Silicon Magic Corp, a US-based memory-chip designer, said it plans to spend US$2 billion to build Hong Kong's first semiconductor plant in more than a decade, taking advantage of the city's financial resources.
"Hong Kong is a world-class financial center with a good legal system," said James Koo, Silicon Magic's chief financial officer. The company also prefers Hong Kong because it has no limits on imports of chip-making equipment, unlike China, where the US and Japanese governments control technology exports.
Half of the plant's funding will come from technology partners, customers, equipment suppliers and investors, Koo said.
The company plans to raise the remaining US$1 billion by selling debt or equity to private investors in Asia.
Silicon Magic plans to make dynamic random access memory, or DRAM, chips that are custom-designed for products other than personal computers. Such chips earn higher profit than the benchmark parts used in PCs, Koo said.
Prices of DRAM chips used in PCs are at record lows this year. Silicon Magic hopes to open a 300mm silicon wafer plant to make its chips by 2004.
Fewer than 10 companies currently plan to make 300mm wafers, which help reduce production costs by more than doubling the number of chips yielded compared with the 200mm wafers more commonly made today.
Multinational chipmakers have overlooked Hong Kong to invest in Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia and China during the last decade.
The largest semiconductor company in Hong Kong is Motorola Inc, which operates a chip-packaging factory in a part of Hong Kong's New Territories. Motorola dubbed the area Silicon Harbor, expecting more companies would move in, but none ever did.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)
EYE ON STRAIT: The US spending bill ‘doubles security cooperation funding for Taiwan,’ while also seeking to counter the influence of China US President Joe Biden on Saturday signed into law a US$1.2 trillion spending package that includes US$300 million in foreign military financing to Taiwan, as well as funding for Taipei-Washington cooperative projects. The US Congress early on Saturday overwhelmingly passed the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act 2024 to avoid a partial shutdown and fund the government through September for a fiscal year that began six months ago. Under the package, the Defense Appropriations Act would provide a US$27 billion increase from the previous fiscal year to fund “critical national defense efforts, including countering the PRC [People’s Republic of China],” according to a summary