Two HTC executives resign
HTC Corp (宏達電) chief marketing officer Ben Ho (何永生) and president of engineering and operations Fred Liu (劉慶東) have resigned from the Taiwanese smartphone maker, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Ho tendered his resignation to chairwoman Cher Wang (王雪紅) and will leave by the end of this year, while Liu retired after 16 years, the people said.
Wang, who founded the company in 1997, has taken over the role of chief marketing officer.
The resignations come on the heels of the departure of Paul Golden, a former executive of Samsung Electronics Co, who left HTC earlier this year when his short-term contract as a marketing consulting expired, the sources said.
Notebook shipments stable
Morgan Stanley has maintained its projection of 5 percent quarterly growth for worldwide notebook computer shipments for this quarter, after the market rebounded to show marginal growth in the second quarter.
The brokerage expects notebook shipments from the top five original design manufacturers — Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶), Wistron Corp (緯創), Pegatron Corp (和碩) and Inventec Corp (英業達) — to be about 36 million units, compared with 34.4 million units shipped in the April-to-June period.
R&D spending grows
Research and development (R&D) spending increased for the 11th straight year to US$27.47 billion in 2012, accounting for 3.1 percent of the nation’s GDP, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.
Up to 74.2 percent of the amount was used for product research and development in the private sector, especially by firms making PCs, electronics and optical products, the ministry said.
The expense figure represents 4.9 percent growth from a year ago, whereas China’s R&D spending increased 18.5 percent and South Korea’s expanded 12 percent in 2012, the ministry said, citing studies conducted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Mazda eyes 5% market share
Mazda Motor Taiwan yesterday said it aims to increase its share of the domestic market share from the current 3.5 percent to 5 percent by 2018, after Mazda Motor Corp opened a local branch on July 1.
“We’d like the new branch to both enhance the brand image and strengthen the strong ties with our customers here,” the company said in a statement.
Bank heading to Cambodia
The Financial Supervisory Commission yesterday approved plans by Taiwan Cooperative Bank (合庫銀行) to set up two sub-branches in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
The expansion plans came as an increasing number of Taiwanese companies invest in the nation and the political situations has stabilized, the commission said.
First Commercial Bank (第一銀行), E.Sun Commercial Bank (玉山銀行), Mega Bank International Commercial Bank (兆豐銀行) and Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) already have a presence in the Southeast Asian nation.
UMC can use SONOS
Cypress Semiconductor Corp, a US-based provider of embedded nonvolatile memory solutions, said on Monday that it had licensed its silicon oxide nitride oxide silicon (SONOS) embedded Flash memory intellectual property to United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電) for the 55-nanometer process technology node.
The two companies said in a joint statement that the SONOS technology is ready for future application development including wearable devices, Internet of Things applications, microcontrollers and logic-dominated products.
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
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure