Intel CPU shortages have given room for AMD to expand its presence in the market, but Intel is now keen to keep the rival at bay by resorting to a pricing campaign. In the EMS sector, Foxconn has elected a new chairman to succeed Terry Gou, who, after years of efforts turning the company into the a multibillion dollar firm, is now turning to politics. The post-Gou Foxconn will be managed collectively by a nine-member committee.Intel to slash desktop processor prices by up to 15%: Intel is planning to cut prices of its eighth- and ninth-generation desktop processors by 10-15% and has already notified its downstream PC and motherboard partners, according to sources from motherboard players.Foxconn gets new chairman: Foxconn Technolgy Group has elected a new chairman, Young Liu, succeeding Terry Gou, who has stepped down to facilitate his bid for Taiwan's presidency.Collective management at post-Gou Foxconn: Terry Gou has stepped down as chairman of Foxconn Technology Group to facilitate his bid for Taiwan's presidency, handing over the reins to a collective management by a nine-member committee.

Inventec's AI R&D center, set up in 2018, has developed AI-based computer vision solutions for testing pre-installed notebook software, double-checking AOI (automatic optiacl inspection)-detected product defects, and detecting scratches on surfaces of notebook chassis, according to the ODM.Inventec used to have inspectors manually test software preinstalled in notebooks to check whether the software is in normal operation. However, such manual testing carried high labor cost, requiring hundreds of inspectors for one million notebooks shipped per month.Inventec has replaced manual software inspection, including booting, key-pressing and screen view checks, with robotic arms and industrial cameras undertaking automatic inspection based on image recognition matched with OCR (optical character recognition).AOI parameters are usually set at high levels to reach high yield rates, often making misjudgment. Therefore, AOI must be followed by human double checks. As AOI can recognize images of measurable defects but are quite difficult to define the types of defects, Inventec has used AI to recognize defect types in place of double-checking based on human eyes.Since there are different kinds and sizes of scratches or other defects on surfaces of notebook chassis, they are difficult to be completely detected using human eyes. Inventec has developed two AI models for detecting such scratches through using a large number of images in deep learning. One AI model is able to recognize the type, size, location and number of scratches, while the other allows adjustment in detection parameters depending on clients' levels of quality inspection.

Despite the prospect of the US-China trade tensions further driving down DRAM pricing in the second half of the year, vendors continue to advance their technology for the memory. On another front in the semiconductor sector, the trade war is not deterring passive components makers from going ahead with their production capacity expansion plans, although they are now slowing down the pace a little. For Walsin Technology, the passive component market's long-term outlook remains promising.DRAM vendors gearing up for transition to EUV process: Samsung Electronics plans to enter volume production of DRAM chips built using 1znm process incorporating extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography technology later in 2019, with SK Hynix and Micron Technology looking to follow suit introducing their EUV-based 1znm node process, according to industry sources.Passive component firms slow down capacity expansion: Several passive component companies have pushed back the schedule to install new equipment and facilities for additional production capacities, judging from a number of macro factors creating uncertainty on the demand side, according to industry sources.Passive component firm Walsin cautious about 3Q19: MLCC and chip resistor supplier Walsin Technology will carry on its capacity expansion project in Taiwan, but is cautious about its performance in the third quarter, according to company chairman Chiao Yu-heng.

Taiwan blockchain startup Bincentive is striving to provide investors with decentralized assets management solutions and serve as an incentivized matchmaking platform for vetted crypto traders and investors, according to company CEO CM Cho.Cho said that the encrypted virtual assets management market continues to see booming development amid the global economic uncertainties arising from the US-China trade war.He said many international financial institutions and tech giants have jumped on the cryptocurrency bandwagon. JP Morgan, for instance, has issued blockchain-based JPM Coin to facilitate instantaneous transfer of payments between institutional clients, and Fidelity Investments has also launched crypto custody service. In early June, Apple released its CryptoKit to bolster blockchain on iPhones; Microsoft and AT&T have both announced accepting online bill payments in cryptocurrency; and Facebook has recently unveiled Libra cryptocurrency to bring financial services and online commerce to over one billion unbanked people.In line with the market boom, Cho said, Bincentive is leveraging its blockchain-based smart contract technology to create a strategic matchmaking platform for quantitative cryptocurrency transactions, and provide investors with decentralized assets management solutions to help them optimize assets allocation and wealth management.Based on quantitative investment and risk-hedging concepts, Cho continued, Bincentive has developed a Smart Mirror Trading Platform, aiming to create a more transparent and smarter ecosystem that gathers the world's top financial traders to provide diverse quantitative trading strategies for adoption by investors.

The US-China trade war has put Huawei, and in general the smartphone market, in limbo. Huawei has sharply cut orders for flagship smartphones, according to supply chain information available to Digitimes Research. The woeful smartphone market means bad business for both device vendors and their upstream partners, with mobile chip suppliers reporting low visibility. But Asustek Computer has identified an area - namely gaming - that it is banking on to rejuvenate its smartphone business.Huawei cutting flagship smartphone shipments, says Digitimes Research: Following its decision to axe orders for its entry-level and low-end smartphones that use non-Kirin processors in May, Huawei also began cutting orders in early June for its flagship smartphones including the existing P30 series and the upcoming Mate 30 series, according to Digitimes Research senior analyst Luke Lin.Order visibility for mobile chips unclear: The order visibility for Taiwan-based IC design houses for the third quarter of 2019 is unclear with prospects of seeing demand from the handset sector further soften later on, as the US-China trade row continues, and global macroeconomics begins to take the hit, according to industry sources.Asustek sees smartphone business head towards recovery: Asustek Computer's smartphone business is expected to recover gradually thanks to strong demand for its new ZenFone 6 and the upcoming launch of its second-generation ROG Phone in the third quarter, according to company chairman Jonney Shih.

Siliconware Precision Industries (SPIL) has achieved satisfactory results from applying AI to detect defects on packaging lines following nine months of efforts, according to KH Wan, director of technology development at the Taiwan-based semiconductor backend service provider.At a recent Nvidia-hosted AI Strategy Summit in Taipei, Wan said that AOI (automated optical inspection) system can hardly judge the "true defect" that may affect the quality of wafers, as only one out of every 100 defects spotted by AOI proves a true one.Wan said that in order to improve AOI efficiency and reduce manual double-check, SPIL moved in the second half of 2018 to enforce an ADC (automatic defect classification) project incorporating the use of AI, joining forces with AOI equipment suppliers and ADC system developers to evaluate and build deep learning patterns with the support of Nvidia.Wan revealed SPIL has significantly improved defect detection performance with the assistance of AI, and hopes to totally drop manual double-check on packaging lines.SPIL expects to work out 100 training AI patterns by the end of the third quarter 2019, and will incorporate the patterns into the firm's three backend process plants, Wan said, adding that his company also hopes to utilize AI to help classify defects beyond detection.

Moving out of China seems to be an irreversible trend for many IT products manufacturers at the moment. But where are they relocating? For Wistron, India is a key destination; for HHD vendors, their contract manufacturers are converging in Thailand. For some, the US seems to be the last destination they would consider.Wistron increasing investments in India: Wistron has been making new investments in India in the past couple of years and though the company currently still needs some more time to iron out differences with the Indian government, it still believes the country will become an enormous market with strong domestic demand driven by digitalization, according to company chairman Simon Lin.HDD makers to scale up production in Thailand: Taiwan-based HDD manufacturers Cal-Comp Electronics & Communications and Quanta Storage have both moved to scale up their output in Thailand at the request of their major clients Seagate and Western Digital (WD), according to industry sources.Inventec moving production lines out of China, but will not take sides in trade war, says chairman: Clients may be willing to pay for the expenses for manufacturing partners to move production out of China, but it remains to be seen how much longer such willingness is going to last, Inventec chairman Tom Cho has said in response to the escalating US-China trade war.

Wistron has adopted AI technology to inspect defects of products at three of its factories and will extend such inspection to other plants, according to company senior software manger Liang Wei-quo.The AI-based defect inspection has been adopted for SMT (surface-mount technology) and DIP (dual in-line package) lines for producing notebooks and servers mainly, Liang said.Automatic optical inspection (AOI) may have high efficiency, but many manufacturers set AOI parameters at high levels in order to achieve high yield rates, resulting in over-sensitivity of inspection equipment, Liang said, adding manual work has to follow to double check the products for misjudged ones possibly made by AOI, Liang indicatedIn a bid to attain accurate inspection without using human eyes, Wistron has used more than 150,000 images in AI-based deep learning for 15 models of defect recognition for SMT production lines, with accurate recognition taking only 0.01 second, Liang noted. For DIP production lines, more than 130,000 images have been used in AI deep learning for five models of defect recognition, Liang indicated.The first step in using AI-based inspection is to define what defects need to be inspected and the second step is data marking, Liang said. Wistron has collected more than one million images but selected from them 150,000 that represent various defect attributes for data marking, Liang noted.After deep learning, AI-based models of recognition came into operation and, despite high levels of accuracy in recognition, the overall performance was short of expectation, Liang said. Thus, Wistron checked the dataset of images to choose images that represented defect attributes but were not chosen originally for additional data marking to improve the overall performance, Liang indicated.

The worldwide top-5 notebook brands saw their combined shipments rise 10% on month in May, a growth weaker than that of the same month a year ago. Although the US-China trade tensions have prompted notebook vendors to stock extra inventory, their efforts have been hampered by Intel's ongoing CPU shortages, according to Digitimes Research's figures.With new products and Chromebooks beginning mass shipments, Hewlett-Packard (HP) became the largest notebook brand in May. Lenovo had an on-month shipment drop in May as its Chromebook procurement orders reached the end-of-life (EOL) phase, but the China-based vendor still maintained an on-year growth, Digitimes Research's numbers showed.Dell's notebook shipments slipped dramatically on month in May due primarily to a sharp decline in enterprise models.The top-3 ODMs together witnessed an on-month shipment increase of 16% in May. Quanta's shipments picked up significantly from a month ago because of orders from HP and Apple, and the maker was the best performer of the top-3.

The US ban on Huawei does not seem to have dampened the industry players' interests in 5G, with many still expecting explosive growths to come soon. Handset vendors remain as keen as ever on rolling out 5G smartphones sooner rather than later. The networking/communications device sector also remains optimistic about 5G. In Taiwan, development of the 5G sector has received a boost from a multi-million US dollar government plan.Chip demand for 5G phones ramping up: Taiwan-based IC design houses have seen brand handset vendors slow down their pace of orders for 4G models, but start ramping up demand for new-generation 5G devices, according to industry sources.5G commercial runs immune to trade war, says Accton president: The US trade sanctions on Huawei will not slow down global 5G commercial launches, as telecom operators worldwide are still regularly moving to build communications networks though they may change suppliers of telecom equipment, according to CC Lee, president of Taiwan-based Accton Technology, a provider of networking and communication solutions.Taiwan government to spend NT$20.4 billion on 5G development in 2019-2022: Taiwan's government has approved a budget of NT$20.4 billion (US$647.72 million) for facilitating the development of various value-added and verticalized application services under the 5G networks in the next four years, according to officials.