Shares of heat-dissipation parts makers have generally outperformed the market this year, as investors are positive about their business outlook next year and believe that market demand will increase further as 5G adoption takes off.
Thermal modules are crucial, as they help dissipate heat and ensure normal performance of computers, smartphones, servers and vehicles, analysts said.
Good heat-dissipation systems, such as heat pipes and vapor chambers, have become increasingly crucial as electronic devices continually become lighter and slimmer, they said.
This year, Chaun-Choung Technology Corp (超眾) saw its shares surge 40.39 percent on the Taiwan Stock Exchange as the broader market slid 8.6 percent, while Auras Technology Co Ltd (雙鴻) rose 34.11 percent on the over-the-counter Taipei Exchange, where the benchmark TPEX retreated by 16.82 percent.
Over the same period, Jentech Precision Industrial Co (健策), Forcecon Technology Co (力致) and Taisol Electronics Co (泰碩) rose 17.24 percent, 11.92 percent and 7.53 percent respectively.
The sector has seen greater competition since last year, with the gross margins at most firms sliding, but Chaun-Choung stands out among its peers with vapor chamber products that have been adopted in high-end computers, gaming notebooks, flagship mobile phones and gaming handsets, Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co (元大投顧) said.
“Vapor chambers will be the company’s main growth driver,” Yuanta analyst Calvin Wei (魏建發) said in a research note on Thursday last week.
“With 5G construction to begin next year, vapor chambers should see even greater demand,” Wei said.
The company’s alliance with Japan’s Nidec Corp would help it focus on niche and high-priced product development to avoid price competition, Wei said.
The government-funded Industry, Science and Technology International Strategy Center (產科國際所) said next year would mark the beginning of the 5G era, with South Korea and the US taking the lead by launching commercial services based on 5G technology, which offer high-speed transmission and low data transmission latency compared with 4G.
As for consumer services, shipments of 5G handsets are likely to commence next year in small volumes and account for less than 1 percent of global handset shipments, Yuanta said.
Shipments would accelerate gradually in 2021 and 5G phones could account for 65 percent of total handset shipments in 2026, creating higher demand for heat-dissipation designs, due to the larger power consumption of 5G handsets, it said.
There are still no reliable statistics on the power consumption of 5G handsets, Wei said.
However, based on tests conducted by Huawei Technologies Co (華為), which is to launch the first 5G handset by the middle of next year, 5G smartphones could on average consume 10 watts to 15 watts, compared with less than 5 watts for 4G handsets, menaing that heat pipes or vapor chambers would increasingly need to replace graphite sheets, he said.
Demand for heat-dissipation parts would also be boosted by the need for 5G base stations, switches and servers, benefitting local players such as Chaun-Choung, Auras and Taisol, as well as Asia Vital Components Co (奇鋐) and Sunonwealth Electric Machine Industry Co (建準), he said.
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
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],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained