ELECTRONICS
Light plate maker to expand
Global Lighting Technologies Inc (茂林), a light guide plate maker, on Friday said that it plans NT$500 million (US$16.22 million) in capital spending this year, as it expects sales to grow further on more orders and capacity. The firm, registered in the Cayman Islands, is to add two new production lines at a plant in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼), which has eight lines focusing on large-screen TVs, the firm said. It said it also plans to expand the research center at its plant in Taoyuan’s Zhongli District (中壢), which supplies products for automotive and wearable applications.
ELECTRONICS
Egis saw loss last month
Fingerprint sensor provider Egis Technology Inc (神盾) reported a net loss of NT$72 million for last month, with a net loss per share of NT$1.01. That was down from net income of US$50 million, or earnings per share of NT$0.71, in December 2017. Revenue declined 47.25 percent from NT$537.89 million to NT$283.74 million, the company reported on Tuesday. However, the company’s revenue and earnings last year hit a record high, with net income of NT$192 million, or earnings per share of NT$9.35, and revenue of NT$5.91 billion.
SEMICONDUCTORS
N America machine sales up
North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted US$2.11 billion in worldwide billings last month, trade group SEMI said in a statement on Friday. The figure was 8.5 percent higher than US$1.94 billion in November last year, but 12.1 percent lower than the US$2.4 billion in December 2017. SEMI Taiwan president Terry Tsao (曹世綸) said that steady spending on logic and foundry helped offset a decline in memory investment last month.
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],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
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