Both UMC and VIS have just announced their respective foundry capacity expansions plans. UMC, with support from some of its major clients, will invest NT$100 billion to expand its 12-inch fab site in southen Taiwan. And VIS will take up an AUO LCD line in Taiwan for NT$905 million and convert it into an 8-inch wafer fab...
Massive demand for rapid, secure, and stable transmission of data and information in the age of Internet of Things (IoT) and Industry 4.0 is attracting solution providers to seek opportunities in the manufacturing space. Solace, a middleware solution provider founded in 2001 in Ottawa, Canada, also has its eyes set on the manufacturing sector in Taiwan, and is expanding its business in the market.
The ICT supply chain continues to be influenced by serious component shortages and UMC is now looking to have its major clients to enter into 3-year supply agreement. Meanwhile, LCD panel supply is expected to grow worse as some key component suppliers such as Corning and AUO are set to perform annual maintenance in the near future...
Taiwan-based makers shipped only 6.26 million LCD TVs globally in the first quarter of 2021, down 34.2% sequentially, due mainly to shortages of panels, display driver ICs and SoC chips, Digitimes Research has found.
Intel's overall sales for first-quarter 2021 were flat but revenues from its datacenter business dropped 20% on year, seriously undermining the chip giant's profitability. Intel has now released its third-generation 10nm Xeon datacenter processors codenamed Ice Lake to bolster its market leadership...
The crytopmining fever is sweeping across China where miners are buying out all large-capacity SSDs available on the spot market ahead of the start of trading of the new crypto coin Chia. Supply of SSDs has been constrained by shortage of controller ICs. NAND flash device controller and module supplier Phison Electronics recently has raised its product prices again...
Taiwan stands a good chance of becoming a global top-3 exporter of machine tools in the next 7-10 years, up from its current foruth place, according to chairman Jimmy Chu for machine tool maker Fair Friend Enterprise.
TSMC has allocated a budget of almost of US$3 billion for expanding capacity of mature process technology. But until the capacity comes on line, mature process capacity will remain tight throught at least year-end 2022. Tight foundry capacity, along with rising quotes for fab services and materials, has been disrupting order placements by IC designers...
Strong demand from major clients has prompted TSMC to raise its output from its 5nm manufacturing process. The pure-play foundry house is expected to process up to 150,000 wafers monthly at the 5nm node through the end of the year. Morris Chang considers Samsung a strong competitor of the company he founded, but is skeptical about Intel's bid to expand its presence in the foundry sector...
