Tensions between the US and China are causing some manufacturers to discuss moving some of their supply chain away from Taiwan, although the pace is “incremental,” Reuters reported yesterday, citing MediaTek Inc (聯發科) chief executive officer Rick Tsai (蔡力行).
Some of the “very large [equipment manufacturers] will require their chip suppliers to have multiple sources, like from Taiwan and from US, or from Germany or from Europe,” Reuters quoted Tsai as saying on the sidelines of a media and analyst event the Taiwanese handset chip designer hosted in California on Friday.
“I think in those cases, we will have to find multiple sources for the same chip if the business warrants that,” Tsai said.
Photo: Ann Wang, Reuters
Reuters said MediaTek’s most advanced smartphone chips are made at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) plants in Taiwan, with some older smartphone chips being made by GlobalFoundries Inc in the US and Singapore.
The company in July announced that it had formed a strategic partnership with Intel Corp to manufacture chips using the US company’s matured process technology.
With TSMC constructing a US$12 billion plant in Arizona, MediaTek would also be producing chips there when it begins production, Tsai said.
However, he cautioned that it was not realistic for the semiconductor industry to move completely away from Taiwan, which produces most of the world’s advanced semiconductors, Reuters said.
DAMAGE REPORT: Global central banks are assessing war-driven inflation risks as the law of unintended consequences careens around the world, spiking oil prices Central banks from Washington to London and from Jakarta to Taipei are about to make their first assessments of economic damage after more than two weeks of conflict between the US and Iran. Decisions this week encompassing every member of the G7 and eight of the world’s 10 most-traded currency jurisdictions are likely to confirm to investors that the specter of a new inflation shock is already worrying enough to prompt heightened caution. The US Federal Reserve is widely expected to do exactly what everyone anticipated weeks ahead of its March 17-18 policy gathering: hold rates steady. The narrative surrounding that
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) share of the global foundry market rose to almost 70 percent last year amid booming demand for artificial intelligence (AI), market information advisory firm TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said on Thursday. The contract chipmaker posted US$122.54 billion in revenue, up 36.1 percent from a year earlier, accounting for 69.9 percent of the global market, TrendForce said. Its share was up from 64.4 percent in 2024, it said. TSMC’s closest rival, Samsung Electronics, was a distant second, posting US$12.63 billion in sales, down 3.9 percent from a year earlier, for a 7.2 percent share of the global market. In the
At a massive shipyard in North Vancouver, Canadian workers grind metal beams for a powerful new icebreaker crucial to cementing the country’s presence in the increasingly contested arctic. Icebreakers are specialized, expensive vessels able to navigate in the frozen far north. And “this is the crown jewel,” said Eddie Schehr, vice president of production at the Seaspan shipyard. For Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who heads to Norway next Friday to observe arctic defense drills involving troops from 14 NATO states, Canada’s extreme north has emerged as a strategic priority. “Canada is and forever will be an Arctic nation,” he said ahead of
Chinese entrepreneur Frank Gao used to spend long hours running his social media accounts but now outsources the chore to artificial intelligence (AI) agent tool OpenClaw, which is taking China by storm despite official warnings over cybersecurity. OpenClaw, created in November by an Austrian coder, differs from bots such as ChatGPT because it can execute real-life tasks such as sending e-mails, organizing files or even booking flight tickets. “Since January, I’ve spent hours on the lobster every day,” Gao said in an interview, referring to OpenClaw’s red crustacean mascot. “We’re family.” After downloading OpenClaw, users connect it to artificial intelligence models of their
RSS