SEMICONDUCTORS
Macronix sets dividend
Memorychip maker Macronix International Co (旺宏電子) on Friday said its board had approved the distribution of a cash dividend of NT$1 per common share after the firm swung into the black last year after five unprofitable years. The proposed dividend, which would be the first since 2012, represents a 2.09 percent dividend yield based on the company’s stock price of NT$47.9. Macronix made NT$5.52 billion (US$188.84 million) in net profit last year, with earnings per share of NT$3.12. The board also approved a program to raise funds by issuing 360 million common shares among overseas investors, the firm said.
ELECTRONICS
PCB industry sees growth
Total production value of the nation’s printed circuit board (PCB) industry is expected to increase 4 percent this year, following 9.5 percent growth to NT$610 billion last year, Taiwan Printed Circuit Association chairman Rick Wu (吳永輝) said on Friday at a public event. Wu, who is president of flexible PCB producer Career Technology Co (嘉聯益), thanked the association’s members for supporting it as it enters its 20th year. Issues such as “smart manufacturing” and “global competence” would be key to the industry’s future, he said.
FINANCE
Promotion, dividend set
Shin Kong Financial Holding Co (新光金控) on Friday said that it had appointed senior vice president Huang Min-yi (黃敏義) to serve as president, replacing Catherine Lee (李紀珠), who would continue to serve as vice chairman. It also announced that its board had approved the distribution of a cash dividend of NT$0.35 per common share and plus a stock dividend of 1.5 percent. The cash dividend will be the firm’s highest in 10 years.
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