To demonstrate its smart city solutions to other cities worldwide, the local government of Taoyuan, Taiwan signed contracts with Local Governments for Sustainability (ICLEI), a network of more than 1,750 local and regional governments committed to sustainable urban development, to become the chair for ICLEI's first international EcoLogistics community in 2019. Taoyuan also established the EcoLogistics Community Chair Office in March 2020.The deputy secretary-general of the Taoyuan municipal government and CEO of the office, Jiunn-Ming Chiou, pointed out that the city has a comprehensive logistics industry surrounding the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, the largest international airport in Taiwan.There are around 2,000 logistics processing sites and enterprises with mixed levels of digital transformation all around Taoyuan and the city government believes these companies' development will play a key part in Taoyuan's transformation into a smart city, Chiou said.Since these logistics companies have never been properly managed by the city government, they have been creating external costs and economic losses to Taoyuan for many years. For example, these companies' poor truck fleet management has caused serious traffic interferences, pollutions and inefficiency to the city.Although Taoyuan's Department of Economic Development already established an alliance for Taiwan's logistics industry with help from The Global Logistics & Commerce Council of Taiwan in 2016, so far only 300 companies have joined the alliance, Chiou noted.Chious said increasing the number of members in the alliance will be a key goal of his office, which is also looking to enhance Taoyuan's logistics infrastructure, to create a list for the city's logistics enterprises and to categorize their characteristics, working towards a synchronized pace for the industry's digital transformation.During the past three months after founding, the office has picked five different sites in Taoyuan to demonstrate different logistics scenarios.Via these demonstration sites, the office is looking to achieve some progresses in establishing policies for Taiwan's logistics industry in two years and will export the solutions and management experience to worldwide cities through ICLEI, said Chiou.Jiunn-Ming Chiou, deputy secretary-general of the Taoyuan governmentPhoto: Shihmin Fu, Digitimes, June 2020

Notebook demand from users working from home weakened in May, but devices supporting online learning remained robust. The top-5 notebook brands together witnessed a mild on-month drop of 2% in May.Because of decelerated sales from the work-from-home group, HP's notebook shipments fell 6% on month in May, while those of Dell were flat from a month ago, thanks to mass shipments of its new consumer models that had fully offset declines in the enterprise segment.Lenovo had the strongest on-month shipment growth among the top-5 brands in May thanks to China-based e-commerce platforms' inventory preparations for the 618 shopping festival and increased Chromebook shipments.The top-3 notebook ODMs' combined shipments were flat on month in May with Wistron being the only maker with on-month shipment growth, driven by Dell's orders for its high-end consumer notebooks.

Manufacturers' demand for industrial robots is expected to rise significantly to support flexible production in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, according to Peter Peng, director of robotics automation business department at Delta Electronics.Peng said robots will see growing business opportunities as long as their prices become friendlier and their scope of applications larger. He expects industrial robots to experience a wave of major growth momentum beyond 2020.Peng said Taiwanese manufacturers now adopt robots to support small-volume production of a variety of items, and they will care more about the flexibility and versatility of robots needed.Accordingly, robot makers are striving to optimize performances of industrial robots so that they can play a more agile role in production lines, achieving greater applications and flexibility, Peng continued.So far, multiple robots have been developed to serve different industrial needs, including grinding and polishing robots that integrate machine visions and cyber-physical systems (CPS) and are used for metal machining.Taiwan's government-funded Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), Hocheng and Mirle Automation as well as Germany's Kuka Robotics have all rolled out their own grinding and polish robots.Peng said Taiwan makers now also play an important role in the robot supply chain by offering crucial components such as motors and speed reducers.

As Huawei seeks support in the face of tightening trade sanctions from the US, speculation has emerged identifying Samsung as a likely savior who could provide foundry services or directly ship its own mobile chips to the Chinese handset vendor. But Samsung would find itself mired in the US-China trade war if it lent Huawei a helping hand. But Huawei's trouble could mean good news for fellow handset vendors, such as Oppo, which reportedly plans to spend massive amounts developing its own mobile chips, in a bid to replace Huawei as the bellwether of China's handset sector. Meanwhile, server maker Wiwynn remains upbeat about its sales in second-half 2020, despite recent warnings by some market analysts about decelerating demand in the server market. Samsung unlikely to partner with Huawei: Samsung Electronics is unlikely to be a foundry partner of Huawei to support the Chinese vendor's "de-Americanization" of its supply chain in the wake of the US trade sanctions, according to industry observers.Oppo pushes in-house development of mobile chips: Oppo is reportedly stepping up efforts to develop its own mobile application processors in house and will appropriate an annual R&D budget of over NT$20 billion (US$673.6 million) to support the project in the next five years, according to sources in Taiwan's IC design industry.Wiwynn optimistic about 2H20: Wiwynn, a cloud computing server affiliate of Wistron, is confident that its sales for the second half of 2020 will outperform those for the first half with sales in 2020 to grow on year, according to company president Emily Hong.

The competition between Nvidia, AMD and Intel is intensifying, with the vendors playing a highly strategic game concerning the launches of their next-generation CPUs and GPUs. Even their supply chain partners have seen difficulties keeping with the game. Meanwhile, notebook demand is expected toremain strong until the end of third-quarter 2020, according to memory vendor Winbond. For Huawei, its bid to reduce reliance on US suppliers is prompting it to seek to build its own supply chain for VSCEL.Supply chain confused by AMD, Intel, Nvidia next-gen chip launch schedules: Supply chain partners of AMD, Nvidia and Intel have been left confused recently by the chip vendors' product launch schedules, which have either been changed frequently or kept a secret in their latest rounds of competition, according to industry sources.Notebook demand remains robust, says Winbond chairman: Chip orders for notebooks are expected to stay robust until the end of the third quarter, according to Arthur Chiao, chairman for specialty DRAM and flash memory maker Winbond Electronics.Huawei moving to build own VSCEL supply: In expanding its semiconductor ecosystem, Huawei reportedly has newly invested in China's VCSEL startup Vertilite through its investment arm Hubble Technology Investment seeking to develop its own VCSEL supply capability, according to industry sources.

Startup 3Sdrive has developed an Omnie IoV audio content app based on voice interface for car drivers, with automotive parts/accessory after-market being the target market, according to company co-founder and CEO Alex Jeng.Acting upon drivers' voice commands, Omnie provides audio content concerning location-based real-time road conditions, sight-seeing information, news, music streaming on demand, and connection with Line, Jeng said.There have been about 500,000 downloads of Omnie since it was launched, Jeng said. Some life and property insurance companies have talked with 3Sdrive for cooperation to collect data on driving behavior relevant to their insurance business, Jeng indicated.3Sdrive co-founder and CEO Alex Jeng (center)Photo: Shihmin Fu, Digitimes, June 2020

Despite the coronavirus pandemic's influence on global demand for handsets, MediaTek is still optimistic about its sales in the second half of 2020 as 5G will take off and relatively boosting sales of 5G smartphones. However, the IC market may not look too bright during the period as the US' new trade sanctions on Huawei is expected to undermine the market's sales. Memory spot prices are expected to rise with China's returning end demand for DRAM products thanks to e-commerce platforms' promotion campaigns.MediaTek firmly confident about business growth in 2020: MediaTek is firmly confident about its business growth in 2020, and expects end-market demand to pick up fast later this year, according to top company executives.US trade ban on Huawei may cast shadow over 2H20 IC market, says Chang Wah: New US trade sanctions against Huawei will bring "uncontrollable variables" to the IC market in the second half of 2020, according to Canon Huang, chairman and president for IC packaging material and equipment supplier Chang Wah Electromaterials (CWE).Memory spot prices start rising: Memory spot prices particularly those for DRAM have started to rise reflecting a pick-up in buying momentum prior to China's 618 shopping festival, according to industry sources.

Notebook ODMs have seen robust shipments in second-quarter 2020, thanks to stay-at-home needs fuled by the coronaviru pandemic. But the notebook makers have mixed views about the second half of the year, with some still placing high hopes on the stay-at-home economy, and some turning consevative. In the semiconductor foundry secgtor, both TSMC and UMC have seen impressive operations from their China fabs. TSMC's Nanjing fab saw staggering increases in its 2019 sales, while UMC's fab in Xiamen is running at almost full capacity in the second quarter of 2020.Notebook ODMs having mixed views on 2H20 shipments: Notebook ODMs are having mixed views for their shipments in the second half of 2020 with some expecting sequential drops in the third quarter and further declines in the fourth, and some anticipating orders to continue growing in the third quarter thanks to strong end-market demand, according to sources from the upstream supply chain.TSMC Nanjing posts 170% revenue hike in 2019: TSMC Nanjing posted revenue of CNY4 billion (US$566.7 million) in 2019, up 170% on year, making it the third-largest foundry chipmaker in China trailing behind Semiconductor Manufacturing International (SMIC) and Huali Microelectronics (HLMC), according to industry sources.UMC Xiamen fab runs at near full capacity: United Semiconductor (Xiamen), a 12-inch foundry subsidiary of Taiwan's United Microelectronics (UMC), has run at near full capacity since the second quarter of 2020 thanks to a pick-up in orders for 28nm chips.

China's top-three handset ODMs - the Wingtech Group, Huaqin Telecom Technology and Longcheer - are expected to ship a total of 183 million ODM models to the world's four major brand vendors in 2020, decreasing 15.28% from the 216 million shipped a year earlier, Digitimes Research estimates.The four handset brands - Samsung Electronics, Huawei, Xiaomi and Oppo - have been outsourcing most of their entry-level to mid-tier smartphone models priced below CNY2,000 (US$283) to the three ODMs.The four brands are reducing ODM orders to their production partners this year as their own shipments will be affected by the coronavirus pandemic. Digitimes Research expects the combined global smartphone shipments of the four vendors will decrease 106 million units or 14.5% on year to 629 million units in 2020.Wingtech has a high proportion of orders from clients other than those four. Huaqin's orders are spread among clients more evenly than Longcheer, which relies heavily on orders from Xiaomi.

Industrial Development Bureau (IDB) under Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs has introduced a training program in cooperation with various research organizations, associations and companies, to promote industrial upgrading and help enterprises in digital transformation.The scope of training covers application of IT, AIoT, information security, and a host of manufacturing industries, such as electronics, machinery, food, textile, pharmaceuticals, medical devices and materials, printing and metal processing.IDB will help match job seekers or companies, and provide on-the-job training to cultivate mid- and high-level experts for innovation in line with industry trends and company needs. IDB offers subsidies to cover 50% of the training cost.Government-sponsored Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), for example, will offer training courses in design and testing/validation for ESD (electrostatic discharge) protection, according to IDB.