under this scenario, it’s hard to say at this point whether the central bank will need to raise interest rates,” he added.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to