Power chip designer Potens Semiconductor Corp (博盛半導體) yesterday said it is cautiously optimistic about its business prospects next year, citing an improving global economy, as well as rising demand for power semiconductors for vehicles, and for artificial intelligence (AI) PCs and servers.
“Semiconductor demand is highly correlated to the world economy. As we are not seeing major headwinds for the economy, we expect next year to be a better year than this year,” Potens spokeswoman Jessie Peng (彭卓蘭) told a news conference in Taipei. “We are holding a cautiously optimistic attitude toward next year.”
Potens is a chip designer focused on developing power metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) used in a broad range of applications including electric vehicles (EV), servers and green energy devices.
Photo: Vanessa Cho, Taipei Times
The company said that its new high-end power MOSFETs used in vehicles, and AI PCs and servers would help drive revenue growth.
The company started shipping low volumes of power MOSFETs used in AI servers this year and expects shipments to increase gradually next year, Potens chairman Menq Meng (孟祥集) said.
Potens has secured orders from two of the world’s four major cloud service providers to supply server MOSFETs, indicating that it is capable of competing with global peers, Mega Securities Co (兆豐證券) said.
The company later this quarter plans to roll out new advanced power MOSFETs used in AI PCs — called driver MOS integrated drive ICs, which are for central processing units and graphic processing units, it said.
Another major growth area is power MOSFETs for EVs and gasoline-powered vehicles, the company said, adding that it ships its products through tier-one auto component suppliers.
Its products are in Asian vehicles and in one of five premium European car brands, it said.
The company generated NT$1.06 billion (US$32.61 million) in revenue in the first three quarters of the year, little changed from NT$1 billion in the same period last year.
The consumer electronics segment was its biggest revenue source, contributing 43 percent of overall revenue in the period, while industrial devices was second at 26 percent and the auto segment third at 15 percent, the company said.
Net profit soared about 64 percent to NT$201.48 million in the nine-month period from NT$122.97 million in the same period last year.
Earnings per share jumped to NT$35.85 from NT$28.3, while gross margin rose to 35.85 percent from 28.3 percent.
Potens is scheduled to debut its shares on the Taipei Exchange next month.
STRONG INTEREST: Analysts have pointed to optimism in TSMC’s growth prospects in the artificial intelligence era as the cause of the rising number of shareholders The number of people holding shares of chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) hit a new high last week despite a decline in its stock price, the Taiwan Depository and Clearing Corp (TDCC, 台灣集保) said. The number of TSMC shareholders rose to 2.46 million as of Friday, up 75,536 from a week earlier, TDCC data showed. The stock price fell 1.34 percent during the same week to close at NT$1,840 (US$57.55). The decline in TSMC’s share price resulted from volatility in global tech stocks, driven by rising international crude oil prices as the war against Iran continues. Dealers said
PRICE HIKES: The war in the Middle East would not significantly disrupt supply in the short term, but semiconductor companies are facing price surges for materials Taiwan’s semiconductor companies are not facing imminent supply disruptions of essential chemicals or raw materials due to the war in the Middle East, but surges in material costs loom large, industry association SEMI Taiwan said yesterday. The association’s comments came amid growing concerns that supplies of helium and other key raw materials used in semiconductor production could become a choke point after Qatar shut down its liquefied natural gas (LNG) production and helium output earlier this month due to the conflict. Qatar is the second-largest LNG supplier in the world and accounts for about 33 percent of global helium output. Helium is
DOMESTIC COMPONENT: Huang identified several Taiwanese partners to be a key part of Nvidia’s Vera Rubin supply chain, including Asustek, Hon Hai and Wistron Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), addressing crowds at the company’s biggest annual event, unveiled a variety of new products while predicting that its flagship artificial intelligence (AI) processors would help generate US$1 trillion in sales through next year. During a two-and-a-half-hour keynote address, Huang announced plans to push deeper into central processing units (CPUs) — Intel Corp’s home turf — and introduced semiconductors made with technology acquired from start-up Groq Inc. The company even said it was developing chips for data centers in outer space. At the heart of Huang’s speech was the message that demand for computing power
China is clamping down on fertilizer exports to protect its domestic market, industry sources said, putting an additional strain on global markets that were already grappling with shortages caused by the US-Israeli war on Iran. China is among the largest fertilizer exporters — shipping more than US$13 billion of it last year — and it has a history of controlling exports to keep prices low for farmers. Shipments through the war-blocked Strait of Hormuz account for about one-third of the sea-borne supply. This month, Beijing banned exports of nitrogen-potassium fertilizer blends and certain phosphate varieties, sources said. The ban, which has not
RSS