Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) last year filed the most patent applications in Taiwan, as it has done for the past five years, the Intellectual Property Office said on Tuesday.
The world’s largest contract chipmaker filed 1,950 invention patents, an increase of 78 percent from 2020, as it intensified its efforts to upgrade its technologies and cement its lead over its peers in the global market, office data showed.
Office Director-General Hong Shu-min (洪淑敏) said it was a record increase.
Photo: Lin Jin-hua, Taipei Times
Of the 1,950 TSMC applications filed with the office last year, 1,053 patents were granted, which was also the highest number secured by an applicant last year, Hong said.
Legally in Taiwan, patents are categorized in three groups — invention, utility model and design — and invention patents are deemed the most important in terms of new technology ideas.
TSMC is developing the sophisticated 2-nanometer chipmaking process, having started commercial production on the 5-nanometer process, and is conducting trials on the 3-nanometer process with the goal of going into mass production in the second half of this year.
Among the other major companies filing patents in Taiwan, flat-panel maker AU Optronics Corp (友達光電) had the second-highest number of applications last year at 471, a 1 percent annual increase.
Of that number, 460 were invention patents, while four were utility models and seven were designs.
PC brand Acer Inc (宏碁) was third with 462 patent applications, down 12 percent from the previous year, followed by communication network IC designer Realtek Semiconductor Corp (瑞昱半導體) with 442 applications, the government-sponsored Industrial Technology Research Institute (工業技術研究院) with 404 applications and DRAM chip supplier Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) with 290 applications.
Realtek and Nanya filed the most applications in the history of their companies, representing annual increases of 5 percent and 116 percent respectively, Hong said.
Amid a global chip shortage amid the COVID-19 pandemic, tech companies filed as many patent applications as possible last year, Hong said, adding that rising demand for electric vehicles and renewable energy was also a contributing factor.
Last year, the total number of patent applications filed by Taiwanese companies for invention, utility model and design patents was 12,234, up 8 percent from a year earlier, office data showed.
Among foreign companies, US-based smartphone chip designer Qualcomm Inc was the largest applicant in Taiwan, filing 845 invention patents, an annual increase of 17 percent.
US semiconductor equipment supplier Applied Materials Inc had the second-highest number at 793 patents, up 22 percent from a year earlier, followed by Japanese electrical product maker Nitto Denko Corp with 529 applications, South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics Co with 520 applications and Japanese semiconductor supplier Tokyo Electron Ltd with 477 applications.
In total, foreign companies filed 14,149 patent applications in Taiwan last year, an annual increase of 5 percent, the data showed.
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).
RSS