Nuvoton Technology Corp’s (新唐科技) announcement yesterday that it is buying Panasonic Semiconductor Solutions Co Ltd (PSCS) marks the end of Japanese electronics giant Panasonic Corp’s involvement in the semiconductor business.
The Hsinchu-based microcontrollers maker said it would pay US$250 million in an all-cash deal for Kyoto, Japan-based PSCS, which supplies semiconductor devices and solutions with products that focus on sensing, microcontroller and component technologies.
The deal is expected to close by June next year and obtain approvals from both national and regional regulators, it said.
Nuvoton, which is a subsidiary of memorychip maker Winbond Electronics Corp (華邦電子), said the acquisition of PSCS would generate greater value for the customers and shareholders of both companies, while increasing its presence in the global semiconductor industry through greater scale and volume of semiconductor solutions.
“We believe it would broaden the company’s distribution channels and customer base by exploiting PSCS’ abundant resources in research and development, as well as its large pool of talent,” Nuvoton spokeswoman Jessica Huang (黃求己) told a news conference in Taipei.
There are no plans to cut jobs and Nuvoton would integrate PSCS’ more than 2,000 employees, she said.
Nuvoton would also obtain the operating assets of Panasonic Semiconductor Solutions (Suzhou) Co Ltd, such as semiconductor equipment and warehouses; Panasonic Industrial Devices Semiconductor Asia’s assets, liabilities, contracts and other operating assets; and a 49 percent stake in TowerJazz Panasonic Semiconductor Co Ltd, a joint venture between Panasonic and Israel’s Tower Semiconductor Ltd.
PSCS booked an operating loss of ￥23.5 billion (US$214.5 million) for the fiscal year that ended in March, the Nikkei reported.
Nuvoton, with a paid-in capital of NT$2.88 billion (US$94.41million), reported net profit of NT$390.14 million in the first three quarters of this year on revenue of NT$7.58 billion.
Kadoma City, Japan-based Panasonic’s move to sell its semiconductor unit to Nuvoton came after it revealed a three-year-plan to exit the semiconductor business earlier this year.
It has faced rising competition in the semiconductor business from Taiwanese and South Korean rivals, which has been aggravated by a US-China trade spat.
Panasonic sold part of PSCS’ diode and transistor business to Kyoto, Japan-based Rohm Semiconductor Co Ltd in April.
Panasonic president Kazuhiro Tsuga earlier this month said the company would “eradicate” all continuously loss-making businesses by the fiscal year that ends in March 2022, including the production of LCD panels by 2021, while focusing on sectors such as batteries and other auto equipment, the Japan Times reported.
Additional reporting by AFP
HORMUZ ISSUE: The US president said he expected crude prices to drop at the end of the war, which he called a ‘minor excursion’ that could continue ‘for a little while’ The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait started reducing oil production, as the near-closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz ripples through energy markets and affects global supply. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is “managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements,” the company said in a statement, without giving details. Kuwait Petroleum Corp said it was lowering production at its oil fields and refineries after “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The war in the Middle East has all but closed Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the open seas,
Apple Inc increased iPhone production in India by about 53 percent last year and now makes a quarter of its marquee devices there, reflecting the US company’s efforts to avoid tariffs on China. The company assembled about 55 million iPhones in India last year, up from 36 million a year earlier, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named because the numbers aren’t public. Apple makes about 220 million to 230 million iPhones a year globally, with India’s share of the total increasing rapidly. Apple has accelerated its expansion in the world’s most populous country in recent years, bolstered
HEADWINDS: The company said it expects its computer business, as well as consumer electronics and communications segments to see revenue declines due to seasonality Pegatron Corp (和碩) yesterday said it aims to grow its artificial intelligence (AI) server revenue more than 10-fold this year from last year, driven by orders from neocloud solutions clients and large cloud service providers. The electronics manufacturing service provider said AI server revenue growth would be driven primarily by the Nvidia Corp GB300 server platform. Server shipments are expected to increase each quarter this year, with the second half likely to outperform the first half, it said. The AI server market is expected to broaden this year as more inference applications emerge, which would drive demand for system-on-chip, application-specific integrated circuits
PROJECTION: TSMC said it expects strong growth this year, with revenue in US dollars projected to grow by about 30 percent, outperforming the industry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported consolidated sales last month reached NT$317.66 billion (US$9.98 billion), the highest ever for the month of February, driven by robust demand for chips built using the company’s advanced 3-nanometer (3nm) process. Last month’s figure was up 22.2 percent from a year earlier, but fell 20.8 percent from January, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. For the first two months of the year, TSMC posted cumulative sales of NT$718.91 billion, up 29.9 percent from a year earlier. Analysts attributed the growth to sustained global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) products
RSS