Taiwan’s gross domestic expenditure on research and development (R&D) is ranked third-highest in the world as it reached 3.36 percent of total gross domestic product, or NT$616 billion (US$20.55 billion), in 2018, the Ministry of Economic Affairs Department of Statistics said in a report yesterday.
That surpassed Japan’s 3.26 percent, the US’ 2.83 percent and China’s 2.19 percent. Taiwan’s gross domestic expenditure on R&D closely followed Israel’s and South Korea’s, which remained the top two spenders on R&D at 4.9 percent and 4.53 percent respectively in 2018.
Corporate spending has become the main driving force behind Taiwan’s gross domestic expenditure on R&D, making up 80.3 percent of total expenditure, on a level with that of South Korea, ministry data showed.
Japan, China and the US posted slightly lower figures at 79.4 percent, 77.4 percent and 72.6 percent respectively.
The ministry data also showed that Taiwan’s spending on R&D is concentrated on technical development, which increased 8.2 percent from 2017 to make up 69.7 percent of total expenditure in 2018.
Corporate spending was highest in the manufacturing sector, namely the computer, electronics and optical components industry, which made up 73.6 percent of total corporate expenditure on R&D in 2018.
By comparison, South Korean firms in this industry made up only about 51.9 percent of total R&D expenditure, while in Japan and China, it only made up 19.5 percent and 16.2 percent respectively.
Taiwanese companies’ R&D spending in the service sector only made up 8.2 percent of total corporate expenditure on R&D.
Meanwhile, Taiwan’s spending on basic research declined by 3.6 percentage points over the same period, making up only 7.3 percent of total expenditure.
This is mainly due to budget cuts in government spending, as well as in higher education, the report said.
However, Taiwan’s spending on applied research increased 8 percentage points from 2017 to 2018, contributing 23 percent of total expenditure.
LIMITED IMPACT: Investor confidence was likely sustained by its relatively small exposure to the Chinese market, as only less advanced chips are made in Nanjing Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) saw its stock price close steady yesterday in a sign that the loss of the validated end user (VEU) status for its Nanjing, China, fab should have a mild impact on the world’s biggest contract chipmaker financially and technologically. Media reports about the waiver loss sent TSMC down 1.29 percent during the early trading session yesterday, but the stock soon regained strength and ended at NT$1,160, unchanged from Tuesday. Investors’ confidence in TSMC was likely built on its relatively small exposure to the Chinese market, as Chinese customers contributed about 9 percent to TSMC’s revenue last
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
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), which assembles servers for Nvidia Corp, yesterday said that revenue last month rose 10.61 percent year-on-year, driven by strong growth in cloud and networking products amid continued front-loading orders for artificial intelligence (AI) server racks. Consolidated revenue expanded to NT$606.51 billion (US$19.81 billion) last month from NT$548.31 billion a year earlier, marking the highest ever in August, the company said in a statement. On a monthly basis, revenue was down 1.2 percent from NT$613.86 billion. Hon Hai, which is also a major iPhone assembler, added that its electronic components division saw significant revenue growth last month, boosted
RSS