Optical filter maker Kingray (晶瑞光電) yesterday said it plans to raise capital to purchase equipment to massively expand production after it becomes an approved vendor for STMicroelectronics NV.
“Getting that vendor code was a very difficult process,” Kingray chief executive officer Leo Tsou (鄒政興) said, adding that STMicroelectronics would be a “key client.”
STMicroelectronics is the maker of time-of-flight (TOF) modules for Apple Inc, among other clients. TOF modules require a narrow band pass filter (NBPF) to isolate the infrared wavelength, which is optimal for facial recognition.
Photo: Bill Chen, Taipei Times
“Each cellphone has three kinds of eyes,” Tsou said, “The camera, the TOF and the ambient light sensor [ALS].”
Kingray makes filters for TOFs and ambient light sensors, although Tsou said he has ambitions to break into the camera filter market, too.
“The problem now is that we cannot compete with the Chinese camera filters on price, but we are working on making our filters smaller and thinner so that we can differentiate ourselves from our competitors,” he said.
Kingray has facilities are in Hsinchu County’s Jhudong Township (竹東).
Tsou said the company plans to first rent, then build more plants to increase production, which would remain in Taiwan.
“We have no intentions of moving to China, it is too risky from a trade-secrets point of view,” Tsou said. “Meanwhile, other countries, such as those in Southeast Asia, do not have the highly skilled workforce we require.”
The global market for NBPFs is dominated by US firm Viavi Solutions Inc. A key to Kingray’s ability to break into this market was two years of research and development, culminating in a new patent. Kingray’s patent is accepted in Taiwan, China, Japan and Germany, although not yet in the US.
“Getting our own patent was essential to having clients’ design in our product,” Tsou said, adding that the company also has four other patents pending, and hope to file another one this year related to a semiconductor process.
While optics and semiconductors might seem like very different fields, Tsou said combining the “eyes” and the “brains” would be essential to the robots of the future.
“Our human eyes are incredible at picking out what is important and judging distance — all things that machines cannot do until they integrate the optical with the electronics,” he said.
Kingray, founded in 1999, started as a dicer of semiconductor wafers and ceramic boards. Currently, it mostly produces optical filters.
It reported revenue of NT$19.40 million for last year, up 136 percent from 2019, but it is not currently profitable.
“We are hoping to reach profitability possibly in the third quarter of 2021,” chief financial officer Rio Lai (賴俊文) said.
The company is slated to debut on the Emerging Stock Board at the suggested price NT$25 a share tomorrow.
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has appointed Rose Castanares, executive vice president of TSMC Arizona, as president of the subsidiary, which is responsible for carrying out massive investments by the Taiwanese tech giant in the US state, the company said in a statement yesterday. Castanares will succeed Brian Harrison as president of the Arizona subsidiary on Oct. 1 after the incumbent president steps down from the position with a transfer to the Arizona CEO office to serve as an advisor to TSMC Arizona’s chairman, the statement said. According to TSMC, Harrison is scheduled to retire on Dec. 31. Castanares joined TSMC in
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the
FACTORY SHIFT: While Taiwan produces most of the world’s AI servers, firms are under pressure to move manufacturing amid geopolitical tensions Lenovo Group Ltd (聯想) started building artificial intelligence (AI) servers in India’s south, the latest boon for the rapidly growing country’s push to become a high-tech powerhouse. The company yesterday said it has started making the large, powerful computers in Pondicherry, southeastern India, moving beyond products such as laptops and smartphones. The Chinese company would also build out its facilities in the Bangalore region, including a research lab with a focus on AI. Lenovo’s plans mark another win for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who tries to attract more technology investment into the country. While India’s tense relationship with China has suffered setbacks