TELECOMS
Trump bars Huawei gear
US President Donald Trump on Thursday signed legislation that bars carriers from using US subsidies to purchase network equipment from Huawei Technologies Co (華為), ZTE Corp (中興) and other companies deemed a national security threat. The law also requires the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to help small providers with the costs of removing prohibited equipment or services from their networks and replacing it. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai asked the US Congress “to appropriate the necessary funding to reimburse carriers for replacing any network equipment or services found to be a national security threat.” The Rural Wireless Association praised the measure that authorizes the not-yet-appropriated US$1 billion. It marks “the first step in securing necessary funding to replace rural carriers’ Huawei and ZTE equipment so that critical network infrastructure in rural areas continues to be available,” the association said.
SEMICONDUCTORS
Broadcom rescinds forecast
Chipmaker and Apple Inc supplier Broadcom Inc withdrew its annual sales forecast and gave weak near-term guidance, demonstrating how deeply the coronavirus outbreak is poised to hurt demand. Although Broadcom CEO Hock Tan (陳福陽) said that he “did not see any material impact” from the outbreak in the first quarter, “we believe it prudent to withdraw our annual guidance until visibility returns to pre-COVID-19 level.” Sales in the current period would be US$5.7 billion, plus or minus US$150 million, the company said on Thursday. That missed Wall Street expectations. While Broadcom’s supply chain is unscathed by the virus so far, Tan said it is impossible to assess yet how much consumer demand for electronics would decline.
JAPAN
Unions score small raise
Workers in the nation’s biggest labor union are receiving the smallest pay raise in seven years, another blow for households facing a higher sales tax and the likelihood of a deep recession triggered by the COVID-19. Average monthly pay for members is to rise by 1.91 percent, initial results from this year’s wage negotiations released on Friday by the Japanese Trade Union Confederation show. That follows a bump of around 2.2 percent last year. With corporate profits likely to be hard hit by the virus, unions had less bargaining power than might have been expected given the country’s labor shortages. This year’s results present a further challenge for households whose budgets have been squeezed by the second sales tax hike in the span of about five years. The confederation entered this year’s negotiations demanding only about a 3 percent pay increase.
PHARMACEUTICALS
FDA permits faster virus test
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued emergency authorization for a faster coronavirus test made by Swiss diagnostics maker Roche, a move aimed at boosting screening capacity to help contain the outbreak. The new tests provide results in 3.5 hours and can produce up to 4,128 results daily, the company said yesterday, a boost to tests the company has offered until now. The emergency authorization clears the tests to be deployed in the US and markets that conform to European standards. Roche said it is “going to the limits of our production capacity” to deliver as many of the faster tests as possible.
Napoleon Osorio is proud of being the first taxi driver to have accepted payment in bitcoin in the first country in the world to make the cryptocurrency legal tender: El Salvador. He credits Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s decision to bank on bitcoin three years ago with changing his life. “Before I was unemployed... And now I have my own business,” said the 39-year-old businessman, who uses an app to charge for rides in bitcoin and now runs his own car rental company. Three years ago the leader of the Central American nation took a huge gamble when he put bitcoin
TECH RACE: The Chinese firm showed off its new Mate XT hours after the latest iPhone launch, but its price tag and limited supply could be drawbacks China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) yesterday unveiled the world’s first tri-foldable phone, as it seeks to expand its lead in the world’s biggest smartphone market and steal the spotlight from Apple Inc hours after it debuted a new iPhone. The Chinese tech giant showed off its new Mate XT, which users can fold three ways like an accordion screen door, during a launch ceremony in Shenzhen. The Mate XT comes in red and black and has a 10.2-inch display screen. At 3.6mm thick, it is the world’s slimmest foldable smartphone, Huawei said. The company’s Web site showed that it has garnered more than
PARTNERSHIPS: TSMC said it has been working with multiple memorychip makers for more than two years to provide a full spectrum of solutions to address AI demand Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it has been collaborating with multiple memorychip makers in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) used in artificial intelligence (AI) applications for more than two years, refuting South Korean media report's about an unprecedented partnership with Samsung Electronics Co. As Samsung is competing with TSMC for a bigger foundry business, any cooperation between the two technology heavyweights would catch the eyes of investors and experts in the semiconductor industry. “We have been working with memory partners, including Micron, Samsung Memory and SK Hynix, on HBM solutions for more than two years, aiming to advance 3D integrated circuit
Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp (世界先進) and Episil Technologies Inc (漢磊) yesterday announced plans to jointly build an 8-inch fab to produce silicon carbide (SiC) chips through an equity acquisition deal. SiC chips offer higher efficiency and lower energy loss than pure silicon chips, and they are able to operate at higher temperatures. They have become crucial to the development of electric vehicles, artificial intelligence data centers, green energy storage and industrial devices. Vanguard, a contract chipmaker focused on making power management chips and driver ICs for displays, is to acquire a 13 percent stake in Episil for NT$2.48 billion (US$77.1 million).
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