ChipMOS Technologies Inc (南茂科技), a Hsinchu-based chip packaging and testing services provider, on Wednesday said it had secured syndicated loans totaling NT$10 billion (US$334 million) from a group of local banks.
The funds come as the company as the firm shifts its focus away from the packaging and testing services of commodity DRAM to niche memory and LCD driver chips, which generate a higher gross margin, after debt problems with memorychip clients.
In the first quarter, the firm’s revenue contribution from memory packaging and testing businesses dropped below 50 percent, although it remains a major sales driver.
ChipMOS reported NT$883 million in net profit in the first quarter on revenue of NT$4.99 billion. Earnings per share were NT$1.02 in the first quarter, up from NT$0.84 in the previous quarter and NT$0.51 a year earlier, company data showed.
Analysts have expected the company to continue benefiting from growing demand for LCD driver IC chips, driven by higher-resolution smartphones and 4K2K TVs, as well as outsourcing from Samsung Electronics Co.
ChipMOS said in a statement that it would use the new funds to refinance its existing debt obligations, strengthen its working capital and for general corporate purposes.
The five-year syndicated loans with floating rates — composed of a NT$6 billion secured loan and a NT$4 billion unsecured credit line — were provided by 11 domestic banks led by the Bank of Taiwan (BOT, 台灣銀行).
The state-run bank said in a statement that the syndicated loans were oversubscribed by 42 percent — to NT$14.2 billion — as lenders were bullish on the growth potential of the Hsinchu Science Park-based company.
“The company’s strong financial health, differentiated market position and continued growth opportunities were all strong factors that combined to bring us this latest opportunity,” ChipMOS chairman and CEO Cheng Shih-chieh (鄭世杰) said of the syndicated loans in the statement.
ChipMOS shares rose 0.35 percent to NT$42.95 yesterday in Taipei trading, rising 51.66 percent since its debut on the main bourse on April 11.
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