Powertech Technology Inc (力成科技), the nation’s biggest memorychip tester and packager, yesterday reported rising revenue for last quarter on increasing customer demand and bigger contribution from a new Chinese factory built by client Micron Technology Inc.
Revenue expanded 6.9 percent to NT$11.32 billion (US$349.3 million) in the second quarter from NT$10.62 billion in the first quarter.
Last quarter’s results were mostly in line with Powertech’s forecast in April after its business hit a trough in the first quarter.
Powertech counts Micron, Toshiba Corp of Japan and DRAM module maker Kingston Technology Corp as major clients.
Powertech said the new chip packaging firm — in Shaanxi Province’s Xian — would be one of the company’s major growth engines this year and next year.
The plant, which began operations in March, mostly provides chip packaging services for Micron.
Separately, memory module maker Adata Technology Co (威剛) said sales grew 22.87 percent monthly to NT$1.88 billion last month — the highest level in 15 months — as market demand improved.
Last quarter, revenue expanded 3.57 percent to NT$5.06 billion from the previous quarter, Adata said.
Solid state disks overtook DARM products to became the biggest revenue source for the company last quarter, accounting for more than a 30 percent share, the company said.
Adata chairman Simon Chen (陳立白) on Monday said that demand for both DRAM and NAND flash products would move upward next quarter amid improving demand and short supply.
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],”
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained