Qualcomm Inc, the world’s largest supplier of chips for mobile phones, yesterday said it is stepping up its recruitment of engineers for labs in Taiwan this year in response to growing demand for 5G devices ahead of global commercialization.
Taiwanese component and hardware manufacturers are among the world’s pioneers in taking up the new-generation mobile technology, as they are better prepared to embrace the arrival of the 5G era than they were for the 4G era, Qualcomm said.
Wistron NeWeb Corp (啟碁) and Askey Computer Corp (亞旭), a wholly owned subsidiary of Asustek Computer Inc (華碩) that makes high-end routers and networking equipment, showcased their latest 5G-enabled consumer premise equipment (CPE) powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X50 processor during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, last week.
Photo: Lo Chien-yi, Taipei Times
HTC Corp (宏達電) unveiled its first 5G hub, rather than mobile phones as it did before, ahead of the opening of the annual show.
“The migration to 5G will be much faster than the last transition from 4G to 3G, as there is already a lot of 4G applications in use... 5G is becoming a reality now,” Qualcomm Taiwan president S.T. Liew (劉思泰) said.
“5G is not about mobile phones only. There is a lot of applications beyond mobile phones, including apps for industrial devices and more,” Liew said.
“Qualcomm is deepening its partnership with Taiwan and helping it reach out for 5G businesses,” he said.
The San Diego, California-based company has set up a 5G module research-and-design center in Taiwan, the second worldwide after the one at its headquarters, to assist local partners in solving engineering and technological issues and promote exchanges of 5G technology, he said.
The 5G center is one of three centers Qualcomm plans to open in Taiwan — the other two are a millimeter-wave testing center and a biometric sensor testing center.
The chipmaker has about 600 engineers at its local labs in Taipei and Hsinchu, a spike from 160 engineers last year.
The company plans to further increase its headcount this year, but declined to confirm a report by the Chinese-language Economic Daily News that it plans to add 200 more engineers.
POWERING UP: PSUs for AI servers made up about 50% of Delta’s total server PSU revenue during the first three quarters of last year, the company said Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) reported record-high revenue of NT$161.61 billion (US$5.11 billion) for last quarter and said it remains positive about this quarter. Last quarter’s figure was up 7.6 percent from the previous quarter and 41.51 percent higher than a year earlier, and largely in line with Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co’s (元大投顧) forecast of NT$160 billion. Delta’s annual revenue last year rose 31.76 percent year-on-year to NT$554.89 billion, also a record high for the company. Its strong performance reflected continued demand for high-performance power solutions and advanced liquid-cooling products used in artificial intelligence (AI) data centers,
SIZE MATTERS: TSMC started phasing out 8-inch wafer production last year, while Samsung is more aggressively retiring 8-inch capacity, TrendForce said Chipmakers are expected to raise prices of 8-inch wafers by up to 20 percent this year on concern over supply constraints as major contract chipmakers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and Samsung Electronics Co gradually retire less advanced wafer capacity, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said yesterday. It is the first significant across-the-board price hike since a global semiconductor correction in 2023, the Taipei-based market researcher said in a report. Global 8-inch wafer capacity slid 0.3 percent year-on-year last year, although 8-inch wafer prices still hovered at relatively stable levels throughout the year, TrendForce said. The downward trend is expected to continue this year,
Vincent Wei led fellow Singaporean farmers around an empty Malaysian plot, laying out plans for a greenhouse and rows of leafy vegetables. What he pitched was not just space for crops, but a lifeline for growers struggling to make ends meet in a city-state with high prices and little vacant land. The future agriculture hub is part of a joint special economic zone launched last year by the two neighbors, expected to cost US$123 million and produce 10,000 tonnes of fresh produce annually. It is attracting Singaporean farmers with promises of cheaper land, labor and energy just over the border.
US actor Matthew McConaughey has filed recordings of his image and voice with US patent authorities to protect them from unauthorized usage by artificial intelligence (AI) platforms, a representative said earlier this week. Several video clips and audio recordings were registered by the commercial arm of the Just Keep Livin’ Foundation, a non-profit created by the Oscar-winning actor and his wife, Camila, according to the US Patent and Trademark Office database. Many artists are increasingly concerned about the uncontrolled use of their image via generative AI since the rollout of ChatGPT and other AI-powered tools. Several US states have adopted
RSS