Chunghwa Precision Test Technology Co (CHPT, 中華精測), a chip testing and wafer probing services provider, yesterday said the effect of Washington’s potential tariff hikes would be minimal as only a small portion of its products would ship directly to the US.
The company in 2022 upgraded its unit in San Jose, California, into a subsidiary and quadrupled capacity at a factory there to cope with customers’ demand for testing artificial intelligence (AI) chips and smartphone processors, CHPT president Scott Huang (黃水可) said.
“Only a small fraction of our shipments go directly to the US. A majority of our testing capacity is in Taiwan,” Huang said, adding that most chips made in Taiwan are usually assembled with hardware and then shipped to destinations worldwide.
Photo: CNA
The company expects North America, which houses the world’s major AI chip suppliers such as Nvidia Corp, to be a rapidly growing market, thanks to the AI boom, Huang said.
To better serve its customers there, the company’s board of directors on Tuesday approved a plan to provide its North American team with more power and financial resources, he said.
North America last year replaced Taiwan as the biggest revenue source for the company, making up about 60 percent of its total revenue compared with 30 percent in 2023, while China only accounted for 10 percent, he said.
CHPT is positive about this year, given the robust testing solutions business, including testing of advanced load boards and probe cards amid strong demand for high-performance computing and AI applications, Huang said.
The company expects “better-than-seasonal” performance during the first two quarters with an annual growth in revenue, extending the strong momentum from the final quarter of last year, he said.
The first two quarters of a year are usually the slack season for the electronics industry, he said.
Huang said CHPT employees had to work overtime during the nine-day Lunar New Year holiday to meet customer demand.
“Our factory utilization continues to be at a high level, approaching full capacity,” he said. “The equipment utilization for load boards would be full until April.”
“The first quarter is likely to be the strongest first quarter in the company’s history,” he added.
CHPT supplies advanced load boards used to test advanced wafers, which Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) makes for Nvidia and other companies.
Net profit last quarter surged to an all-time high of NT$322 million (US$9.8 million), compared with NT$17.47 billion a year earlier, while on a quarterly basis, net profit doubled from NT$107 million, the company said.
Earnings per share (EPS) rose to NT$9.83 last quarter from NT$0.53 a year earlier and NT$3.25 a quarter earlier.
For the whole of last year, net profit soared to NT$510 million from NT$32.6 million in 2023, while EPS rose to NT$15.55 from NT$0.99.
The board of directors has approved a proposal to distribute a cash dividend of NT$7.8 per share, representing an about 50.16 percent payout ratio, the company said.
‘DECENT RESULTS’: The company said it is confident thanks to an improving world economy and uptakes in new wireless and AI technologies, despite US uncertainty Pegatron Corp (和碩) yesterday said it plans to build a new server manufacturing factory in the US this year to address US President Donald Trump’s new tariff policy. That would be the second server production base for Pegatron in addition to the existing facilities in Taoyuan, the iPhone assembler said. Servers are one of the new businesses Pegatron has explored in recent years to develop a more balanced product lineup. “We aim to provide our services from a location in the vicinity of our customers,” Pegatron president and chief executive officer Gary Cheng (鄭光治) told an online earnings conference yesterday. “We
LEAK SOURCE? There would be concern over the possibility of tech leaks if TSMC were to form a joint venture to operate Intel’s factories, an analyst said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday stayed mum after a report said that the chipmaker has pitched chip designers Nvidia Corp, Advanced Micro Devices Inc and Broadcom Inc about taking a stake in a joint venture to operate Intel Corp’s factories. Industry sources told the Central News Agency (CNA) that the possibility of TSMC proposing to operate Intel’s wafer fabs is low, as the Taiwanese chipmaker has always focused on its core business. There is also concern over possible technology leaks if TSMC were to form a joint venture to operate Intel’s factories, Concord Securities Co (康和證券) analyst Kerry Huang (黃志祺)
It was late morning and steam was rising from water tanks atop the colorful, but opaque-windowed, “soapland” sex parlors in a historic Tokyo red-light district. Walking through the narrow streets, camera in hand, was Beniko — a former sex worker who is trying to capture the spirit of the area once known as Yoshiwara through photography. “People often talk about this neighborhood having a ‘bad history,’” said Beniko, who goes by her nickname. “But the truth is that through the years people have lived here, made a life here, sometimes struggled to survive. I want to share that reality.” In its mid-17th to
‘MAKE OR BREAK’: Nvidia shares remain down more than 9 percent, but investors are hoping CEO Jensen Huang’s speech can stave off fears that the sales boom is peaking Shares in Nvidia Corp’s Taiwanese suppliers mostly closed higher yesterday on hopes that the US artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer would showcase next-generation technologies at its annual AI conference slated to open later in the day. The GPU Technology Conference (GTC) in California is to feature developers, engineers, researchers, inventors and information technology professionals, and would focus on AI, computer graphics, data science, machine learning and autonomous machines. The event comes at a make-or-break moment for the firm, as it heads into the next few quarters, with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s (黃仁勳) keynote speech today seen as having the ability to
RSS