SILICON WAFERS
Wafer Works obtains loan
Silicon wafer supplier Wafer Works Corp (合晶) yesterday said it has inked contracts with local lenders to obtain a NT$2.6 billion (US$88 million) syndicated loan. The company plans to use the capital to fund capacity expansion and repay debt. Wafer Works plans to expand its production of 8-inch silicon wafers to cope with strong demand. The company plans to add 300,000 wafers a month to a plant in Taoyuan, starting next quarter, it said in a statement. The company also plans to start a pilot run at a new plant in Zhengzhou, China, in the third quarter of this year. Wafer Works expects the new capacity to boost its revenue later this year.
TEXTILES
Firms get US$12m of orders
The nation’s textile manufacturers are forecast to secure US$12 million of orders from global customers after attending a matching event at Heimtextil in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, the Taiwan Textile Federation said in a statement on Monday. A total of 16 local companies, including Li Peng Enterprise Co (力鵬) and Tri Ocean Textile Co (三洋紡織), joined the four-day event last week to showcase their latest products, the statement said. Heimtextil, the biggest international trade fair for home textiles, attracted 2,975 firms from 64 nations this year, it said.
MUTUAL FUNDS
Allianz fund’s rating raised
Taiwan Ratings Corp yesterday raised its fixed-income credit rating on Allianz Global Investors Taiwan Ltd’s money market fund to “twAA+f” from “twAAf” because the credit quality of the portfolio has improved since August last year. From August last year, the credit score of the fund’s portfolio dropped in consecutive months, indicating the improved credit quality of fund’s holdings, it said. The agency maintained its view regarding the quality of management and the fund’s comparative position.
EXPORTS
Growth expected to slow
The nation’s exports are estimated to grow by between 4.07 and 5.51 percent this year, slower than last year’s growth of 13.2 percent due to a high comparison base and political uncertainties, the Bureau of Foreign Trade said yesterday. The bureau’s forecast was made with the help of the Taiwan External Trade Development Council’s (TAITRA, 外貿協會) IT service and data management center, which utilized the big data analysis to make the estimate, the bureau said. It said exports are expected to expand from last year, but the nation has to pay closer attention to US trade policy, China’s economy, raw material prices and political developments in northeast Asia.
MINIMUM WAGE
Concern over 8% increase
The General Chamber of Commerce (全國商業總會) yesterday voiced concern about the government’s goal of raising the monthly minimum wage to NT$30,000 through annual increases of 8 percent as outlined by Vice Premier Shih Jun-ji (施俊吉) in a radio interview yesterday. The move would cause widespread bankruptcies among small and medium-sized enterprises, while compelling larger companies to leave the domestic market, General Chamber of Commerce chairman Lai Cheng-yi (賴正鎰) said. Last year’s 5 percent increase was designed to reflect changes in the consumer price index and was the result of lengthy discussions across many industries, Lai said. By contrast, the 8 percent increase seems like an arbitrary figure created by the government without consideration of market factors, Lai said.
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
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)
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