Powerchip Technology Corp (力晶科技) aims to relaunch an initial public offering (IPO) in 2020 in Taiwan to fund construction of a NT$278 billion (US$9.31 billion) 12-inch fab.
It said it submitted an application to the Hsinchu Science Park Administration to rent land for the fab in Tongluo Industrial Park (銅鑼科學園區) in Miaoli County.
The plant would be the biggest investment by the Hsinchu-based chipmaker in about a decade after it emerged six years ago from deep financial woes caused by a slump in the DRAM industry.
It has spent the past few years clearing debts of NT$120 billion.
Powerchip turned a net profit of NT$8.08 billion last year, or NT$3.54 per share, as it has transformed itself into a supplier of driver ICs used in LCD panels and memory chips for other companies.
“Powerchip has to build a new fab to fill clients’ orders,” founder Frank Huang (黃崇仁) told a media briefing. “We are having headaches about capacity distribution. Our factories are running almost at 100 percent now.”
It plans to invest NT$58 billion into the first phase of construction of the plant, which will be the firm’s fourth, he said, adding that it has been designated to produce 20-nanometer chips, with an installed capacity of 100,000 wafers.
“The Fab 4 will help increase capacity of logic chips, rather than memory chips,” Huang said, adding that construction is set to begin in 2020.
Making a comeback to the local stock market would help fund the construction, Huang said.
Powerchip makes driver ICs, metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs), and niche chips for other firms.
MOSFETs are transistors that can change conductivity with the amount of applied voltage and can be used for amplifying or switching electronic signals.
MOSFET supplies have tightened due to strong demand from new applications such as electric vehicles and Internet-of-Thing devices, Powerchip said.
Their use in electric cars is expected to double from today’s 10 units to about 20, or 25 units, Huang said, adding that Powerchip also supplies memory chips for the mining of cryptocurrency such as ethereum.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”