Innolux Corp (群創光電), the world’s No. 3 LCD flat-panel maker, is expected to become a new touch panel supplier to Apple Inc for its iPad Mini tablets, market researcher NPD DisplaySearch said yesterday.
That would be the latest progress made by Taiwanese panel makers in gaining a foothold in supplying touch panels used in tablets. Last year, the market was dominated by South Korean and Japanese firms, including Samsung Electronics Co, LG Display Co and Sharp Corp, NPD DisplaySearch said.
South Korea’s LG Display Co and Taiwan’s AU Optronics Corp (友達光電) are the major touch panel suppliers for the iPad Mini, NPD DisplaySearch Greater China region vice president David Hsieh (謝勤益) said.
“Innolux and China’s Century Display (深超光電) will receive certificates for product qualification [from Apple] to supply [touch panels] for the iPad Mini,” Hsieh said.
Innolux said on Tuesday that it plans to ship its first touch panels for smartphones and tablets using its touch-on-display technology by the end of this year.
Innolux declined to comment on whether the new touch panels would be made using the in-cell technology currently used on the iPad Mini and iPhone 5.
“Smartphones and tablets are our focus this year. Our target is to ship 7-inch screens this year,” Yang Chiu-lien (楊秋蓮), head of Innolux’s touch panel division, said on Tuesday.
Since 2008, Innolux has been supplying flat-panel screens to Apple for its iPhones, iPod nano music players and iPad tablets, Yang said.
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday fined Citibank Taiwan Ltd (花旗台灣) NT$10 million (US$357,194) and DBS Bank Taiwan (星展台灣) NT$6 million for breaches of the nation’s anti-money laundering (AML) regulations. The NT$10 million fine is the highest penalty that it has imposed on a domestic bank, the commission said. Citibank Taiwan failed to set up a sound mechanism for evaluating clients’ risk of money laundering and for detecting suspicious transactions, Banking Bureau Deputy Director-General Huang Kuang-hsi (黃光熙) told a news conference in New Taipei City. The bank based its AML policies on those of its US-based parent company, Citigroup Inc, but the policies
The rise of the cryptocurrency dogecoin has reached a new level after the token was used to pay for a lunar satellite launch. SpaceX, Elon Musk’s commercial rocket firm, is to embark on a moon voyage next year carrying a so-called cubesat — a mini-satellite used for space research — from Geometric Energy Corp that has been paid for entirely in dogecoin. The development is the latest twist in the saga over the digital token, which started as a joke in 2013, but is now a dominating Internet meme and sitting on a 21,000 percent rally in the past year. Musk has
CAPACITY EXPANSION: Construction of the site, which is to be the firm’s first mRNA production facility outside of Europe, is to begin this year and likely finish in 2023 COVID-19 vaccine maker BioNTech SE yesterday said it would build a Southeast Asia headquarters and manufacturing site in Singapore to produce hundreds of millions of messenger RNA (mRNA)-based vaccines per year. Construction of the site would start this year, and it could become operational by 2023, the German company said in a statement. “With this planned mRNA production facility, we will increase our overall network capacity, and expand our ability to manufacture and deliver our mRNA vaccines and therapies to people around the world,” BioNTech chief executive Ugur Sahin said. The vaccine produced by BioNTech jointly with Pfizer Inc of
COMPETITIVE: The chip designer is offering an annual compensation of NT$1.5 million to NT$2 million, in addition to cash and stock bonuses to attract workers MediaTek Inc (聯發科), the world’s biggest designer of 5G handset chips, is stepping up its recruitment drive this year, with plans to hire more than 2,000 engineers specializing in core technologies, including 5G, wireless communication and artificial intelligence (AI). That would be double from the more than 1,000 people it hired on average in the past few years, as the Hsinchu-based company looks to boost growth this year and beyond. It also comes as the company plans to launch a new 5G chip, Dimensity 2000 series, which supports mmWave technology and sub-6-gigahertz technology, at the end of this year. That would be
RSS