■ Semiconductor
Chipmakers join forces
Toshiba Corp, Texas Instruments Inc and six other companies are working with a Stanford University research group in California to develop a new generation of semiconductor tech-nology, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun said. The group, which also includes Tokyo Electron Ltd, Intel Corp and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufac-turing Co (台積電), is seeking to make chips with capacities that are 30 times the current level, the paper reported, without saying where it obtained the infor-mation. The group will spend ?400 million (US$3.36 million) to develop the new chip, which it hopes to sell by 2012, the report said. Germanium will be used as a replacement for silicon to make the chip, the paper said.
■ Tourism
Number of HK tourists leaps
A total of 1.3 million visitors came to Hong Kong last month, 79 percent more than the previous month when the former British colony was still reeling from the effects of SARS, which killed 299 people and infected 1,755. The city is now struggling to find mid-range and budget hotel rooms for the influx of tourists, the majority of whom come from China on low-cost package deals. News of the leap in tourist arrivals comes a week after HK's Airport Authority announced that nearly 2.5 million passengers had passed through the airport last month, twice as many as in June. HK's tourism industry was crippled between March and June when new SARS cases were being discovered every day and the World Health Authority (WHO) advised travelers not to visit the city. The WHO lifted its travel advisory in June.
■ Alternate fuels
Quantum goes to Japan
Quantum Fuel System Technologies Worldwide Inc, a fifth owned by General Motors Corp, plans to set up a company in Japan by 2005, the < ■ Automobiles China to release plan China will soon release a new auto-industry policy to prevent over-investment and improve technical standards, state-run newspapers reported yesterday. China aspires to nurture a world-class auto industry, and has been planning to consolidate its more than 120 mostly smaller car makers into a handful of internationally competitive larger ones. Details of the new policies, announced by the Xinhua News Agency and carried in the Shanghai Youth Daily and other newspapers, were not given. Foreign auto-makers have criticized a draft policy, circulating since May, contending that such changes would put them at a disadvantage by requiring technology transfers and limiting sales distribution rights. More than three-quarters of China's auto makers produce fewer than 10,000 vehicles a year.
AIR DEFENSE: The Norwegian missile system has proved highly effective in Ukraine in its war against Russia, and the US has recommended it for Taiwan, an expert said The Norwegian Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) Taiwan ordered from the US would be installed in strategically important positions in Taipei and New Taipei City to guard the region, the Ministry of National Defense said in statement yesterday. The air defense system would be deployed in Taipei’s Songshan District (松山) and New Taipei City’s Tamsui District (淡水), the ministry said, adding that the systems could be delivered as soon as the end of this year. The US Defense Security Cooperation Agency has previously said that three NASAMS would be sold to Taiwan. The weapons are part of the 17th US arms sale to
INSURRECTION: The NSB said it found evidence the CCP was seeking snipers in Taiwan to target members of the military and foreign organizations in the event of an invasion The number of Chinese spies prosecuted in Taiwan has grown threefold over a four-year period, the National Security Bureau (NSB) said in a report released yesterday. In 2021 and 2022, 16 and 10 spies were prosecuted respectively, but that number grew to 64 last year, it said, adding that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was working with gangs in Taiwan to develop a network of armed spies. Spies in Taiwan have on behalf of the CCP used a variety of channels and methods to infiltrate all sectors of the country, and recruited Taiwanese to cooperate in developing organizations and obtaining sensitive information
BREAKTHROUGH: The US is making chips on par in yield and quality with Taiwan, despite people saying that it could not happen, the official said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has begun producing advanced 4-nanometer (nm) chips for US customers in Arizona, US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said, a milestone in the semiconductor efforts of the administration of US President Joe Biden. In November last year, the commerce department finalized a US$6.6 billion grant to TSMC’s US unit for semiconductor production in Phoenix, Arizona. “For the first time ever in our country’s history, we are making leading edge 4-nanometer chips on American soil, American workers — on par in yield and quality with Taiwan,” Raimondo said, adding that production had begun in recent
Seven hundred and sixty-four foreigners were arrested last year for acting as money mules for criminals, with many entering Taiwan on a tourist visa for all-expenses-paid trips, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said on Saturday. Although from Jan. 1 to Dec. 26 last year, 26,478 people were arrested for working as money mules, the bureau said it was particularly concerned about those entering the country as tourists or migrant workers who help criminals and scammers pick up or transfer illegally obtained money. In a report, officials divided the money mules into two groups, the first of which are foreigners, mainly from Malaysia
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