Thu, Mar 13, 2003 page10

• Centrino set to benefit domestic tech firms

  CHIP PACKAGE High-tech manufacturers in Taiwan and wireless service providers stand to gain from a new Intel chip package that will improve notebook power efficiency

  • By Bill Heaney / STAFF REPORTER
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  Intel's introduction of a chip package that allows mobile PCs to have built-in wireless Internet access is positive news for Taiwan's tech sector.

  Intel yesterday launched its Centrino chip package, which is expected to improve power efficiency in computer chips, allowing for slimmer notebooks whose batteries last much longer.

  Manufacturers of transmitters or access points that are needed to send data to the wireless receivers in notebook computers are expected to gain from the technology, as are the service providers that users will have to subscribe to in order to get onto the Internet.

  

  German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, left, and his wife Doris Schroeder-Koepf look at a mobile phone with an integrated digital camera at the booth of Finnish company Nokia at the CeBIT computer fair in Hanover, Germany, yesterday.

  PHOTO: AP

  "Centrino will be a driver for wireless service providers this year," said Clark Tseng (曾瑞榆), telecoms analyst at research firm International Data Corp in Taipei. "And the makers of wireless access points will certainly gain."

  The technology is not so good for makers of add-on wireless cards for notebooks that do not have wireless Internet access built-in.

  "Most notebooks shipped in the second half of this year will have Centrino chips built-in, so the number of people buying add-on adapter cards will decrease," Tseng said. "Prices of these cards will also drop. Currently an add-on card costs as little as NT$1,000."

  Taiwan shipped some 11 million wireless adapter cards and access points, generating US$436 million in sales last year, according to Eric Lin (林山霖), wireless communications analyst at the government-funded Market Intelligence Center in Taipei. That represents 73 percent of the world's total number of wireless Internet products.

  Production is expected to rise to 16.8 million this year, Lin said.

  Taiwan's wireless Internet adapter-card makers may see a jump in sales as the number of wireless Internet "hot spots" in public areas like coffee shops and airports is expected to grow to around 1,800 this year from a few hundred last year.

  More widespread access will persuade an increasing number of notebook users to upgrade their existing computers by buying an add-on card, Tseng said. And with the number of hot spots worldwide expected to top 118,000 by 2005, there will still be an export market for Taiwan's manufacturers to service.

  "The biggest effect of Intel's Centrino launch will be felt in the notebook market, which should see a 23-percent increase in shipments this year as a direct result of the chip," Lin said. "But the launch should not have an impact on add-on-card makers this year as add-on cards are still faster than Centrino."

  Centrino allows users to receive data at a speed of 11 megabits per second (Mbps). Add-on cards can currently transmit and receive data at 50Mbps. Only when Centrino reaches 50Mbps, which Lin said would happen next year, would Taiwan's add-on card makers see sales decline.

  One of Taiwan's largest makers of add-on cards shrugged off the threat from Centrino yesterday.

  "There will be no great effect on us this year as a lot of notebooks are still not able to access the Internet via wireless technology," Robert Lee (李進源), product manager at D-Link Corp (友訊), told the Taipei Times yesterday.

  "There will be more of an effect in 2004, but the increase in hot spots will be very good for us."

  Wireless Internet cards will eventually disappear, Lee said, but by then D-Link would be selling other products. D-Link used to focus on network adapter cards, but these also disappeared from the market when chip-makers included local-area-network access as a standard feature in notebook computers, he added.

  Other beneficiaries of the launch of the new chip will be Taiwan's chip designers. VIA Technologies Inc (威盛電子) is expected to offer chips that work with Centrino technology in the second half of the year, the Electronic Buyers News Web site said yesterday, citing an official at the company. The world's No. 3 designer of personal-computer chips rose NT$0.90 cents, or 2.6 percent, on the back of the news to close at NT$35.30 in Taipei yesterday. Silicon Integrated Systems Corp (矽統科技) and ALi Corp (揚智科技) will also offer Centrino chips.
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