MediaTek Inc (聯發科), the world’s second-largest handset chip designer, yesterday declined to comment on a report that China’s second-largest smartphone maker, Oppo Mobile Telecommunications Corp (歐珀), is poaching its highest-ranking executive in charge of 5G chip development.
The company said that it had its employees sign agreements on labor ethics.
Most Taiwanese tech companies impose “revolving door” restrictions on employees, preventing them from leaving for competitors.
MediaTek shares yesterday climbed 0.98 percent to close at NT$464.5, compared with the TAIEX climbing 0.16 percent. Turnover jumped 22 percent to 8.15 million shares, compared with 6.68 million shares on Tuesday.
Investors did not flinch when the Nikkei Asian Review reported that Oppo is ramping up its talent hunt after earlier hiring several professionals from its key chip suppliers, MediaTek and UNISOC Communications Inc (紫光展銳), to build an in-house chip development team and reduce reliance on US chipmakers.
Oppo has hired Jeffery Ju (朱尚組), MediaTek’s former cochief operating officer, as a consultant, while another MediaTek executive formerly involved in the development of the firm’s 5G smartphone chip is to join Oppo as soon next month, Nikkei said.
Ju left MediaTek in 2017.
Nikkei did not reveal the name of the MediaTek executive.
MediaTek said that it has over the past few years invested more than NT$100 billion (US$3.33 billion) in developing 5G chips and built a team of 3,000 engineers.
Oppo is the first smartphone maker adopting MediaTek’s first 5G system-on-chip (SoC), the Dimensity 1000, combined with Qualcomm Inc’s 5G chip for Oppo’s Reno 3 series.
MediaTek’s general manager T.L. Lee (李宗霖), who heads its 5G team, was targeted by Oppo in talent poaching efforts, the Chinese-language Economic Daily News reported in February.
Lee, who has worked at MediaTek for 18 years, was the architect behind its business model that focuses on offering chip reference design to its Chinese clients, allowing them to accelerate time to market.
In December last year, Lee joined chief financial officer David Ku (顧大為) at the unveiling of the company’s roadmap for developing its second 5G SoC, the Dimensity 800, for mid to high-range smartphones, which is scheduled to be presented this quarter.
MediaTek also plans to launch its first 5G chips that would support millimeter-wave technology by the end of this year, Lee said at the ceremony.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained