Handset chip designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday said that a chip supply constraint is likely to persist through the end of the year.
While the company did not elaborate on how the issue is likely to affect its business this quarter, vice chairman and president Hsieh Ching-jiang (謝清江) said that it would be a slower season than the third quarter, citing seasonal factors and weakening growth momentum in China.
The Hsinchu-based company has a long list of Chinese clients, including Oppo Mobile Telecommunications Corp (歐珀移動), Vivo Electronics Corp (維沃移動通信) and Xiaomi Corp (小米).
Photo: CNA
Chip supply became tight from the second quarter after a powerful earthquake hit southern Taiwan in February, disrupting production by local chipmakers, including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), MediaTek said in June.
Hsieh also attributed the chip shortage to robust demand for low-and-mid-range smartphones, adding that he hoped the situation would ease next year.
“We have not seen any significant improvement in the fourth quarter, compared with the third quarter,” Hsieh said on the sidelines of a news conference in Taipei to celebrate Google’s 10th anniversary in Taiwan. “Supply of certain [chips] used in mobile phones remains tight, especially 28-nanometer chips.”
Hsieh said the third quarter would be its best this year and that the company is under pressure to hold onto its gross margin for this quarter amid intensifying competition.
MediaTek is hoping to lift its gross margin by increasing shipments of its higher-margin Helio chips.
The firm expects to start shipping its high-end Helio-X30 chip in the first half of next year, Hsieh said.
The chip is to be produced using TSMC’s most advanced 10-nanometer technology, he said.
In August, Hsieh said that revenue for last quarter would grow between 8 and 16 percent, or from NT$72.53 billion (US$2.31 million) in the second quarter to between NT$78 billion and NT$84 billion last quarter.
HORMUZ ISSUE: The US president said he expected crude prices to drop at the end of the war, which he called a ‘minor excursion’ that could continue ‘for a little while’ The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait started reducing oil production, as the near-closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz ripples through energy markets and affects global supply. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is “managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements,” the company said in a statement, without giving details. Kuwait Petroleum Corp said it was lowering production at its oil fields and refineries after “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The war in the Middle East has all but closed Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the open seas,
Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) yesterday said the DRAM supply crunch could extend through 2028, as the artificial intelligence (AI) boom has led the world’s major memory makers to dramatically reduce production of standard DRAM and allocate a significant portion of their capacity for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips. The most severe supply constraints would stretch to the first half of next year due to “very limited” increases in new DRAM capacity worldwide, Nanya Technology president Lee Pei-ing (李培瑛) told a news briefing. The company plans to increase monthly 12-inch wafer capacity to 20,000 in the first half of 2028 after a
Taiwan has enough crude oil reserves for more than 100 days and sufficient natural gas reserves for more than 11 days, both above the regulatory safety requirement, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday, adding that the government would prioritize domestic price stability as conflicts in the Middle East continue. Overall, energy supply for this month is secure, and the government is continuing efforts to ensure sufficient supply for next month, Kung told reporters after meeting with representatives from business groups at the ministry in Taipei. The ministry has been holding daily cross-ministry meetings at the Executive Yuan to ensure
RATIONING: The proposal would give the Trump administration ample leverage to negotiate investments in the US as it decides how many chips to give each country US officials are debating a new regulatory framework for exporting artificial intelligence (AI) chips and are considering requiring foreign nations to invest in US AI data centers or security guarantees as a condition for granting exports of 200,000 chips or more, according to a document seen by Reuters. The rules are not yet final and could change. They would be the first attempt to regulate the flow of AI chips to US allies and partners since US President Donald Trump’s administration said it rescinded its predecessor’s so-called AI diffusion rules. Those rules sought to keep a significant amount of AI
RSS