Prodisc Technology Inc (精碟科技), one of the nation’s leading disc makers, on Wednesday said it planned to shut down its business because it had failed to win court approval for its corporate restructuring plans.
As of Friday next week, Prodisc will no longer manufacture optical discs, and therefore retreat from the disc market in Taiwan, the company said in a filing submitted to the Taiwan Stock Market on Wednesday.
The New Taipei City (新北市)-based company said its board members on Wednesday passed a resolution ceasing the company’s disc production because the Banciao District Court had ordered that the company’s manufacturing equipment be put up for sale due to Royal Philips Electronics NV and some of Prodisc’s creditors’ opposition to its restructuring proposals.
CONTINGENCY PLANS
Prodisc did not elaborate on whether the company has contingency plans to help workers find new jobs.
The company has been in financial difficulties since 2008 when Philips ordered provisional seizure of some of Prodisc’s bank deposits in a contract dispute.
In August 2008, Prodisc sought approval from the court for its corporate restructuring plans and other emergency actions after its assets were detained by the Netherlands-based electronics maker.
OBJECTIONS
However, due to objections from Philips and some of its creditors, Prodisc’s reorganization plans have not been realized over the past five years, with the court failing to sanction the company’s application.
To survive in the disc market while awaiting court approval for its business remodeling plans over the past five years, Prodisc continued producing discs and sought to expand its business by signing contracts with foreign firms or increasing spending on research and development of new technologies for which it could apply for patents.
Despite these efforts, Prodisc said it was still unable to make ends meet as the disc market has seen oversupply in tough economic times.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to remain Apple Inc’s primary chip manufacturing partner despite reports that Apple could shift some orders to Intel Corp, industry experts said yesterday. The comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Apple and Intel had reached a preliminary agreement following more than a year of negotiations for Intel to manufacture some chips for Apple devices. Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) economist Arisa Liu (劉佩真) said TSMC’s advanced packaging technologies, including integrated fan-out and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, remain critical to the performance of Apple’s A-series and M-series chips. She said Intel and Samsung
POWER BUILDUP: Powered by Nvidia’s B200 Blackwell chips, the data center would support MediaTek’s computing power demand and business growth, the company said Smartphone chip designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday launched a new artificial intelligence (AI) data center with a maximum capacity of 45 megawatts to meet its rising demand for computing power required to develop new advanced chips for AI applications. The company has completed the first-phase computing power buildup at the data center in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼), providing 15 megawatts of capacity to support its research and development (R&D) capabilities, despite an industrywide shortage of key components, MediaTek said. Supply constraints have plagued a wide range of key components, including memory chips, solid-state drives, power supply units and central
TRANSITION: With the closure, the company would reorganize its Taiwanese unit to a sales and service-focused model, Bridgestone said Bridgestone Corp yesterday announced it would cease manufacturing operations at its tire plant in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), affecting more than 500 workers. Bridgestone Taiwan Co (台灣普利司通) said in a statement that the decision was based on the Tokyo-based tire maker’s adjustments to its global operational strategy and long-term market development considerations. The Taiwanese unit would be reorganized as part of the closure, effective yesterday, and all related production activities would be concluded, the statement said. Under the plan, Bridgestone would continue to deepen its presence in the Taiwanese market, while transitioning to a sales and service-focused business model, it added. The Hsinchu
RSS