OIL REFINER
CPC chairman resigns
State-run oil refiner CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 中油) yesterday announced that chairman Lin Sheng-chung (林聖忠) had tendered his resignation, with his position to be taken by president Paul Chen (陳綠蔚) on Friday next week. The announcement marked the first personnel change at the nation’s state-owned enterprises before the incoming Democratic Progressive Party administration takes office on Friday next week. Lin said the decision was part of his career plan and that his move would hand the incoming government some flexibility on personnel issues.
IC DESIGNERS
Ali posts first-quarter loss
Integrated circuit designer Ali Corp (揚智) yesterday reported a first-quarter loss of NT$26 million (US$796,910), or NT$0.09 per share, and that sales dropped 12 percent quarter-on-quarter to NT$982 million due to fewer working days during the Lunar New Year holiday. However, sales grew 8 percent year-on-year because of improving demand in most emerging markets and a recovery in pay-TV operator demand. Ali said decreasing product margins in certain segments caused its gross margin to fall 4 percentage points quarter-on-quarter to 38 percent last quarter. Ali shares fell 5.45 percent to close at NT$17.35 in Taipei trading.
CIRCUIT BOARDS
Compeq profit underwhelms
Compeq Manufacturing Co (華通), which produces multilayer and double-sided printed circuit boards, yesterday said overall market weakness and a deteriorating pricing environment caused the company to report weaker-than-expected profit in the first quarter. Net income was NT$262 million, or NT$0.22 per share, with consolidated revenue of NT$9.39 billion and gross margin of 11.63 percent, the company said. Given a similar product mix and weak market demand, the company said sales growth in the second quarter could be relatively flat from the first quarter, while a recovery in sales would emerge in the third quarter at the earliest.
CHIPMAKERS
UMC inks DRAM agreement
United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電) yesterday said it has inked a technology cooperation agreement with a Chinese semiconductor company to develop DRAM technology. In a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange, UMC said has agreed with Fujian Jin Hua Integrated Circuit Co (晉華集成電路) to jointly develop niche DRAM manufacturing technologies, but that it would not be involved in the DRAM manufacturing business. The Chinese firm is to build its own factory, UMC said, adding that the agreement would have a financially positive impact on UMC.
FINANCE
Digital Bitcoin boss detained
The chairman of Digital Bitcoin Co (數位比特) was arrested and handed over to the Taichung District Prosecutors’ Office on Tuesday, Criminal Investigation Bureau officials said in Taipei yesterday. The man, identified by police only by his surname, Ho (何), amassed more than NT$10 million and caused losses to 49 customers through fraud, breach of trust and document forgery, police said. In January last year, Ho falsely claimed that major market players wanted to buy bitcoins at high prices, attracting many customers to buy bitcoins. He then changed the company’s server settings and turned his customers’ bitcoins into his own, claiming that his company had been hacked before shutting down his operation, police said.
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
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
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
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