Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s top contract chipmaker, could continue to be the main supplier of Apple Inc’s A9 processor used in its new-
generation iPhones and iPads next year, a market researcher said yesterday.
The key for TSMC to win over its main competitor, Samsung Electronics Co, in vying for Apple’s orders is its production yield, the Market Intelligence and Consulting Institute (MIC, 產業情報研究所) told a press conference on technology industry trends for next year.
“The two companies’ technological capabilities are similar, so the key factor will be whose mass-production yield is better,” MIC director Chris Hung (洪春暉) told reporters on the sidelines of the event.
Hung added that the chances of TSMC remaining the main supplier are higher because of its better yields.
Samsung also produces advanced 20-nanometer (nm) chips, but its yield is not satisfactory, Hung said.
“However, as Apple tends to spread the risks, it is likely that the winning supplier of A9 will not take all the orders,” Hung said.
The MIC holds a positive view of Taiwan’s semiconductor industry next year, despite China’s determination to develop its chip industry, Hung said.
“Although Beijing is to back up the development of its semiconductor industry with an industry-supporting fund of 120 billion yuan [US$19.29 billion], Taiwan still has its technological advantages in terms of design, manufacturing and packaging in the global market,” Hung said.
He said it would take three to five years for China to become a real threat to the Taiwanese industry, but some Taiwanese companies have started to take proactive measures against the rising competition.
Handset chip supplier MediaTek Inc’s (聯發科) 300 million yuan investment in a Chinese government fund and United Microelectronics Corp’s (UMC, 聯電) US$1.35 billion planned investment in a new foundry in Xiamen demonstrates the two companies’ determination to deepen cooperation with China and to benefit from the rapid growth in the world’s largest semiconductor market, he said.
Hung said he expects mergers and acquisitions among Chinese semiconductor companies in the next two or three years, adding that Chinese companies might integrate their upstream and downstream suppliers via strategic cooperation with international companies.
“International semiconductor companies Intel Corp and Samsung both attempted to secure their positions in the Chinese market through investments in chips plants in the country,” Hung said.
Intel has two chips plants in Chengdu (成都) and Dalian (大連) cities, and Samsung established its first semiconductor fabrication plan in Xian (西安), he added.
Hung said the global companies’ moves in China would push Taiwanese companies to secure the positions in the Chinese market as soon as possible.
France cannot afford to ignore the third credit-rating reduction in less than a year, French Minister of Finance Roland Lescure said. “Three agencies have downgraded us and we can’t ignore this cloud,” he told Franceinfo on Saturday, speaking just hours after S&P lowered his country’s credit rating to “A+” from “AA-” in an unscheduled move. “Fundamentally, it’s an additional cloud to a weather forecast that was already pretty gray. It’s a call for lucidity and responsibility,” he said, adding that this is “a call to be serious.” The credit assessor’s move means France has lost its double-A rating at two of the
Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), founder and CEO of US-based artificial intelligence chip designer Nvidia Corp and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) on Friday celebrated the first Nvidia Blackwell wafer produced on US soil. Huang visited TSMC’s advanced wafer fab in the US state of Arizona and joined the Taiwanese chipmaker’s executives to witness the efforts to “build the infrastructure that powers the world’s AI factories, right here in America,” Nvidia said in a statement. At the event, Huang joined Y.L. Wang (王英郎), vice president of operations at TSMC, in signing their names on the Blackwell wafer to
AI BOOST: Although Taiwan’s reliance on Chinese rare earth elements is limited, it could face indirect impacts from supply issues and price volatility, an economist said DBS Bank Ltd (星展銀行) has sharply raised its forecast for Taiwan’s economic growth this year to 5.6 percent, citing stronger-than-expected exports and investment linked to artificial intelligence (AI), as it said that the current momentum could peak soon. The acceleration of the global AI race has fueled a surge in Taiwan’s AI-related capital spending and exports of information and communications technology (ICT) products, which have been key drivers of growth this year. “We have revised our GDP forecast for Taiwan upward to 5.6 percent from 4 percent, an upgrade that mainly reflects stronger-than-expected AI-related exports and investment in the third
RARE EARTHS: The call between the US Treasury Secretary and his Chinese counterpart came as Washington sought to rally G7 partners in response to China’s export controls China and the US on Saturday agreed to conduct another round of trade negotiations in the coming week, as the world’s two biggest economies seek to avoid another damaging tit-for-tat tariff battle. Beijing last week announced sweeping controls on the critical rare earths industry, prompting US President Donald Trump to threaten 100 percent tariffs on imports from China in retaliation. Trump had also threatened to cancel his expected meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in South Korea later this month on the sidelines of the APEC summit. In the latest indication of efforts to resolve their dispute, Chinese state media reported that
RSS