SEMICONDUCTORS
Demand tipped to improve
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), which makes silicon wafers, yesterday said demand for this quarter would be greater than seasonal norms, driven by rising demand for high-end smartphones. GlobalWafers said it plans to raise wafer prices in the first quarter next year to reflect the strong New Taiwan dollar and rising wafer costs. In the first three quarters of this year, the company saw its net profit contract by 30 percent to NT$1.11 billion (US$35.3 million), or earnings per share of NT$3, from NT1.58 billion, or NT$4.56 per share, during the same period a year earlier. The company also said that US regulators approved its acquisition of SunEdison Semiconductor Ltd for US$683 million.
CHIP DESIGNERS
Faraday income declines
Faraday Technology Corp (智原), a fabless chip design service and silicon patent provider, yesterday said net income last quarter plunged 50 percent from NT$125 million in the second quarter to NT$50 million. Earnings per share tumbled to NT$0.21 from NT$0.51 the previous quarter. Revenue declined 15 percent quarter-on-quarter to NT$1.54 billion last quarter from NT$1.81 billion as demand weakened due to customer inventory corrections and seasonal factors, Faraday said. The company expects revenue to drop by a low-single-digit percentage this quarter as demand continues to dip. Gross margin will fall to between 40 and 43 percent this quarter, from 44.1 percent last quarter, the company said.
TRANSPORTATION
THSRC adds more services
Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp (THSRC, 台灣高鐵) yesterday said that it will operate more trains on weekends starting next month to meet high demand for weekend travel. Starting from Dec. 2, eight additional high-speed trains will be available every Friday, Saturday and Sunday — five southbound and three northbound, the company said. The new services will bring the total number of trains provided by THSRC to 960 per week, the company said, adding that bookings for the extra trains will be accepted from tomorrow.
COMPUTERS
Microsoft unveils Teams
Microsoft Inc on Wednesday unveiled its “Teams” tool for workplace collaboration, taking on rising star Slack in a hot market. Teams is built into Office 365, which includes popular applications such as Word and Excel as cloud-hosted services. Skype Internet voice and video calling service is also integrated into Teams. A preview version of Teams is available to businesses in 181 countries, with general availability expected early next year, Microsoft said.
SOUTH KOREA
Property rules to change
The government said it will take steps to ease overheating property markets in Seoul, Sejong, and some areas in Gyeonggi and Busan. Minister of Finance Yoo Il-ho said the government will limit resale of rights to buy new apartments and bolster bidding requirements for new apartments in the regions, while monitoring markets and designating anti-speculation property zones if needed. The government is to revise its rules shortly so that the changes can be applied, Yoo said. The measures came after the government in August released policies to curb household debt growth, requiring banks to impose stricter screening for some types of loans and also limiting the supply of land for housing.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)