ASE, Bosch to team up
Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc (ASE, 日月光), the world’s biggest chip packager and tester, said yesterday it would team up with Bosch Sensortec GmbH of Germany to jointly develop a leading edge sensor device.
ASE said this leading edge sensor device features digital interfaces in an advanced wafer level chip scale package, as the industry is geared towards highly integrated low-power consumer electronics applications.
Sensor technologies are playing an integral role in emerging applications within the Internet of Things, and the high demand for innovative applications have increasingly pushed semiconductor firms towards smaller and thinner form factors that demands advanced wafer-level packaging technologies provided by ASE, the company said.
Money-supply growth slows
Taiwan’s M2 money supply, the broadest measure of money flowing through the banking system, rose 5.63 percent last month from a year earlier, decelerating from June’s 5.74 percent rise, the central bank said on Monday, due to decreased net foreign capital inflows.
The M1B monetary aggregate rose 7.65 percent year-on-year last month from June’s 7.46 percent increase, mainly owing to increased demand deposits resulting from brisk trading in the stock market, the bank said in a statement.
M1B refers to net currency, checking accounts and passbook deposits of companies and individuals, plus the passbook savings deposits of individuals. M2 refers to M1B plus time deposits, negotiable certificates of deposit, foreign currency deposits and mutual funds.
For the first seven months of this year, the average annual growth rates of M1B and M2 were 8.53 percent and 5.85 percent respectively, the bank said.
AmFraser deal goes through
China Development Financial Holding Corp (中華開發金控) has acquired Singapore’s AmFraser Securities Pte Ltd through its brokerage unit for about S$38 million (US$30.4 million), the company said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
China Development said through the deal, its wholly owned subsidiary KGI Securities Co (凱基證券) would have access to AmFraser’s existing clients and trading platforms in Singapore and Hong Kong.
Ting Hsin inks CNS buy pact
Ting Hsin International Group (頂新集團) on Monday signed an agreement to buy a 60 percent stake in local cable TV operator China Network Systems Co (CNS, 中嘉網路) from South Korean private equity fund MBK Partners Ltd, Ting Hsin spokesman Ted Chia (賈先德) said at a press conference.
Due to confidentiality terms of the agreement, Chia declined to reveal any monetary numbers or the ownership structure of CNS. He said the two companies would prepare legal documents for regulatory reviews next month by the National Communications Commission and the Investment Commission.
No power price hikes planned
The government has no electricity rate hike plans in the near future even as the supply of electricity tightens as old plants are decommissioned, Minister of Economic Affairs Woody Duh (杜紫軍) said on Monday.
“Electricity rates won’t be increased any time this year or next year,” Duh said in an interview with CNA.
However, he said that Taiwan’s electricity supply would only turn tighter in the near future because old power plants would be decommissioned soon and there is no guarantee that new plants will come on line in time to pick up the slack.
The situation will only get worse if the Jinshan Nuclear Power Plant and the Guosheng Nuclear Power Plant are fully decommissioned on schedule (in 2019 and 2023 respectively), Duh said.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six