SEMICONDUCTORS
Elan revenue grows
Touch-panel controller chip maker Elan Microelectronics Corp (義隆電子) said on Friday that revenue grew 0.73 percent to NT$668 million (US$22.27 million) last month, compared with NT$663 million in July, thanks to an increase in shipments of touchscreen chips. Elan said that revenue from its touchscreen chips rose 5.7 percent last month from a month earlier. The company also said it has clinched orders from five customers to supply chips used in wearable devices such as smartwatches and smart glasses. Elan has previously said that it is scheduled to ramp up production of chips used in wearable devices in the second half of this year.
SOLAR CELLS
Neo Solar hit by US probes
Neo Solar Power Corp (新日光), the nation’s largest solar cell manufacturer, said on Friday that revenue contracted 8.83 percent to NT$1.87 billion last month, from July’s NT$2.05 billion. Neo Solar attributed the decline to weak solar cell prices after the US Department of Commerce made a preliminary ruling on its anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations into Taiwanese and Chinese solar cell manufacturers.The company said that the outlook for next quarter was quite good, mostly due to strong demand from China. In additional, the US Department of Commerce has cut the proposed import tariffs on local solar cell makers, including Neo Solar and Motech Industries Inc (茂迪). Shipments are expected to increase next quarter, the company said.In the first eight months of the year, revenue jumped 72.37 percent to NT$18.59 billion from NT$10.78 billion in the same period of last year.
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
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day