Mobile phone chip designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) plans to launch its first semiconductor chip facility in the US midwest with support from a state transition assistance package from the Indiana Economic Development Commission, the company said on Tuesday.
MediaTek unveiled the new talent development initiative during the SelectUSA Investment Summit in National Harbor, Maryland, following in the steps of silicon wafer manufacturer GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), which on Monday announced an investment of US$5 billion for an advanced 12-inch factory in Texas.
MediaTek said in a statement that it intends to form new research partnerships with Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, to collaborate on developing engineering talent, and research on next-generation computing and communications chip design.
Photo: RITCHIE B. TONGO, EPA
The center would be on the university’s campus, the company said.
It has been working with US universities for more than a decade, but this is the first time it has made such a strong commitment that includes a new MediaTek design team on campus, the firm said.
MediaTek operates eight offices in the US, it said.
“We believe strongly that being in Indiana means we will have access to some of the best engineering talent in the world,” MediaTek USA president Lawrence Loh (陸國宏) said in the statement. “In the post-[COVID-19]-pandemic world, top candidates tell us they want to be closer to home, near family, and they want to have a real house and great schools. Indiana offers all that and more.”
MediaTek said it aims to employ as many as 30 top engineers in West Lafayette by 2025 and up to 10 graduate student interns, with the first interns expected to join the new chip design center in May next year.
Globally, MediaTek invested more than US$3.5 billion in research and development last year.
Pharmaceutical start-up AcadeMab Biomedical Inc (研生生醫) said it has been developing a COVID-19 antibody drug, an endeavor not being undertaken by many other Taiwanese pharmaceutical firms. The company was spun off from Academia Sinica’s Institute of Cellular and Organismic Biology in 2020 and has only 16 employees. It has set its sights on the innovative field of the monoclonal antibody treatment of tumors. The start-up began developing antibody drugs in January, after seeing that COVID-19 vaccines could not effectively protect people from new variants of SARS-CoV-2, AcadeMab Biomedical chief strategy officer Pearl Fong (俸清珠) said in an interview with the Taipei Times
RECOVERED CONFIDENCE: As market rationality returns, Taiwanese stocks that have lagged behind their US peers might soon catch up, Allianz researchers said Local shares last week defied heavy pressure from China’s military drills in waters around Taiwan, and investors this week are expected to pay attention to earnings results from several tech heavyweights as well as the latest economic data on exports and GDP. The TAIEX closed at 15,036.04 points on Friday, posting a weekly increase of 0.24 percent from 15,000.07 on July 29, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Over the same period, the FTSE TWSE Taiwan 50 Index, which comprises Taiwan’s top 50 stocks in terms of market capitalization, closed up 0.93 percent at 11,750.15 points, while the Formosa Stock Index, which measures
FORECAST EXCEEDED: China’s curbs on some Taiwanese goods are unlikely to affect trade given inter-reliance in the electronics industries, a finance ministry official said Exports last month spiked 14.2 percent to US$43.32 billion, the second-highest increase on record and the 25th consecutive month of gains, driven by global demand for electronics used in high-performance computing and vehicles, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. The ministry expects the trend to sustain this month and beyond, although the pace could slow due to inventory corrections for laptops, smartphones and other consumer electronics. “The July results proved stronger than expected despite rising fears over economic uncertainty,” Department of Statistics Director-General Beatrice Tsai (蔡美娜) said, adding that a high sales season in the West and stabilized COVID-19 infections in China
Government officials and business representatives yesterday participated in a groundbreaking ceremony at the Nanzih Technology Industrial Park (楠梓科技產業園區) in Kaohsiung, where Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is to construct a 12-inch wafer plant. The 238-hectare park sits on the former site of a naphtha cracking plant owned by state-owned oil refiner CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油). Thirty hectares of the first phase of development are reserved for TSMC’s planned factory, while the second phase is to be occupied by international semiconductor material and equipment companies, the Executive Yuan said in a statement yesterday. “The park will be connected with Tainan Science Park