WORKING CULTURE
No rest for office workers
More than half of Taiwanese office workers devote more than three hours a day while on vacation to work-related matters, according to the results of a survey conducted by global workplace solutions provider Regus PLC, which was released yesterday. More than 26,000 office workers from 96 countries took part in the survey, which found that 17 percent of employees reported working three hours a day on average during their holidays. The figure for Taiwanese workers stood at 51 percent. The research also found that 42 percent of men and 34 percent of women worldwide had to deal with work-related telephone calls and e-mails while on vacation.
NATIONAL DEBT
Government warned on debt
The government faces more than NT$3 trillion (US$100.18 billion) in debts due throughout the 10-year period ending in 2021, with the peak repayment period set for 2016, the National Audit Office said on Monday. More than NT$465 billion in government bonds are due in 2016, according to an audit released by the office on the final accounts of the central government for last year. According to the report, by the end of this year the government’s outstanding debt with maturity of one year and above will account for 38.07 percent of the average GDP for the previous three years. That means the government has a little more than NT$300 billion left in its line of credit, the office said, cautioning it to properly allocate the nation’s resources.
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
IMAGE SENSORS: The Japanese company would be the controlling shareholder of the venture, with development and production lines to be set up in Kumamoto Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it has signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Sony Semiconductor Solutions Corp to create a joint venture to develop and produce next-generation images sensors. The partnership seeks to explore and address emerging opportunities in physical artificial intelligence (AI) applications, such as automotive and robotics, paving the way for innovations and expanded technological advancements, TSMC said in a statement. Sony would be the majority and controlling shareholder of the joint venture, the statement said, adding that the company would set up development and production lines in its newly constructed fab in Kumamoto Prefecture’s
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