Taiwan’s chipmakers are worried about the feasibility of a government plan to deliver new green power supplies, casting doubt over efforts to satisfy energy security concerns.
“What the industry is worried about is whether the government’s execution is good enough to add new supplies as planned,” Taiwan Semiconductor Industry Association chairman Cliff Hou (侯永清) said at an event yesterday. “We are hoping the government can release an updated timetable for green energy supplies for our review,” added Hou, who is also a senior vice president at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電).
Taiwan has struggled to accelerate deployment of renewables. Initially targeting 20 percent renewables by mid-decade, the government downgraded its goal to 15 percent by this year. As of late last year, renewables made up less than 12 percent of the energy mix, according to the Energy Administration under the Ministry of Economic Affairs.
Photo: Grace Hung, Taipei Times
In May, the ruling Democratic Progressive Party shuttered Taiwan’s final nuclear reactor, closing off an energy source that accounted for about 5 percent of the island’s power supply last year.
Without nuclear power, Taiwan will likely need to increase its reliance on imported fuel such as liquefied natural gas to meet the needs of energy-intensive sectors like chip manufacturing.
Rising fuel costs and renewable energy investments have weighed on the finances of Taiwan Power Co (台電), the island’s primary power supplier. The state utility, which has absorbed higher costs to keep prices affordable, reported more than NT$420 billion (US$13.6 billion) in accumulated losses by the end of last year.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to remain Apple Inc’s primary chip manufacturing partner despite reports that Apple could shift some orders to Intel Corp, industry experts said yesterday. The comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Apple and Intel had reached a preliminary agreement following more than a year of negotiations for Intel to manufacture some chips for Apple devices. Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) economist Arisa Liu (劉佩真) said TSMC’s advanced packaging technologies, including integrated fan-out and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, remain critical to the performance of Apple’s A-series and M-series chips. She said Intel and Samsung
TRANSITION: With the closure, the company would reorganize its Taiwanese unit to a sales and service-focused model, Bridgestone said Bridgestone Corp yesterday announced it would cease manufacturing operations at its tire plant in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), affecting more than 500 workers. Bridgestone Taiwan Co (台灣普利司通) said in a statement that the decision was based on the Tokyo-based tire maker’s adjustments to its global operational strategy and long-term market development considerations. The Taiwanese unit would be reorganized as part of the closure, effective yesterday, and all related production activities would be concluded, the statement said. Under the plan, Bridgestone would continue to deepen its presence in the Taiwanese market, while transitioning to a sales and service-focused business model, it added. The Hsinchu
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has approved a capital budget of US$31.28 billion for production expansion to meet long-term development needs during the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. The company’s board meeting yesterday approved the capital appropriation plan for purposes such as the installation of advanced technology capacity and fab construction, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. At an earnings conference last month, TSMC forecast that its capital expenditure for this year would be at the higher end of the US$52 billion to US$56 billion range it forecast in January in response to robust demand for 5G, AI and
RSS