SMARTPHONES
HTC rejects defection rumor
Taiwanese handset maker HTC Corp (宏達電) yesterday denied media reports that a top-level executive will defect to a new entrant to the nation’s upcoming fourth-generation (4G) market later this year. In an e-mail to the Central News Agency, HTC said chief marketing officer Ben Ho (何永生) is not leaving the company or changing his position, but rather will continue to focus on his current marketing duties. Local media reported earlier in the day that Ho, who joined HTC in January last year, will resign next month to join Ambit Microsystems Corp (國碁電子), which is backed by Hon Hai Group (鴻海集團).
CHIPMAKERS
Unity Opto profits surge
Unity Opto Technology Co (東貝光電), the nation’s second-largest LED chip packager by sales, said its net profit increased nearly 154 percent last year from 2012, although consolidated revenue fell by 8.2 percent over the year. Revenue for last year fell to NT$7.1 billion (US$233 million) from NT$7.74 billion in 2012 due to major clients’ inventory adjustments. However, cost reduction and efficient production drove net profit for last year to NT$209.37 million, or NT$0.63 per share, from NT$82.47 million, or NT$0.25 per share, the previous year, the company said. It has proposed a cash dividend of NT$0.4 this year, which is subject to shareholder approval at its annual general meeting set for June 18.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the