MANUFACTURING
Analysts see sapphire rise
Worldwide penetration of sapphire substrate for non-LED applications is forecast to continue expanding to 32 percent this year, because of Apple Inc’s adoption of the material for its iPhone camera lenses and fingerprint sensors, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said yesterday. Apple’s choice of the material is due to its scratch resistance, and the US company is expected to use sapphire substrates for more new products, such as the rumored iWatch, TrendForce said.
AVIATION
EVA eyes five Dreamliners
EVA Airways Corp (EVA, 長榮航空) chairman Chang Kuo-wei (張國煒) said on Wednesday that EVA plans to buy at least five Boeing 787-10 Dreamliners, which the US firm is to produce commercially in 2019, to replace EVA’s Airbus 330-200s. EVA is also to continue buying Boeing 777-300ERs to serve as the backbone of its fleet, Chang said.
MACHINE TOOLS
Nation leads Malaysian expo
Taiwan dominates the Malaysia Metaltech exhibition that opened on Wednesday in Kuala Lumpur, with 43 local toolmakers comprising the biggest presence among the 44 countries and areas at the exhibition, which runs until tomorrow. Taiwan’s machine tool sector generates production revenue of about US$5.43 billion a year, making the nation the world’s fourth-largest machine tool exporter in terms of export value.
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