The Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) yesterday raised its forecast for the local semiconductor industry’s production value to NT$2.65 trillion (US$86.88 billion) this year, up about 1 percent from last year’s NT$2.61 trillion.
The forecast came as the industry saw its production value return to positive territory after it increased 4 percent to NT$721.7 billion in the third quarter, ending two straight quarters of annual contraction.
Last quarter’s growth outstripped the annual decline of 14.6 percent in the global semiconductor industry, the institute said, citing World Semiconductor Trade Statistics data.
The upward revision was mostly due to the memory manufacturing segment’s better-than-expected performance, the government-funded institute said.
ITRI had expected a flat year for the nation’s semiconductor industry, given sluggish demand and oversupply caused drastic price declines in memory chips.
Local memorychip makers are expected to see production value dip 17.2 percent year-on-year to NT$166 billion this year, the institute said.
Two weeks ago, it predicted a worse decline of 26 percent year-on-year.
ITRI also revised upward its forecast for local chip designers’ production value to NT$674.7 billion, up 5.2 percent annually, compared with an earlier estimate of NT$671.1 billion, or an increase of 4.6 percent annually.
The latest forecast came after MediaTek Inc (聯發科) reported the strongest net profits last quarter in 5 quarters, benefiting from robust demand for its mobile phones chips and partly due to the US’s ban on Huawei Technologies Co (華為) amid lingering US-China trade war.
Meanwhile, foundry companies led by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), which constitute more than 90 percent of the semiconductor industry’s output, are expected to see production value grow 1.5 percent to NT$1.36 trillion this year, ITRI said.
Its previous estimate was a 1.6 percent increase.
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