VIRTUAL REALITY
StarVR cancels share sale
Acer Inc’s (宏碁) virtual reality (VR) venture has dropped a plan to raise NT$540 million (US$17.65 million) through the issuance of 6 million new shares, a Taiwan Stock Exchange filing released on Friday showed. StarVR Corp (宏星技術) does not think it needs to raise funds after considering its operational and financial conditions, as well as the current capital market, Acer said. StarVR is to focus in the short term on the high-end commercial market of the VR gear segment, after deploying some of its gear in gaming zones at theme parks and shopping malls, said Acer, which holds a 63.25 percent stake in the company.
MANUFACTURING
Business mood weakens
The manufacturing sector showed weakening business sentiment last month at a time of lingering trade friction between the US and China, the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) said on Friday. The downbeat mood also reflected slower sales of smartphones and chips used for cryptocurrency mining, the institute said. The composite index for the sector fell 0.95 points from a month earlier to 100.52, it said.
INTERNET
Oath to set up R&D in Taiwan
Oath Inc, which owns digital content subdivisions AOL and Yahoo, on Friday announced that it would set up a research and development (R&D) center in Taiwan. The center would set trends for new products, optimize the user experience locally, and connect local and global markets, Oath media engineering department vice president Kelly Hirano said. The firm is expected to recruit about 100 artificial intelligence engineers, programmers, product designers and product managers this quarter.
ASML Holding NV’s new advanced chip machines have a daunting price tag, said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), one of the Dutch company’s biggest clients. “The cost is very high,” TSMC senior vice president Kevin Zhang (張曉強) said at a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, referring to ASML’s latest system known as high-NA extreme ultraviolet (EUV). “I like the high-NA EUV’s capability, but I don’t like the sticker price,” Zhang said. ASML’s new chip machine can imprint semiconductors with lines that are just 8 nanometers thick — 1.7 times smaller than the previous generation. The machines cost 350 million euros (US$378 million)
EXPLOSION: A driver who was transporting waste material from the site was hit by a blunt object after an uncontrolled pressure release and thrown 6m from the truck Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) said yesterday there was no damage to its facilities after an incident at its Arizona factory construction site where a waste disposal truck driver was transported to hospital. Firefighters responded to an explosion on Wednesday afternoon at the TSMC plant in Phoenix, the Arizona Republic reported, citing the local fire department. Cesar Anguiano-Guitron, 41, was transporting waste material from the project site and stopped to inspect the tank when he was made aware of a potential problem, a police report seen by Bloomberg News showed. Following an “uncontrolled pressure release,” he was hit by a blunt
Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), which makes servers and laptop computers on a contract basis, yesterday said it expects artificial intelligence (AI) devices to bring explosive growth to Taiwan’s electronics industry, as AI applications are starting to run on edge devices such as AI PCs. Taiwanese electronics manufacturers such as chipmakers, component suppliers and hardware assemblers are likely to benefit from a rapid uptake of AI applications, Mike Yang (楊麒令), president of Quanta Cloud Technology Inc (雲達科技), a server manufacturing arm of Quanta, told reporters on the sidelines of a technology forum in Taipei yesterday. “I believe the growth potential is promising once
RETALIATION: Beijing is investigating Taiwan, the EU, the US and Japan for dumping, following probes of its market, as well as tariff hikes on its imports The Chinese Ministry of Commerce yesterday said it had launched a dumping investigation into imports of an important engineering chemical from Taiwan, the EU, the US and Japan. It would probe imports of polyoxymethylene copolymer, a thermoplastic used in many precision parts used in phones, auto parts and medical equipment, the Chinese commerce ministry said. The ministry is reviewing materials provided by six Chinese companies that applied for assistance on behalf of the industry on April 22, it said. The probe will target polyformaldehyde copolymer imported from suppliers in the EU, the US, Taiwan and Japan last year, and will assess any damage