SEMICONDUCTORS
Weltrend profits rise 58.9%
Integrated circuit designer Weltrend Semiconductor Inc (偉詮電子) yesterday said net profit for last year increased 58.9 percent year-on-year to NT$225 million (US$7.69 million), the highest in 10 years. With earnings per share of NT$1.01, the company said its board has proposed to distribute a cash dividend of NT$0.6 per share and plans to cut its capitalization by 20 percent and return NT$2 per share in cash to shareholders. The company’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 12 is to vote on the proposals. The capital reduction plan would see the firm’s capitalization drop by NT$445 million to NT$1.78 billion, it said.
ENVIRONMENT
TESC raises new capital
Taiwan Environment Scientific Co Ltd (TESC, 台境企業), which mainly provides solutions for soil contamination, yesterday said it has raised new capital of NT$262.5 million to replenish its operating capital and repay bank loans. The money, raised through the issuance of new shares and convertible bonds, is to be used to expand the scope of the company’s services, it said in a statement. Projects related to land pollution treatment contributed about 75 percent of the company’s revenue of NT$873.2 million for last year, company data showed. TESC said it hopes to tap into the industrial waste recycling business this year, but did not elaborate.
MANUFACTURING
BizLink propose dividend
BizLink Holding Inc (貿聯) on Tuesday said that its board had proposed distributing a cash dividend of NT$7 per share after the wire harness maker reported earnings per share of NT$10.68 for last year, compared with NT$9.23 for 2016. The proposal, which represents a payout ratio of 65.54 percent, needs to be approved by shareholders at the company’s annual general meeting scheduled for June 29. BizLink’s net profit increased 27.6 percent year-on-year to NT$1.16 billion last year on revenue of NT$15.6 billion and gross margin of 24.39 percent. The company’s annual earnings for last year exceeded its paid-in capital for the first time in its history.
SEMICONDUCTORS
Techs look to ASIC chips
As artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms mature and the market demand for AI products increases, semiconductor companies are looking to replace field programmable gate arrays (FPGA) with application-specific integrated circuits (ASIC) over concerns of competitive costs. IC designer Faraday Technology Corp (智原科技) on Monday said its FPGA-to-ASIC conversion service has successfully completed several AI related projects, including drone vision, medical image analysis, “smart” appliances and 3D sensing. The Hsinchu-based company said the ASIC service offers power saving, enhanced performance and lower system costs to meet specific AI requirements.
ENERGY
‘Smart’ meter schedule set
Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) on Monday is to start installing “smart” electricity meters in homes in Taipei and New Taipei City as part of a plan to install 200,000 such meters in the nation’s six special municipalities this year. Taipower’s “smart” electricity solutions include meters and communication and control centers, Chinese-language media reported yesterday. The meter installations are expected to be completed by September, while the communication and control centers — one in northern Taiwan and one in the south — are expected to be ready before the end of this year, the report said.
Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), founder and CEO of US-based artificial intelligence chip designer Nvidia Corp and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) on Friday celebrated the first Nvidia Blackwell wafer produced on US soil. Huang visited TSMC’s advanced wafer fab in the US state of Arizona and joined the Taiwanese chipmaker’s executives to witness the efforts to “build the infrastructure that powers the world’s AI factories, right here in America,” Nvidia said in a statement. At the event, Huang joined Y.L. Wang (王英郎), vice president of operations at TSMC, in signing their names on the Blackwell wafer to
AI BOOST: Although Taiwan’s reliance on Chinese rare earth elements is limited, it could face indirect impacts from supply issues and price volatility, an economist said DBS Bank Ltd (星展銀行) has sharply raised its forecast for Taiwan’s economic growth this year to 5.6 percent, citing stronger-than-expected exports and investment linked to artificial intelligence (AI), as it said that the current momentum could peak soon. The acceleration of the global AI race has fueled a surge in Taiwan’s AI-related capital spending and exports of information and communications technology (ICT) products, which have been key drivers of growth this year. “We have revised our GDP forecast for Taiwan upward to 5.6 percent from 4 percent, an upgrade that mainly reflects stronger-than-expected AI-related exports and investment in the third
France cannot afford to ignore the third credit-rating reduction in less than a year, French Minister of Finance Roland Lescure said. “Three agencies have downgraded us and we can’t ignore this cloud,” he told Franceinfo on Saturday, speaking just hours after S&P lowered his country’s credit rating to “A+” from “AA-” in an unscheduled move. “Fundamentally, it’s an additional cloud to a weather forecast that was already pretty gray. It’s a call for lucidity and responsibility,” he said, adding that this is “a call to be serious.” The credit assessor’s move means France has lost its double-A rating at two of the
RARE EARTHS: The call between the US Treasury Secretary and his Chinese counterpart came as Washington sought to rally G7 partners in response to China’s export controls China and the US on Saturday agreed to conduct another round of trade negotiations in the coming week, as the world’s two biggest economies seek to avoid another damaging tit-for-tat tariff battle. Beijing last week announced sweeping controls on the critical rare earths industry, prompting US President Donald Trump to threaten 100 percent tariffs on imports from China in retaliation. Trump had also threatened to cancel his expected meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in South Korea later this month on the sidelines of the APEC summit. In the latest indication of efforts to resolve their dispute, Chinese state media reported that
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