TOURISM
Wanda opens Yunnan resort
Dalian Wanda Group Co (大連萬達集團), controlled by Asia’s richest man, Wang Jianlin (王健林), said it opened a US$2.5 billion resort in southeast China’s Yunnan Province yesterday, with the target of earning 100 billion yuan (US$15.7 billion) revenue in the next five years. The Xishuangbanna resort, spanning 5.3km2, includes a theme park, theater, retail street, Wanda shopping mall and a hospital, in addition to high-end hotel chains with 1,050 rooms. Wanda aims to attract 200 million tourist visits in the next five years, it said.
CASINOS
Sheraton casino to close
Another casino is closing in Puerto Rico as the US territory struggles through nine years of economic stagnation. A spokeswoman for Starwood Hotels & Resorts on Friday said that the Sheraton Old San Juan Hotel & Casino will be sold to an affiliate of Tishman Hotel Corp. The hotel is located in the historic district of Puerto Rico’s capital. Officials said the casino will be turned into retail space. They said leases are being negotiated.
AVIATION
Lufthansa complaint filed
The Swiss Travel Federation filed a complaint on Friday against German airline Lufthansa for breaching anti-cartel laws, the Swiss competition authority confirmed. The organization, which represents Swiss travel agencies and tour operators, said that a new tax introduced by Lufthansa earlier this month violates Switzerland’s anti-cartel legislation. The problem, according to the report, is that the 16 Swiss franc (US$16.30) tax is not imposed on reservations made directly with Lufthansa, leaving travel agents and their clients at a disadvantage.
AUTOMAKERS
Volvo starts work on US plant
Volvo has broken ground on its first auto manufacturing plant in North America, and says workers at the US$500 million plant will build a car still being designed in Sweden. Volvo North America CEO Lex Kerssemakers said on Friday that the plant in Ridgeville, South Carolina, is to build the company’s new S-60 sedan, as well as another model to be announced later. The plant is expected to employ about 2,000 workers during the next decade. Company officials said foundation work will begin early next year and the first vehicles are expected to roll off the plant’s production line in 2018.
COLOMBIA
Central bank raises rate
The central bank unexpectedly raised borrowing costs for the first time in more than a year as the decline in the Colombian peso pushed the inflation rate to its highest level since 2009. The seven-member board voted unanimously to increase the benchmark rate 25 basis points to 4.75 percent, the central bank said on Friday in Bogota. The decision was forecast by 12 of 38 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.
CYPRUS
S&P upgrades rating
Standard & Poor’s has upgraded Cyprus’ government debt rating by one notch to “BB-” after the country eliminated limits on money transfers and following improvements in the economy and budget. The ratings agency on Friday also gave the country a positive outlook, meaning it could raise its rating again in the next year if the economy continues to perform well.
With this year’s Semicon Taiwan trade show set to kick off on Wednesday, market attention has turned to the mass production of advanced packaging technologies and capacity expansion in Taiwan and the US. With traditional scaling reaching physical limits, heterogeneous integration and packaging technologies have emerged as key solutions. Surging demand for artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance computing (HPC) and high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips has put technologies such as chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS), integrated fan-out (InFO), system on integrated chips (SoIC), 3D IC and fan-out panel-level packaging (FOPLP) at the center of semiconductor innovation, making them a major focus at this year’s trade show, according
DEBUT: The trade show is to feature 17 national pavilions, a new high for the event, including from Canada, Costa Rica, Lithuania, Sweden and Vietnam for the first time The Semicon Taiwan trade show, which opens on Wednesday, is expected to see a new high in the number of exhibitors and visitors from around the world, said its organizer, SEMI, which has described the annual event as the “Olympics of the semiconductor industry.” SEMI, which represents companies in the electronics manufacturing and design supply chain, and touts the annual exhibition as the most influential semiconductor trade show in the world, said more than 1,200 enterprises from 56 countries are to showcase their innovations across more than 4,100 booths, and that the event could attract 100,000 visitors. This year’s event features 17
SEMICONDUCTOR SERVICES: A company executive said that Taiwanese firms must think about how to participate in global supply chains and lift their competitiveness Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it expects to launch its first multifunctional service center in Pingtung County in the middle of 2027, in a bid to foster a resilient high-tech facility construction ecosystem. TSMC broached the idea of creating a center two or three years ago when it started building new manufacturing capacity in the US and Japan, the company said. The center, dubbed an “ecosystem park,” would assist local manufacturing facility construction partners to upgrade their capabilities and secure more deals from other global chipmakers such as Intel Corp, Micron Technology Inc and Infineon Technologies AG, TSMC said. It
EXPORT GROWTH: The AI boom has shortened chip cycles to just one year, putting pressure on chipmakers to accelerate development and expand packaging capacity Developing a localized supply chain for advanced packaging equipment is critical for keeping pace with customers’ increasingly shrinking time-to-market cycles for new artificial intelligence (AI) chips, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) said yesterday. Spurred on by the AI revolution, customers are accelerating product upgrades to nearly every year, compared with the two to three-year development cadence in the past, TSMC vice president of advanced packaging technology and service Jun He (何軍) said at a 3D IC Global Summit organized by SEMI in Taipei. These shortened cycles put heavy pressure on chipmakers, as the entire process — from chip design to mass
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