Apple Inc is expected to leverage Taiwan’s display talents and technologies by establishing a display production laboratory in Taiwan, which could pave the way for Taiwanese LCD panel makers to secure new orders from the US electronics giant, an IHS Technology analyst said yesterday.
“It makes a lot of sense for Apple to open a display production lab in Taiwan, since the company has built similar labs in South Korea and Japan, where its main display suppliers are based,” IHS Technology director David Hsieh (謝勤益) said by telephone.
“We believe Taiwan’s display talents and strong technological capabilities are the reason why Apple chose to open a lab here to develop next-generation display technologies,” Hsieh said. “One of the possibilities is that Apple could work with local panel companies to develop organic LED [OLED] panels for new-generation iPhones.”
Photo: CNA
Taiwanese manufacturers are developing OLED panels and their technologies only lag behind their South Korean competitors, he said.
At the moment, Taiwanese firms play a secondary role supplying panels to Apple, he added.
China would not be a viable option for an Apple research lab, as Chinese flat-panel manufacturers lack the technologies to produce advanced panels in the near term, he said.
To secure display supply and technologies, Apple has invested in display manufacturing plants operated by its panel suppliers, Hsieh said.
Pegatron Corp (和碩) chairman Tung Tsu-hsien (童子賢) yesterday said that over the past three decades, Taiwan has played a central role in the global PC supply chain.
In the PC era, some US PC heavyweights closed their research and design centers in Silicon Valley and relocated those centers to Taiwan, he said.
Now Taiwan might have a chance to regain its glory if “the speculation [about Apple] is confirmed. That would be proof that Taiwan can once again play an active and important role in the world’s smart device supply chain,” Tung said.
Pegatron is competing with Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd (鴻海精密) for more orders to assemble iPhones for Apple.
“That also proves that Taiwan is deeply engaged in the world’s electronics research and development, rather than being just a manufacturer, or a pure material supplier,” Tung said.
Tung, who is also chairman of the Taipei Computer Association (台北市電腦公會), spoke to reporters on the sidelines an association meeting.
SEMICONDUCTORS: The German laser and plasma generator company will expand its local services as its specialized offerings support Taiwan’s semiconductor industries Trumpf SE + Co KG, a global leader in supplying laser technology and plasma generators used in chip production, is expanding its investments in Taiwan in an effort to deeply integrate into the global semiconductor supply chain in the pursuit of growth. The company, headquartered in Ditzingen, Germany, has invested significantly in a newly inaugurated regional technical center for plasma generators in Taoyuan, its latest expansion in Taiwan after being engaged in various industries for more than 25 years. The center, the first of its kind Trumpf built outside Germany, aims to serve customers from Taiwan, Japan, Southeast Asia and South Korea,
Gasoline and diesel prices at domestic fuel stations are to fall NT$0.2 per liter this week, down for a second consecutive week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) announced yesterday. Effective today, gasoline prices at CPC and Formosa stations are to drop to NT$26.4, NT$27.9 and NT$29.9 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, the companies said in separate statements. The price of premium diesel is to fall to NT$24.8 per liter at CPC stations and NT$24.6 at Formosa pumps, they said. The price adjustments came even as international crude oil prices rose last week, as traders
SIZE MATTERS: TSMC started phasing out 8-inch wafer production last year, while Samsung is more aggressively retiring 8-inch capacity, TrendForce said Chipmakers are expected to raise prices of 8-inch wafers by up to 20 percent this year on concern over supply constraints as major contract chipmakers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and Samsung Electronics Co gradually retire less advanced wafer capacity, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said yesterday. It is the first significant across-the-board price hike since a global semiconductor correction in 2023, the Taipei-based market researcher said in a report. Global 8-inch wafer capacity slid 0.3 percent year-on-year last year, although 8-inch wafer prices still hovered at relatively stable levels throughout the year, TrendForce said. The downward trend is expected to continue this year,
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which supplies advanced chips to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday reported NT$1.046 trillion (US$33.1 billion) in revenue for last quarter, driven by constantly strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips, falling in the upper end of its forecast. Based on TSMC’s financial guidance, revenue would expand about 22 percent sequentially to the range from US$32.2 billion to US$33.4 billion during the final quarter of 2024, it told investors in October last year. Last year in total, revenue jumped 31.61 percent to NT$3.81 trillion, compared with NT$2.89 trillion generated in the year before, according to
RSS