With an eye toward claiming a share of the world's US$140 million MPEG-II decoder market, Sunplus Technology (
MPEG-II decoders are chips that help a PC or DVD player display DVD movies. Video data requires enormous quantities of storage space.
Currently, MPEG-II decoders are mostly used in DVD players. In order to utilize DVD for video storage, the data is compressed using the MPEG-II format.
"There is great market potential for MPEG-II, because the demand for DVD players has grown rapidly each year," said Wayne Shen (
The company is a consumer IC design house that relies on foundries such as Taiwan Semiconductor (
Sunplus has licensed some key technologies for producing MPEG-II decoder chips from foreign companies, which Shen refused to reveal.
Shen said that MPEG-II decoders will not be able to contribute to the company's sales until next year. When asked how much in sales the new line will eventually generate, Shen said "it is too early to estimate that now."
Sunplus posted sales of US$139 million last year, a 54 percent gain over US$90 million in 1998. Annual profits rose 33 percent to US$43 million.
The world market for DVD players totaled 7 million units last year.
The DVD player market is expected to grow 100 percent annually for the next few years, according to Jack Chang (
Winbond was the first Taiwan company to produce MPEG-II decoders.
The dramatic growth of DVD players and information appliances has recently prompted several local IC design houses to also join in the manufacturing of MPEG-II decoders.
Acer Labs (揚智) started to produce MPEG-II decoders at the end of last year. VIA Technology (威盛) also plans to enter the market this year.
Both Acer Labs and Winbond said China is one of their target markets. According to Acer Labs, the demand for DVD players in China is expected to reach between 4 million and 8 million units this year.
But while many new competitors are entering the market, Winbond said it believes it has the advantage.
The nation's contract foundaries "have problems with undercapacity at the moment," Chang said.
"So they are increasing their prices and the profit margins of IC design houses are dropping."
Winbond, on the otherhand, has its own fabs, so finding production capacity is not a problem.
But Sunplus thinks that by the time it joins the market, the undercapacity problem will be no more.
"It is too early to say that contract foundries will still have a capacity shortage next year," Shen said.
Intel Corp chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) is expected to meet with Taiwanese suppliers next month in conjunction with the opening of the Computex Taipei trade show, supply chain sources said on Monday. The visit, the first for Tan to Taiwan since assuming his new post last month, would be aimed at enhancing Intel’s ties with suppliers in Taiwan as he attempts to help turn around the struggling US chipmaker, the sources said. Tan is to hold a banquet to celebrate Intel’s 40-year presence in Taiwan before Computex opens on May 20 and invite dozens of Taiwanese suppliers to exchange views
Application-specific integrated circuit designer Faraday Technology Corp (智原) yesterday said that although revenue this quarter would decline 30 percent from last quarter, it retained its full-year forecast of revenue growth of 100 percent. The company attributed the quarterly drop to a slowdown in customers’ production of chips using Faraday’s advanced packaging technology. The company is still confident about its revenue growth this year, given its strong “design-win” — or the projects it won to help customers design their chips, Faraday president Steve Wang (王國雍) told an online earnings conference. “The design-win this year is better than we expected. We believe we will win
Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) chairman Barry Lam (林百里) is expected to share his views about the artificial intelligence (AI) industry’s prospects during his speech at the company’s 37th anniversary ceremony, as AI servers have become a new growth engine for the equipment manufacturing service provider. Lam’s speech is much anticipated, as Quanta has risen as one of the world’s major AI server suppliers. The company reported a 30 percent year-on-year growth in consolidated revenue to NT$1.41 trillion (US$43.35 billion) last year, thanks to fast-growing demand for servers, especially those with AI capabilities. The company told investors in November last year that
Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday said it plans to ship its new 1 megawatt charging systems for electric trucks and buses in the first half of next year at the earliest. The new charging piles, which deliver up to 1 megawatt of charging power, are designed for heavy-duty electric vehicles, and support a maximum current of 1,500 amperes and output of 1,250 volts, Delta said in a news release. “If everything goes smoothly, we could begin shipping those new charging systems as early as in the first half of next year,” a company official said. The new
RSS