The nation's chipmakers will be allowed to move older eight-inch wafer technology to China once the government's ban is lifted, a senior Ministry of Economic Affairs official said yesterday.
"After establishing `effective management' regulations, [the government will] first consider easing the ban on eight-inch wafer plants with less advanced processing technologies," Vice Minister of Economic Affairs Steve Chen (
Chen made the remarks yesterday evening following a meeting of the government's 17-member economic task force that is considering a policy to allow chip investment in China.
The task force consisting of industry representatives, government officials and academics urged the Cabinet to complete soon a package of measures to cushion the economic impact if the ban is relaxed, Chen said.
"The administrative agencies should in the shortest time establish an `effective management' mechanism and strictly carry it out," Chen said on behalf of the task force.
According to the ministry, the task force wants to ensure that chipmakers investing in China also invest in advanced 12-inch wafer technology in Taiwan and encourage the flow of capital back to Taiwan.
"Principles for such management should include [capital] controls, comparative investments [across the Strait], research and development in Taiwan and technology controls in line with international regulations," Chen said.
The ministry will take the package of measures drafted by the task force to the Investment Commission on Monday for further review, before turning the proposal over to the Cabinet on Wednesday, where it is expected to be approved.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manu-facturing Co (
The New Taiwan dollar is on the verge of overtaking the yuan as Asia’s best carry-trade target given its lower risk of interest-rate and currency volatility. A strategy of borrowing the New Taiwan dollar to invest in higher-yielding alternatives has generated the second-highest return over the past month among Asian currencies behind the yuan, based on the Sharpe ratio that measures risk-adjusted relative returns. The New Taiwan dollar may soon replace its Chinese peer as the region’s favored carry trade tool, analysts say, citing Beijing’s efforts to support the yuan that can create wild swings in borrowing costs. In contrast,
Nvidia Corp’s demand for advanced packaging from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) remains strong though the kind of technology it needs is changing, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said yesterday, after he was asked whether the company was cutting orders. Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip, Blackwell, consists of multiple chips glued together using a complex chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) advanced packaging technology offered by TSMC, Nvidia’s main contract chipmaker. “As we move into Blackwell, we will use largely CoWoS-L. Of course, we’re still manufacturing Hopper, and Hopper will use CowoS-S. We will also transition the CoWoS-S capacity to CoWos-L,” Huang said
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) is expected to miss the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump on Monday, bucking a trend among high-profile US technology leaders. Huang is visiting East Asia this week, as he typically does around the time of the Lunar New Year, a person familiar with the situation said. He has never previously attended a US presidential inauguration, said the person, who asked not to be identified, because the plans have not been announced. That makes Nvidia an exception among the most valuable technology companies, most of which are sending cofounders or CEOs to the event. That includes
VERTICAL INTEGRATION: The US fabless company’s acquisition of the data center manufacturer would not affect market competition, the Fair Trade Commission said The Fair Trade Commission has approved Advanced Micro Devices Inc’s (AMD) bid to fully acquire ZT International Group Inc for US$4.9 billion, saying it would not hamper market competition. As AMD is a fabless company that designs central processing units (CPUs) used in consumer electronics and servers, while ZT is a data center manufacturer, the vertical integration would not affect market competition, the commission said in a statement yesterday. ZT counts hyperscalers such as Microsoft Corp, Amazon.com Inc and Google among its major clients and plays a minor role in deciding the specifications of data centers, given the strong bargaining power of
RSS