GREECE
Fire public servants: IMF
The country’s rescue creditors on Wednesday pressed the debt-shackled country to fire excess public servants and further scale back workers’ pay rights. The IMF’s top official in the country warned the government it would not escape high budget deficits unless it switches efforts to spending cuts, arguing that the country’s taxpayers had reached the limit. IMF mission chief Poul Thomsen told a financial conference in Athens that Greek government should “move aggressively” to reduce the size of the public sector.
AVIATION
Malaysia Air to cut routes
Loss-making national carrier Malaysia Airlines said it will cut eight routes to Europe, Africa, the Middle East and other destinations starting next month as it seeks to return to a profit. Routes servicing Rome, Johannesburg, Cape Town, Buenos Aires, Karachi, Dubai, the Saudi Arabian city of Dammam, and the city of Surabaya in Indonesia will be dropped, it said in a statement released on late on Wednesday. They will be phased out at different times throughout next month and February.
SEMICONDUCTORS
Lam to buy Novellus
Lam Research Corp agreed to buy Novellus Systems Inc for about US$3.3 billion, combining two of the biggest companies in the chip-equipment industry in a challenge to market leader Applied Materials Inc. The transaction values Novellus at US$44.42 a share, Fremont, California-based Lam said on Wednesday in a statement. The two companies make machinery used by chipmakers to build semiconductors out of disks of silicon. The combination will help the new business keep pace with the latest chipmaking technologies, Lam chief executive officer Steve Newberry said in the statement.
SOFTWARE
Gates rules out return
Microsoft founder Bill Gates yesterday ruled out ever returning to the helm of Microsoft while dismissing criticism by late Apple founder Steve Jobs, who he called “brilliant.” Gates, in Sydney for a family holiday, said recent rumors that he was considering a full-time comeback to the US software giant he founded, but stepped back from in 2006, were untrue. He told the Sydney Morning Herald he was busy working with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation “and that will be what I do for the rest of my life.”
SEMICONDUCTORS
Intel forms smartphone unit
Intel on Wednesday formed a new unit devoted to making chips for smartphones and tablets that have become must-have gadgets in a post-personal computer age. Four units were combined into a Mobile and Communications Group headed by Hermann Eul and Mike Bell, whose background includes having worked on the iPhone at Apple, Intel spokesman Robert Manetta said. “We are trying to speed and improve the development of Intel-based mobile devices,” Manetta said after the internal announcement was made at the California-based chip titan.
VIDEO GAMES
PlayStation Vita to hit stores
Sony’s long-awaited PlayStation Vita portable game machine hits stores in Japan tomorrow, with the company predicting brisk sales even though the launch has missed much of the holiday shopping season. Sony Computer Entertainment Inc president Andrew House said yesterday that enthusiasm among gamers could lead to some shortages at first. The PS Vita goes on sale in North America and Europe on Feb. 22.
Taiwan’s technology protection rules prohibits Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) from producing 2-nanometer chips abroad, so the company must keep its most cutting-edge technology at home, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. Kuo made the remarks in response to concerns that TSMC might be forced to produce advanced 2-nanometer chips at its fabs in Arizona ahead of schedule after former US president Donald Trump was re-elected as the next US president on Tuesday. “Since Taiwan has related regulations to protect its own technologies, TSMC cannot produce 2-nanometer chips overseas currently,” Kuo said at a meeting of the legislature’s
GEOPOLITICAL ISSUES? The economics ministry said that political factors should not affect supply chains linking global satellite firms and Taiwanese manufacturers Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) asked Taiwanese suppliers to transfer manufacturing out of Taiwan, leading to some relocating portions of their supply chain, according to sources employed by and close to the equipment makers and corporate documents. A source at a company that is one of the numerous subcontractors that provide components for SpaceX’s Starlink satellite Internet products said that SpaceX asked their manufacturers to produce outside of Taiwan because of geopolitical risks, pushing at least one to move production to Vietnam. A second source who collaborates with Taiwanese satellite component makers in the nation said that suppliers were directly
Top Taiwanese officials yesterday moved to ease concern about the potential fallout of Donald Trump’s return to the White House, making a case that the technology restrictions promised by the former US president against China would outweigh the risks to the island. The prospect of Trump’s victory in this week’s election is a worry for Taipei given the Republican nominee in the past cast doubt over the US commitment to defend it from Beijing. But other policies championed by Trump toward China hold some appeal for Taiwan. National Development Council Minister Paul Liu (劉鏡清) described the proposed technology curbs as potentially having
EXPORT CONTROLS: US lawmakers have grown more concerned that the US Department of Commerce might not be aggressively enforcing its chip restrictions The US on Friday said it imposed a US$500,000 penalty on New York-based GlobalFoundries Inc, the world’s third-largest contract chipmaker, for shipping chips without authorization to an affiliate of blacklisted Chinese chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯). The US Department of Commerce in a statement said GlobalFoundries sent 74 shipments worth US$17.1 million to SJ Semiconductor Corp (盛合晶微半導體), an affiliate of SMIC, without seeking a license. Both SMIC and SJ Semiconductor were added to the department’s trade restriction Entity List in 2020 over SMIC’s alleged ties to the Chinese military-industrial complex. SMIC has denied wrongdoing. Exports to firms on the list