Quanta Computer Inc (廣達電腦), an assembler of Apple Inc’s MacBooks, has partially resumed operations in Shanghai after a surge in COVID-19 cases led to lockdowns in the city.
The Quanta Shanghai Manufacturing City (QSMC, 廣達上海製造城), Quanta’s manufacturing base in Shanghai, on Friday resumed production with about 2,000 staff members working in a closed-loop management system, Xinhua news agency reported on Sunday.
Production at its F1 and F3 factories, which make laptops for Apple and accessories for Tesla Inc respectively, was under way, the report said.
Photo: Vanessa Cho, Taipei Times
The resumption means that 5 percent of QSMC’s 40,000 employees across eight factories in Shanghai have returned to work.
Quanta, the world’s biggest contract laptop manufacturer, on Wednesday announced that its subsidiary, Tech-Com (Shanghai) Computer Ltd (達功上海電腦), had halted production in response to the Shanghai city government’s introduction of COVID-19 prevention measures.
As Shanghai struggles to contain its worst COVID-19 outbreak in two years, disease prevention restrictions continue to put pressure on China’s economy.
To tackle the issue, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on Friday unveiled a white list of 666 companies in sectors including automobiles, semiconductors, consumer electronics, food, equipment manufacturing, medicine and foreign trade for which priority would be given to resume production in Shanghai.
Companies applying to resume work must stock up on medical supplies and establish closed loops for workers, who must live at their workplace or be limited to traveling between work and home, guidance issued on Saturday said.
Contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), whose production in Shanghai’s Songjiang District is on the list, on Sunday said that its operations in the city had not been halted.
Also on the list are Taiwan-based IC packaging and testing services provider ASE Technology Holding Co’s (日月光投控) Shanghai factory, as well as Unimos Microelectronics (Shanghai) Co (紫光宏茂微電子上海), a company formed after China’s Tsinghua Unigroup Co (清華紫光) acquired a major share of Taiwan-based ChipMOS Technologies Inc’s (南茂科技) Shanghai subsidiary.
At least 30 Taiwanese firms, most of which make electronic components, on Wednesday said that the Chinese government’s COVID-19 control measures in eastern China had led them to suspend production, Reuters reported.
Despite the white list of priority companies, logistical bottlenecks persist due to closures ordered by authorities in other cities, as well as port and trucking disruptions.
An unnamed executive at a listed pharmaceutical firm told Shanghai Securities News that it was unclear how to transport goods, return orders or collect bills when resuming work given the ongoing curbs.
“These are real problems that the policy still needs to address,” the newspaper quoted them as saying.
Meanwhile, Tesla has restarted production at its Shanghai factory and laid out stringent measures for staff operating in the closed-loop system after a weeks-long suspension, people familiar with the matter said.
The electric vehicle maker’s Shanghai plant was producing about 2,100 vehicles a day, churning out 182,174 in the first quarter.
Ramping production back up from such a long shutdown would not be an instant process.
Tesla only has inventory for just more than two weeks based on its new closed-loop schedule, and logistics are a major problem for many other parts, another person familiar with the matter said.
Additional reporting by Reuters and Bloomberg
NXP Semiconductors NV expects its first automotive-grade 5-nanometer chip built by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to become available for automakers within one-and-a-half years at the earliest, following demand for better computing performance and energy efficiency for connected vehicles, a company executive said yesterday. That would mean a significant upgrade from the 16-nanometer technology NXP adopted in its existing series of microprocessors. NXP chief technology executive Lars Reger made the remarks during a media briefing yesterday in Taipei. The latest updates came after NXP unveiled its plan to source 5-nanometer capacity from TSMC in 2021. This is Reger’s first trip to
EVADING US CONTROLS? ‘These surveillance chips are relatively easy to manufacture compared to smartphone processors,’ a source said about HiSilicon’s components A Huawei Technologies Co (華為) unit is shipping new Chinese-made chips for surveillance cameras in a fresh sign that the Chinese tech giant is finding ways around four years of US export controls, two sources briefed on the unit’s efforts said. The shipments to surveillance camera manufacturers from the company’s chip design unit, HiSilicon Technologies Co (海思半導體), started this year, said one of the sources and a third source familiar with the industry supply chain. One of the sources briefed on the unit said that at least some of the customers were Chinese. Huawei unveiled new smartphones in the past few weeks that
CENTRAL BANK: The consumer price index would grow while core CPI is set to move forward at a milder rate, the governor said, adding that the GDP forecast is down The central bank yesterday kept its policy rate unchanged for the second straight quarter, saying that a rate pause would help support the economy, as consumer prices have moderated and would return to the 2 percent target next year. “The board gave unanimous support to a policy hold, although some members voiced concern over lingering inflationary pressures and called for close monitoring,” central bank Governor Yang Chin-long (楊金龍) told a media briefing after its quarterly board meeting. The consumer price index (CPI) would grow 1.83 percent next year, while core CPI after stripping out volatile items would advance a milder 1.73 percent,
SLUMP: The electronics, machinery and traditional industries posted the largest decline in the past year; overall, sectors showed gains over the previous month Taiwan’s industrial production index decreased 10.53 percent year-on-year to 91.38 last month, falling for a 15th consecutive month on an annual basis, as weak global economic growth continued to weigh on end-market demand and investment momentum, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said on Saturday. The industrial production index gauges output in Taiwan’s four main industries: manufacturing, electricity and gas supply, water supply, and mining and quarrying. Last month’s decline was the smallest contraction since March when the index dropped 16.03 percent from a year earlier. On a monthly basis, the index rose 7.28 percent, marking a second straight month of improvement,