The US is now the world's largest market for medical supplies and equipment, and Taiwan's healthcare startups and smart medication solutions providers can better tap into the US market with wearable devices for preventive medicine applications, according to Lily Wong, a managing director at PwC Taiwan.Wong cited statistics from the biotech development division under Taiwan's economics ministry as indicating that the US commanded 42% of US$389 billion in annual global market demand for medical products in 2018, with the nation's medical expenses accounting for 17.6% of its GDP, much higher than 6% in Taiwan.Wong said up to 75% of a total of 5,453 hospitals in the US are private ones, which are keen to introduce innovative medical technologies and devices, especially wearable devices for preventive medicine applications that can help reduce medium- and long-term care expenses on the aging baby-boomer generation and chronic patients. While the Software as Medical Device (SaMD) industry is developing rapidly, the US still has to source 30% of its medical supplies and equipment from abroad, with the imports recording a CAGR of 5.5% during 2012-2017. Taiwan ranked 19th with only a 0.8% share of global medical supplies shipments to the US during the period, with the top-five exporters being Holland, Japan, Belgium, China and Canada.Wang indicated Taiwan-based smart healthcare startups and biotech solutions providers can also move to develop innovations on high-end computed tomography and nuclear magnetic resonance imaging systems, for which many US hospitals still show strong buying momentum.
Pre-orders for Apple's iPhone 11 series may be better than expected, but components makers in the new smartphones' supply chain remains cautious. PCB makers say their order visibility concerning the iPhone 11 lineup won't clear up until early October. Meanwhile, one of Apple's major rivals in the smartphone space - Huawei - continues to foray into the 5G market. Unimicron and Nan Ya PCB have increased their IC substrate output for Huawei's devices including 5G network equipment and server chips. PTIPCB shipment prospect for new iPhones uncertain till early October: PCB manufacturers in the supply chain for Apple's iPhone 11 series are keeping a close eye on the new models' initial sales performance, which will determine their shipment momentum for the remaining months of 2019, but the order visibility will remain vague until early October, according to industry sources.Huawei stepping up IC substrate purchases from Taiwan: Huawei is stepping up purchases of IC substrates from its Taiwan-based suppliers, including Unimicron Technology and Nan Ya PCB, according to industry sources.
TSMC's clients reportedly have been eager to secure the foundry's 7nm production ccapacity, as strong demand from the smartphone and for the advanced node has resulted in tight supply with lead time extending. TSMC is expected to set aside more budgets for expanding capacity for its advanced proceees. GaAs foundry Win Semiconductors also plans to expand production capacity in the second quarter of 2020 to meet ever-increasing compound semiconductor foundry demand for 5G applications. For backend service firm ASE Technology Holding, it is ready to provide FO-AiP and FO-SiP packaging services to meet demand from the 5G sector.TSMC 7nm production lead time extended: The lead time for production of 7nm chips at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has extended to nearly six months from the previous two months because of strong demand, according to industry sources.Win Semi to expand GaAs wafer production capacity in 2Q20: GaAs foundry Win Semiconductors plans to expand production capacity by around 5,000 6-inch wafers monthly in the second quarter of 2020 to meet ever-increasing compound semiconductor foundry demand for 5G applications, according to company president Kyle Chen.ASE gearing up for 5G mmWave AiP, RF modules: Leading IC backend house ASE Technology Holding will have its fan-out (FO) packaging technology ready in 2020 at the earliest for volume production of mmWave antenna-in-package (AiP) modules and RF(radio frequency) front-end modules (FEM) for use in 5G devices, according to industry sources.
In a report composed jointly by governmental Small and Medium Enterprise Administration, PwC Taiwan and Taiwan Institute of Economic Research noted that about 20% of startups in Taiwan have not yet generated any revenues, and 50% have. Most of the startups are suffering from losses and only 28% are profitable.The report also showed that diversified capital channels, tax concessions and connection with international market resources are the top-3 major kinds of support that startups hope the Taiwan government can offer. The startups' top-3 target markets are China, Southeast Asia/India and North America.Joseph Chou, chairman and CEO of PwC Taiwan, pointed out that many startup incubation organizations have been aggressively assisting newly formed companies to find the right markets and to enter these markets with their patents protected. So far, failing to be internationalized is the biggest issue for these Taiwan's startups, Chou said.Violet Lo, director of PwC Taiwan's Innovation and Entrepreneur Services, Markets and Business Development, noted that in addition to technology and market development, risk management, regulation compliance, finance control and system establishment are also important factors that startups need to work on.The report also indicated that most entrepreneurships in northern Taiwan are related to smart medical care, digital media, Internet of Things (IoT) and e-commerce, while in central Taiwan, the industries include smart manufacturing, green-energy technologies and new agriculture. For southern Taiwan, green-energy technologies and IoT are more popular.Joseph Chou, chairman and CEO of PwC TaiwanPhoto: Mark Tsai, Digitimes, September 2019
Taiwan startups have come out with a variety of smart healthcare solutions and are stepping up exchanges with leading firms in diverse business segments, seeking to create more cross-industry business opportunities and expand their comprehensive ecosystem.Some of the startups presented their latest innovations at a recent event jointly hosted by Digitimes and Taipei's Department of Economic Development while also conducting exchanges with representatives from major businesses including Taiwan Mobile, FarEastone Telecommunications, PwC Taiwan, HTC, Nvidia and Compal Electronics.Among them, Heroic Faith Medical Science introduced its AI-based early symptom awareness pulmonary monitoring system that can detect patients' breathing abnormalities and collect breathing sound data, helping doctors harness early symptoms of major lung diseases and prescribe early treatments. The system also incorporates AI technology to visualize the collected data and categorize them by disease type, according to company president FS Hsu. AIEplorex's AI high performance computing (AIPHPC) solutions has provided a fundamental architecture for smart healthcare, smart production and smart city applications. The firm's product manager YC Chen said that AIHPC is easy to use, allowing users without program language knowledge to easily build their own AI patterns at lower costs than using other platforms. He stressed that the platform highlights the use of AI to materialize real-time analysis of gigapixel images, able to analyze X-ray images, medical images, tera-pixel images and big data storage and analysis, Industry 4.0 and smart surveillance.Veyond Reality, dedicated to developing innovative VR-based education solutions, has offered a variety of scientific experimental VR solutions to more than 40 high schools in Taiwan through its Vollege. Company CEO Daniel Wang noted that Veyond's VR education solutions have performed well in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) and LBE (location-based entertainment) application domains and the company will promote the solutions to 1,000 schools abroad in two years.Beseye Cloud Security has developed skeleton-print analysis technology that can be integrated with cloud AI image identification and big data analysis technologies to provide automated extraction of facial, body skeleton structure and walking posture characteristics to determine a person's age, gender, emotions, and identity.
Components suppliers are naturally eyeing the business opportunities arising from 5G developments, with heat-sink solution providers expecting VC-based cooling solutions to become a mainstream for smartphones in 2020. For PCB makers, momentum from the smartphone sector is picking up faster than that for the base station sector where deployments in China has been dented by the US-China trade war.Heat-sink solution providers to brace for strong sales along with 5G deployments: The development of 5G networks including infrastructures, edging computers and end-market devices will significantly scale up global demand for heat-sink solutions in 2020 and beyond, according to industry sources.PCB makers see stronger momentum from 5G smartphones than base stations: For PCB makers, especially those based in Taiwan, 5G business opportunities from smartphones may outrace those from base stations as demand for the latter has been dented by slowed construction of the stations in China, according to industry sources.
While accuracy in AI-based interpretation of medical images is improving, the user experience - mainly for doctors and nurses - and accessibility of the technology to them should be enhanced, says Microsoft Taiwan chief operating officer (COO) Hedy Ho.For inter-department diagnoses, experts from different departments should share data and hold discussions that can facilitate development of algorithms, Ho said, adding the algorithms can in turn improve efficiency in diagnosis and logistics management for medical IoT application.For medical equipment with optical lenses, technology of translating voice into text can remind equipment management staff members of maintenance schedule and surrounding environment control for using equipment.Microsoft Taiwan COO Hedy HoPhoto: Shihmin Fu, Digitimes, September 2019
The US-China trade war is sending many manufacturers fleeing the "world's factory," with many Taiwanese makers relocating production lines to Southeast Asia or returning home. For some notebook brand vendors, Taiwan is a preferred location for producing devices heading for the US market - a preference about which Compal has already been told by its clients. For Apple, the trade war has already taken its toll on iPhone sales in China. And it remains to be seen how the freshly launched iPhone 11 series will fare. Taiwan's supply chain players are generally cautious about the sales outlook of the new iPhones. But some believe Apple's new pricing strategy should be able to stimulate sales of the new and older-generation iPhones. And backend service providers expect stable growth in demand for chips supporting Apple's new and older iPhones because of the "friendly" pricing.Compal turns to Taiwan for making US-bound notebooks: Compal Electronics, in response to its major brand clients' requests, is moving production of their US-bound notebooks from Vietnam to Taiwan, which is expected to turn Taiwan into the second largest notebook production base worldwide, behind only China, according to sources from the upstream supply chain.Supply chain cautious about sales of iPhone 11 lineup: The new iPhones' lack of wow factors may fail to ignite strong replacement demand in the global smartphone space where shipments have been locked in a downturn, according to sources from Taiwan's handset supply chain.Apple new pricing strategy steals spotlight at iPhone 11 launch: The brightest spot of Apple's launch for the iPhone 11 lineup turned out to be its new pricing strategy. Apple's move will not only help boost buying sentiment for the new iPhones, but also give it more room to set prices for its future 5G-enabled iPhones.Taiwan backend firms eyeing stable demand for new iPhones: Taiwan-based backend houses including KYEC and Chipbond expect to see stable growth in demand for baseband chips and LCD driver ICs for Apple iPhone.
The completion of the first 5G NR standard specified in 3GPP, the frequency bands are being separated into two different frequency ranges named sub 6 GHz and the millimeter-wave (mmWave) bands. The large amount of underutilized spectrum in the mmWave frequency bands are a viable solution for achieving tens to hundreds of times more capacity compared to current 4G networks. The beamforming technology is widely used in the telecom industry when referring to 5G. This technology uses an array of multiple antennas to intelligently form the patterns transmitted to or received from a large antenna array by controlling the direction of a wave-front. That is, the mmWave beamforming technology is an enabling technology for 5G.TMY Technology (TMYTEK) is a Taiwan based startup company and leading 5G beamforming solution provider. The company is focusing on mmWave technology and RF (Radio Frequency) front end solutions by providing highly modulized beamforming systems that enable 5G designers to successfully develop innovative antenna and baseband technology.This award-winning startup is gaining exposure of working with national research institutes and several Taiwan electronics manufacturers. TMYTEK develops cost-effective solutions solving technology challenges of mmWave through its unique and complicated skills of controlling weighting the magnitude or phase of signals in an array of multiple antennas. The value of the company product offerings is widely recognized and continue to move to accelerate 5G product development in Taiwan electronics industries. For fast-expanding business into China and Taiwan region, TMYTEK engages the business partnership and work with ACE Solution to attract more opportunities in the future.Aiming 2020 Startup Event at Barcelona to connect with global ecosystemsNicole Chan, vice president of the Science and Technology Law Department at the Institute of Information Industry, at the event.On August 22nd 2019, TMYTEK holds "#BeamUp 5G Product Launch" event to showcase their recent development of 5G mmWave technology. The invited speakers include Chunghwa Telecom, ACE Solution, AAMA Taipei Startup Camp and Nicole Chan, Vice president of the Science and Technology Law Department at the Institute of Information Industry. In the guest open remarks session, the investment department of Chunghwa Telecom will offer the funding program to help TMYTEK to join the 4YFN Startup Event at Barcelona during Mobile World Congress 2020. This will help TMYTEK to connect with global 5G ecosystems and discover more opportunities for business and finance support.Su-Wei Chang, President of TMYTEK, talks the major milestones when he found the company in 2014 in his keynote. He looks at the beamforming technology continuing to gather strong R&D momentum from industries. With the 5G transition, there are a lot of new businesses appearing, reshuffling existing value chains and creating new markets. Building a 5G R&D ecosystem and partnership will help to shape the future of 5G development in Taiwan. TMYTEK is trying to form an industrial mmWave development platform to continue to make contributions to Taiwan 5G community.Showcasing XBeam, AiP and BBox for fast-tracking achievementsInside the XBeam chamber, there is a DUT (device-under-test) being tracked. On the right side of the screen it shows how the DUT's beam looks like.The XBeam, AiP and BBox product series become the spotlight of the event. Ethan Lin, Vice president of TMYTEK, demonstrates these major solutions for 5G antenna design and production test. The first live product demonstration is the Beamforming Box (BBox). This is a powerful development tool and design kit for mmWave antennas. The current BBox product series is the third generation design with several different models.The BBox One is the flagship product with 16 independent RF channels fulfilling the developers' requirements. The standard BBox product is a hardware device with various options of software GUIs and API tools. The friendly product design will ensure customers opening the box and ready to use. Another version called BBox Lite equipped with 4 RF channels is most suitable for engineers to emulate UE beamforming performance. The current frequency band support is 28GHz. And the 39 GHz version will be available within this year.XBeam OTA test solutions aiming to reduce massive cost in 5G antenna production linesXBeamWith a dramatic increase in user expectations on the 5G network, the demands for testing devices and base stations solely on an OTA (Over-the-Air) manner becomes essential. The OTA Test is a standard process to evaluate radio performance of 5G devices. It requires dedicated test chambers and sophisticated testing instruments to perform the full testing procedures. The test and measurement solutions are critical for mass production stage because of the high setup expanse and testing cost. TMYTEK uses BBox One as a scanning probe combined with a testing chamber to create a competitive test solution for the industry. That is the XBeam Test and Measurement solution.The key is the Beam Steering technology, Lin highlights. Using BBox One with TMYTEK dedicated software control in a test chamber will have better simulation to test RF modules performance of various orientation angles. Obviously, the benefit is reducing testing time for each DUT (device under test) because saving time from rotating the DUTs mechanically. Through XBeam test solution, the overall testing time in the mass production stage could be reduced for 10 to 15 times compared with traditional rotating test chamber approach. This is the reason why Taiwan electronics manufacturers so exciting to see XBeam test solution to be launched.AiP, antenna-in-Package, is a miniature module combined with the functions of BBox and UD Box. Our AiP is made ready to help users to prepare, design, test, and deploy beamforming solutions for small cells, User Equipment, CPE, and 5G research.There are other products showcasing to gain attention. For example, the XRifle is the technology to optimize the number of base stations for solving the issues of coverage-constrained base station deployment. Lin adds, the concept is using the signal repeater devices to maximize the 5G signal coverage. . Meanwhile, in the semiconductor product showcase, the AiP (Antenna in Package) chip is not only a proof of concept design, it is a funcational prototype and can be used as the base for the future cusomization. This module is an 8×8 antenna arrays. It could be tiled up to form 4K antenna arrays in theory. These product demonstrations have successfully show TMYTEK technical strength of 5G antenna arrays and test solutions to Taiwan technical sectors.Technical partnership makes us work together and go farAs in a world where quick execution and first-mover play a key role in success, TMYTEK is looking to reinvent itself and continuing to explore mmWave technologies for delivering innovative industrial solutions from design to mass production the 5G products. Talking the next step for TMYTEK, the company is aiming to develop solutions embracing the trend of satellite Internet services. Satellites are a reasonable way to provide internet access where previously there was none.Su-Wei Chang talks to his next big move for planning the projects to develop satellite receivers leveraging the mmWave technologies. But no one company can do it alone, he adds. It requires a partner ecosystem. Taiwan electronics manufacturers and ecosystem partners have traditionally differentiated themselves from the rest of the industry. This is how they have managed to stay ahead of the game. Like the key theme in this event, "Alone we go faster, together we go further", which is the most important message that TMYTEK would like to share with investors and partners.
FiO Technology, dedicated to serving as a BaaS (Blockchain as a Service) platform for enterprises, has developed a new business model allowing corporate users to gain reward from business transfers without exposing their own secret business data, according to Geroge Chu, founder and CEO of the startup.Chu said FiO aims to drive a real commercialization of blockchain in the business world, helping enterprises integrate and manage digital assets and analyze distributed user behavior through blockchain application.Chu continued that FiO draws its name from the abbreviation of "figure it out," seeking to help more enterprises explore blockchain application potentials in a convenient and low-cost way and faciliate their expansions in international markets.Through the BaaS platform, enterprises can plug FiO's API (application programming interface) into their APP/Web to kick off blockchain applications without having to spend heavily on creating their own blockchain systems or alter their original computer systems, Chu stressed.Chu said that FiO has completed its company registration in Singapore thanks to the country's friendly regulations and easier access to angel funds in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. The company has also set up its R&D base in Taiwan to capitalize on the abundant software talent supply, and established its strategy headquarters in Hong Kong. Such a deployment has given the startup more room to develop business in Greater China, Southeast Asia, and even Japan and South Korea.FiO has developed patented bottom-layer technologies based on the open Hyperledger Fabric architecture in cooperation with IBM, and will promote its blockchain technologies and services to small and medium-size clients.Chu stressed that FiO's BaaS platform is a hybrid chain combining both public and private chains, allowing enterprises to load only risk-free data of their own onto the platform.Meanwhile, FiO uses Hyperledger Indy, a distributed ledger for decentralized identity, or the digital avatar solution to support AI analysis of big data about consumers' genders, ages and locations instead of their names, phone numbers and addresses, thus effectively safeguarding personal data.The company has secured investments from Forbes Digital Asset and Israel's Infinity Leadway, and is enforcing a new round of fundraising seeking to solicit fresh funds of US$10-20 million from potential partners in Japan, Singapore and the Middle East, according to Chu. FiO Technology founder and CEO George ChuPhoto: Shihmin Fu, Digitimes, September 2019
