Supermicro, a first-tier server vendor worldwide, has been aggressively developing gaming-related products with its experience from the server business. Supermicro is able to offer customers products with server quality.Digitimes recently talked with Supermicro's senior application system product manager Steve Lee and senior product manager Tony Fan about the company's gaming business.Q: How long has Supermicro been in the gaming motherboard business?Lee: We have been developing gaming motherboards for five years. In fact, Supermicro has been in the motherboard business for around 20 years already, but has mostly focused on consumer, server and embedded solutions.Recently, with gaming applications growing popular, Supermicro also crossed into the development of the related product lines. However, in addition to customers from the PC DIY market, we have seen growing demand from the enterprise sector as customers from the field are building desktops using Intel's top-end CPUs and need reliable motherboards to unleash the CPUs' full potential.All our gaming motherboards are equipped with server-grade components and designs to optimize the stability of the systems, making our gaming motherboards the top pick for our customers.We currently have several business models for selling our gaming motherboards including cooperating with system integrators, specific regional channel retailers and e-commerce platforms.In Taiwan, we work with a local channel retailer CoolPC to sell gaming and server motherboards, while in the US our motherboards can be found on both Amazon and Newegg. However, partnering with system integrators is still the main business direction for Supermicro's gaming business.Q: What direction is Supermicro planning to push its development to?Lee: We have seen many brand vendors in the gaming market shifting their development to features that make products more appealing to customers, such as adding support of RGB lights to hardware and peripherals.This is a growing trend in the gaming market, but Supermicro at the moment will still focus on maintaining products' high quality, performance and reliability, as these are what Supermicro's customers are mainly looking for.Q: Does Supermicro manufacture its gaming desktop in house?Lee: Supermicro is collaborating with peripheral makers including Thermaltake and Lian Li for desktop and chassis product lines.Supermicro has co-developed two liquid-cooling gaming desktops with Thermaltake that are currently available in the US channels. The company's chassis co-designed with Lian Li was showcased at Computex 2019.Q: Does Supermicro's gaming products have any advantages over competitors?Fang: Supermicro is designing its gaming motherboards with a concept 100% identical to designing server motherboards. Our gaming motherboards are all equipped with server-grade components that are provided by a sole supplier in order to keep quality stable.To make every gaming motherboard with the same quality is the goal that Supermicro has been looking to achieve and by choosing only one supplier, the company is looking to avoid the concern on the tolerance discrepancy of the components.For example, Supermicro's gaming motherboards use high-quality PCBs with extra layers, which are the same as those used in server motherboards. Although the such motherboards are pricier than regular ones with fewer layers, they provide better and more reliable electrons transmission via circuit.In addition, several of our gaming motherboards are also equipped with server-grade remote management chip from ASpeed Technology and Supermicro has a team of 300 software engineers to help customers manage their systems via the Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) feature. Customers can also obtain assistance via their smartphones.Thanks to Supermicro's expertise in server motherboard design, some of Supermicro's gaming motherboards can support up to a total of four graphics cards with the addition of a PCIe switches chip to expand the motherboard's Lane support.Supermicro senior application system product manager Steve Lee (left) and senior product manager Tony Fan (right)Photo: Joseph Tsai, Digitimes, July 2019

AUO expects its sales to remain flat sequentially in the third quarter despite the period being the traditional strong season as the US and China's trade tensions continue creating uncertainties to the market, but AUO has already started pushing for business diversification in a bid to keep up its revenue and profit performances. On the other hand, Taiwan's PCB makers have seen Huawei increasing its order pull-in for smartphones.AUO gives flat outlook for 3Q19: AU Optronics (AUO) expects its sales for the third quarter of 2019 to remain at the same levels as a quarter earlier because there is uncertainty about demand in the traditional high season due to the macroeconomic factors, according to company chairman Paul Peng.AUO looking to diversified operations: Despite incurring a loss of NT$2.68 billion (US$86.23 million) in the second quarter of 2019, AU Optronics (AUO) will continue to implement its value-creating policy by further diversifying its operations, according to company chairman Paul Peng.Taiwan PCB firms see pull in of Huawei smartphone orders: Taiwan-based PCB manufacturers have seen orders for Huawei's smartphones pull in rapidly, particularly those for high-end models, according to industry sources.

Preparations for production of this year's new iPhone devices have started, but component suppliers are bracing for weaker shipments to Apple compared to last year. But one of Apple's major competitors, Huawei, has turned upbeat about its shipments for 2019 now that the US and China have agreed to restart trade talks. But Huawei reportedly has seen changes in its ecosystem, with Flex stopping making phones for the Chinese vendor.Apple supply chain cautious about orders for new iPhones: Judging from the order visibility from Apple for the third quarter of 2019, the build-up of components for the production of new iPhone devices to be released later in the year could hardly exceed the 80 million units seen in the same period a year ago, according sources from Taiwan's handset supply chain.IC backend firms expanding capacities on strong demand from Huawei: Taiwan IC backend service firms are moving to carry out capacity expansions to meet increased shipment demand from Huawei and its chipmaking arm HiSilicon, which, coupled with growing demand for packaging crypto mining ASICs and niche DRAMs, is expected to significantly drive up their revenues for the second half of 2019, according to industry sources.Flex halts handset production for Huawei, says Chinese media: EMS provider Flex reportedly has stopped assembling Huawei's smartphones in China, with the client shifting contract production orders to BYD Electronics International and Foxconn Electronics, according to Chinese media reports.

Taiwan Mobile is aggressively expanding its domestic telecom ecosystem integrating equipment suppliers and terminal application service providers while seeking to export solutions created by the ecosystem through overseas partners, according to the firm's chief operating officer CH Wu.Wu said the Taiwan-based telecom carrier has so far built ecosystem partnerships with 70-80 firms engaged in diverse vertical application segments including industries, transportation and healthcare services, up from 40-50 partners when the company started to build its ecosystem in early 2018.Wu said Taiwan Mobile has also been keen to enter cooperation with international telecom operators, having joined the Bridge Alliance, made up 36 telecom operators in Asia, Australia, Africa and the Middle East.Besides offering international roaming services, Taiwan Mobile and other member firms of the alliance are actively moving to set up an IoT platform to cater to 5G, IoT, and IoV (Internet of Vehicles) applications.Wu stressed that the Bridge Alliance is also serving as a platform for promoting exports of related solutions from member firms. For instance, a city has to cooperate with local telecom firms in installing smart street lights, and the Bridge Alliance can help introduce related smart solutions.

Taiwan startup GranDen, devoted to integrating AR, VR and MR technologies into interactive services since its inception in 2018, is heading towards the next XR generation by offering interactive content in O2O marketing, according to company co-founder and CEO Dochin Lai.Lai said currently entertainment products, trade fair events, training simulations, museum exhibitions, and new retail O2O integrated solutions can leverage innovative interactive services by integrating virtual and physical realities to allow consumers to enjoy diverse IT application experiences in a relaxing and entertaining style.Lai said many of Taiwan's AR and VR businesses, mostly operating on a small to medium scale, have failed over the past few years, and only a few have survived after having successfully tapped into specific application segments.Osense Technology, for instance, performs well in the niche segments of indoor navigation and smart stadium; ARPlanet embraces AR marketing solutions; and Shadoworks Studio excels in digital education programs, according to Lai.Lai revealed that GranDen now mainly focuses on Internet celebrity economy, entertainment, and new retail O2O. He said that after 5G and 8K technologies and applications become mature, consumers will be able to enjoy many more diverse tech experiences, and that in the future digital ecosystem, offline retail will have to be upgraded and transformed from merely selling merchandises.The company has obtained US$500,000 during its Pre A round of fundraising to support the expansion of its Aligala mobile game platform.GranDen co-founder and CEO Dochin LaiPhoto: Mark Tsai, Digitimes, July 2019

Quanta is looking for components that are not made in China to avoid issues concerning country of origin for its server shipments to the US in the wake of the US-China trade war. But most of Taiwan's components makers have shown little interest in reestablishing their local production capacity. Meanwhile, DRAM and NAND flash memory chips' spot market prices have been rising since the start of July, while their contract prices are expected to rebound at the end of the month.Quanta seeking more non-China-made component sources: Quanta Computer has started seeking more non-China-made server components to avoid the possibility of being accused of using transshipments to avoid US tariffs, according to industry sources.Most Taiwan components makers unmotivated about reestablishing local capacity: Taiwan-based components makers are mostly uninterested in reestablishing local production capacity despite server ODMs' wish they did so, as their business scales are not large enough to afford the costs of splitting manufacturing resources in different places, according to sources from the upstream supply chain.Memory spot prices rebounding, contract quotes to rise in August: Spot market prices for DRAM and NAND flash memory chips have been on the rise since the beginning of July, and their contract prices may bottom out by the end of the month, according to industry sources.

The trade tensions between Japan and Korea are expected to drive up memory prices, prompting the chip and module vendors to accelerate inventory adjustments, after which they will increase orders for their supply chain partners, including backend service providers. But NAND flash makers are not being carried away by the price rally, focusing efforts on advancing their technologies to capture opportunities from the datacenter and high-end enterprise market segments. in Taiwan, specialty DRAM and flash memory chipmaker Winbond Electronics is building a new fab that is scheduled to start volume production by 2021.Memory backend firms see clear order visibility throughout 4Q19: Taiwan-based memory backend specialists have seen clear order visibility through the fourth quarter of 2019, as they have directly or indirectly tapped into the supply chains of major non-Korea memory suppliers including Toshiba Memory (TMC) and Micron unaffected by Japan's tighter control on exports of key semiconductor chemical materials to Korea, according to industry sources.NAND flash vendors gearing up for datacenter market boom: NAND flash vendors are gearing up to roll out their high-end solutions for datacenter and high-end enterprise products while stepping up their pace of technology transitions. Competition among them is set to be fierce in 2020, according to industry sources.Winbond on track to open new memory fab by 2021: Specialty DRAM and flash memory chipmaker Winbond Electronics on July 22 held a beam-raising ceremony for its new 12-inch wafer plant in Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan. The new facility is on track to have Winbond's in-house developed 20nm process technology ready for commercial production by 2021.

Taiwan-based startup BlockChain Security has launched Blockchain Witness app for preserving digital data as evidences for legal purposes, according company CEO Po Huang.While digital files are easy to be lost and falsified, Blockchain technology can preserve digital data to make them non-repudiable and tamper-proof, and matched with digital fingerprinting technology it can ensure the authenticity and validity of evidences, Huang said.Blockchain Witness can take photos, record video or voice, take screen shots and then upload them in virtual blocks for digital evidence preservation, Huang noted, adding the app is equipped with GPS to track the time and location of the uploaded digital data. For uploading and preservation, BlockChain Security adopts both private and public blockchain, Huang said.

TSMC plans to increase its capex this year to support chipmaking on 7nm and 5nm processes, demand for which will be mainly driven by 5G applications. During TSMC's migration to even more advanced nodes, EUV will be crucial to cutting costs. As 5G is expected to be a major force driving growth for many industry sectors, PCB makers are also stepping up efforts upgrading products to support 5G smartphones.TSMC steps up investment in EUV processes: Pure-play foundry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is stepping up the construction of its new factory site in Tainan, southern Taiwan, while its application to set up another new site designed for processes beyond 3nm in Hsinchu, northern Taiwan has gained government approal, according to sources familiar with the matter.PCB supply chain upgrading tech specs for 5G smartphones: Taiwan PCB makers, boasting a significant presence in the supply chain of Apple, are quietly gearing up for specs upgrades on their products to support 5G smartphones, according to industry sources.

Osense Technology, founded in 2017, is a developer of artificial intelligence (AI) and augmented reality (AR) applications, mainly developing object recognition solutions for in-door space, according to company CEO Joseph Wang.A basic fact about AR is that an object must be designated in order for created content to show up in the AR environment and this makes object recognition a critical technology for in-door space AR development.Osense has developed a patented system called Vision Based Indoor Position (VBIP) that can help its AR platform recognize the whole in-door area without GPS signal. The technology also detects geomagnetic wave to position the user's location to minimize errors.Osense has used the technology to build a smart baseball stadium app that is able to offer a variety of services needed by fans visiting baseball stadiums, including transportation routes, parking information, lavatory locations, seat locations, souvenir and dining services, stadium facilities, game schedules, and updates on baseball teams, among others.Wang expects the app to help stadiums create new business flow and bring in additional values to stadium owners, fans, broadcasting crews and accessory vendors.Osense CEO Joseph Wang (center) and development crewPhoto: Company