Taiwan’s LCD panel makers are facing a bumpy road in developing next-generation technology as chances are fading that the government will support the costly development, a TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) analyst said yesterday.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs last month said that it was considering injecting as much as NT$10 billion (US$318.5 million) to help firms develop flexible active-matrix organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED) technology and to form a “national team” to build a supply chain to collectively support the development of the technology.
However, the government has been stuck in limbo since then, with no funding plan or development blueprint on the horizon.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times.
“We do not have high hopes that the government will support the development,” TrendForce analyst Iris Hu (胡家榕) told the Taipei Times by telephone. “It is just a verbal commitment.”
In contrast to the inertia of Taiwan’s government’s, the Chinese and South Korean governments are aggressively assisting their LCD panel manufacturers foray into AMOLED technology as the investments will be several times higher than building an LCD production line, Hu said.
“For local LCD panel suppliers, which just emerged from chronic losses, the government’s funding will be critical,” Hu said. “Without the government bankrolling the project, things could become really difficult.”
AU Optronics Corp (AUO, 友達光電), the nation’s No. 2 LCD panel maker, last month highlighted the need for government support, as it would cost a company more than NT$10 billion to develop AMOLED technology.
“Not a single company from Taiwan can afford it on its own,” AUO chairman Paul Peng (彭双浪) said at the time.
The Hsinchu-based company told investors in July that it would stop wasting money on the development of large OLED panels and focus instead on producing smaller OLED panels used in wearable and virtual reality devices.
Innolux Corp (群創), in which Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) has a major stake, recently said that it planned to develop flexible AMOLED technology, but it did not provide concrete details.
Analysts said it all depended on what resources Innolux could obtain after the tie-up of Hon Hai and Sharp Corp.
Sharp is developing OLED technology and is making better progress, they said.
“Taiwanese are losing ground in OLED to [South] Korean vendors,” CIMB Securities Ltd said in a report released earlier this month.
Most key equipment, critical material and production tools were fully booked by South Korean and Chinese firms for delivery over the next 18 months to 24 months, CIMB said, citing its recent surveys with OLED supply-chain firms.
Investors who expected Innolux to leverage Sharp’s IGZO technology for producing OLED mobile displays would be disappointed as the technology is suitable for producing OLED TV panels, but was unlikely to be commercialized within the next two years, CIMB said.
The brokerage said it was concerned about Taiwan’s LCD sector as the recent price uptrend is supported by seasonal demand, with the strength of price hikes appearing to diminish.
IN THE AIR: While most companies said they were committed to North American operations, some added that production and costs would depend on the outcome of a US trade probe Leading local contract electronics makers Wistron Corp (緯創), Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), Inventec Corp (英業達) and Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶) are to maintain their North American expansion plans, despite Washington’s 20 percent tariff on Taiwanese goods. Wistron said it has long maintained a presence in the US, while distributing production across Taiwan, North America, Southeast Asia and Europe. The company is in talks with customers to align capacity with their site preferences, a company official told the Taipei Times by telephone on Friday. The company is still in talks with clients over who would bear the tariff costs, with the outcome pending further
NEGOTIATIONS: Semiconductors play an outsized role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development and are a major driver of the Taiwan-US trade imbalance With US President Donald Trump threatening to impose tariffs on semiconductors, Taiwan is expected to face a significant challenge, as information and communications technology (ICT) products account for more than 70 percent of its exports to the US, Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said on Friday. Compared with other countries, semiconductors play a disproportionately large role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development, Lien said. As the sixth-largest contributor to the US trade deficit, Taiwan recorded a US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US last year — up from US$47.8 billion in 2023 — driven by strong
AI: Softbank’s stake increases in Nvidia and TSMC reflect Masayoshi Son’s effort to gain a foothold in key nodes of the AI value chain, from chip design to data infrastructure Softbank Group Corp is building up stakes in Nvidia Corp and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the latest reflection of founder Masayoshi Son’s focus on the tools and hardware underpinning artificial intelligence (AI). The Japanese technology investor raised its stake in Nvidia to about US$3 billion by the end of March, up from US$1 billion in the prior quarter, regulatory filings showed. It bought about US$330 million worth of TSMC shares and US$170 million in Oracle Corp, they showed. Softbank’s signature Vision Fund has also monetized almost US$2 billion of public and private assets in the first half of this year,
A proposed 100 percent tariff on chip imports announced by US President Donald Trump could shift more of Taiwan’s semiconductor production overseas, a Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER) researcher said yesterday. Trump’s tariff policy will accelerate the global semiconductor industry’s pace to establish roots in the US, leading to higher supply chain costs and ultimately raising prices of consumer electronics and creating uncertainty for future market demand, Arisa Liu (劉佩真) at the institute’s Taiwan Industry Economics Database said in a telephone interview. Trump’s move signals his intention to "restore the glory of the US semiconductor industry," Liu noted, saying that