As a tool for transforming transportation, autonomous vehicles are to be developed to become a part of MaaS (mobility as a service), according to the architect of Taiwan's law governing development of unmanned vehicles.When drafting the Statute for Experiments of Technological Innovations in Unmanned Vehicles, Andrew Yeh said he incorporated possibly all the parameters that would affect progress in experimenting autonomous vehicles.The statute is based on 2+1+1 principle where 2 refers to road experiments for two years, the first "1" means room of regulatory sandbox for exemption from regulations concerned and the second "1" refers room for necessary amendment, Yeh noted.Yeh, the cabinet's depute executive secretary for the Office of Science and Technology under the Executive Yuan, said he and his colleagues had collected ideas and opinions from universities, firms, developers and operators of autonomous before writing the draft, which became law in early 2019.One of the crucial parts of the law stipulates that the authorities concerned must finish examination of applications for experimenting technological innovations in autonomous vehicles within 60 days following submission of the applications.The authorities concerned include transportation authorities under local governments for general urban and rural roads, Freeway Bureau and Directorate General of Highways under Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) for freeways and intercity highways respectively, administrations of industrial parks for roads inside such parks.To enforce the statute, the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) has drafted a subsidization scheme for experimental or trial operation of unmanned vehicles, which will match a 5-year plan that MOTC will soon announce for developing smart transportation systems, Yeh noted. Applicants for MOEA's subsidies have to propose detailed experiment plans, including information on the number of autonomous electric buses, the number of trips a day, time interval between two consecutive trips, the volume of high-precision electronic maps (in km) in use, needed roadside IoV (Internet of Vehicle) infrastructure, Yeh indicated.Both MOEA and MOTC will set aside budgets to encourage local governments to designate roads and promote local bus service operators to undertake on-road experiments of autonomous electric buses, Yeh indicated.Andrew Yeh, deputy executive secretary for Office of Science and TechnologyPhoto: Yihan Li, Digitimes, December 2019

US-based accelerator SmartLabs will establish a biomedical entrepreneurship base at Hsinchu Biomedical Science Park, northern Taiwan, to support Taiwan-based biomedical startups, according to the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST).The base, under MOST's financial sponsorship and technological support from government-sponsored Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), will be linked to Taiwan's universities, related organizations and firms, hospitals and biomedical industry, MOST noted.SmartLabs focuses on accelerating startups engaged in R&D of treating cancers and rare diseases and has incubated six of the globally top-10 gene editing startup businesses including Editas Medicine and CRISPR Therapeutics, company CEO Amrit Chaudhuri said.The base to be set up in Taiwan is SmartLabs' first overseas base, as Taiwan's advanced medical care and high-tech industries can play a portal for SmartLabs' entry into Asia Pacific's biomedical startup market, Chaudhuri explained.MOST and SmartLabs will work together to select Taiwan-based biomedical startups for the SmartLabs Global Launch program, which will provide customized and localized accelerator services focusing on international marketing, compliance with patent and administrative regulations related to biomedicine, financial planning and fundraising, MOST indicated.MOST will subsidize outstanding startups for a 3-month practical training at SmartLabs' headquarters in Boston.SamrtLabs's CFO Seth Taylor (left), CEO Amrit Chaudhuri (second left), amd MOST minister Chen (center) Liang-geePhoto: MOST

AI-based precision marketing solution developer GameMind has introduced parameters for banks and insurance companies to evaluate credit for people without credit records, mostly students and those who are starting their careers, for deciding on appropriate banking services (such as credit cards) and premium rates respectively, according to company chief marketing officer Young Li-chieh.The solution consists of extensive collection of various open documented data and unlocking of file formats to facilitate data processing in the first step, and text analysis and semantic interpretation in the second step, Young explained.GameMind provides API for banks and insurance companies to use the results of semantic interpretation. A bank can use API to quickly verify the background of an applicant for a bank account, Young noted.GameMind plans to develop a model that can automatically estimate credit points, Young indicated. However, two problems have to be solved: How to allocate relevant parameters to obtain the credit point that best reflects the facts, and how to examine the accuracy for credit points, Young noted.GameMind CEO Wang Wenyn (left) and chief marketing officer Young Li-chiehPhoto: Yihan Li, Digitimes, December 2019

Although demand for 5G smartphones is expected to pick up dramatically in 2020, prices of related SoC are expected to stay unfriendly for the first half of 2020 and are unlikely to begin to drop until the second half. Meanwhile, Quanta's plant in Thailand for making Google's smart speakers will start trial production earlier than expected. HDI PCBs are seeing strong demand from many different applications and their quotes are also expected to pick up and benefit the related makers' profitability, while Tyntek has begun trial production at its 6-inch epitaxial wafer factory for sensors and LED chips.Prices of 5G SoC may drop in 2H20: Unit prices for 5G mobile SoCs may begin to ease off in the second half of 2020, according to industry sources.Quanta new Thailand plant ready for Google Home trial production: Taiwan-based ODM Quanta Computer reportedly will begin trial production of Google Home smart speakers at its new plant in Thailand later in December well ahead of schedule, according to industry sources.HDI PCB makers striving to improve product mix for higher profits: Taiwan-based HDI PCB manufacturers have put increased focus on non-handset applications to improve product portfolios, which is expected to drive up their quotes and profitability in 2020 amid the increasingly tight supply, according to industry sources.Tyntek starts trail run at 6-inch epitaxial wafer factory: LED chip and Si-based sensor maker Tyntek has begun trial operation of its 6-inch epitaxial wafer factory, focusing on production of customized Si-based sensors for use in automotive sensing, medical care, industrial automation and monitoring, according to the company at a December 16 investor conference.

Handset vendors and related supply chain makers in China are accelerating their push to build up production capacities outside China as the country's production of smartphones are expected to contract over 100 million units by an annual rate in 2019 and its status being the world's factory has been challenged by its lingering trade dispute with the US, according to Digitimes Research.Samsung Electronics pioneered the relocation move a few years ago on concerns out of its global deployment and the fact that domestic demand for handsets in China is dwindling. It has shut down all of its handset manufacturing lines in China and moved the majority of its handset capacity to India and Vietnam, while also beginning to outsource models with high price/performance ratios to China-based ODMs.For the India market, China-based Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo have also either set up their own production lines, or subcontracted handset production to local OEMs, in the country to capitalize on growing demand there and to be in line with the government's "Made-in-India" policy.Supply chain makers of non-iPhone products have actually formed two handset manufacturing clusters in Noida and Chennai, India, respectively. The supply chains related to Samsung, Oppo and Vivo are mostly located in Noida, while Xiaomi's supply chain makers are mostly based in Chennai, says Digitimes Research.China's top-three handset ODMs – the Wingtech Group, Huaqin Telecom Technology and Longcheer – have also deepened their deployments in India by setting up factories of their owns or committing equity investments in local companies.Chinese LCD module makers including Holitech Technology and Lianchuang Electronics (LEC) have also established production lines in India to cope with a planned move by the India's government to start levying tariffs on imports of touch panels and display products.While most Apple's suppliers, scattered around the globe in the US, Brazil, China, India, and Vietnam, are having assembly capacity, the bulk of the production capacity for its iPhone devices is still concentrated in China. Apple has limited production capacity in India and is not yet having handset manufacturing capacity in Vietnam.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has expanded its cooperation with partners as a measure to satisfy its clients. It has placed orders with Teradyne for more test equipment and teamed up with MA-tek and iST over the IC analysis field in a bid to fulfill its rapidly rising orders. Meanwhile, Compeq expects TWS earbuds and handsets to have increasing demand for boards that will last until the end of first-half 2020.TSMC places test equipment orders with Teradyne: TSMC has placed orders for several hundred sets of test equipment with Teradyne, and will install the tools at the foundry's new advanced backend plant in northern Taiwan, according to industry sources.TSMC teams up with MA-tek, iST on advanced IC analysis: Robust orders for advanced fabrication and packaging services at TSMC have prompted the foundry to team up with Materials Analysis Technology (MA-tek) and Integrated Service Technology (iST) to satisfy the ensuing strong demand for IC materials analysis (MA), failure analysis (MA) and reliability analysis (RA), allowing the two Taiwan-based major IC analysis and inspection laboratories to embrace lucrative operations in 2020, according to industry sources.Compeq to see strong board shipments for handset, TWS applications in 1H20: Taiwan-based PCB maker Compeq Manufacturing is expected to see strong shipment momentum for handset-use HDI boards and True Wireless Stereo (TWS) earbud-use rigid-flex boards that will persist into the first half of 2020 and boost the firm's performance on year during the period, according to industry sources.

The mainstream design of high-end active noise-cancelling true wireless stereo (TWS) headset has been trending toward hybrid driver configurations that have helped drive up the growth of capacitive MEMS speaker market, Digitimes Research has found.Apple's launch of its latest AirPods products has been a key impetus for the emerging manufacturing trend that has in turn benefited its major acoustic component supplier, Goertek.With the competition in the TWS market likely to become increasingly keen in 2020, the effectiveness of active noise-cancelling functionality will become a barometer for sales of TWS headsets, and therefore, the sales proportion of high-end TWS headsets that come with a configuration of two MEMS speakers for a single ear are expected to grow significantly in the coming year, said Digitimes Research.Although piezoelectric speaker providers are also trying to tap TWS market, they will continue to lose out orders to those offering MEMS models in the near term, said Digitimes Research, as capacitive MEMS speakers perform much better than piezoelectric ones in terms of signal-to-noise ratio (NSR) and acoustic overload point (AOP).Digitimes Research also believes that major MEMS speaker providers such as Goertek and Knowles will continue to strive in the market in 2020.

Coretronic Intelligent Robotics (CIRC) is trialing two automatic surveillance drone systems for security patrols at the Tongluo site of Hsinchu Science Park, according to company president Andy Hsin.The automatic surveillance drone system, via setting flight missions based on management needs in advance, enables drones to automatically take off, patrol, land and be charged with power, Hsin said.Of the site's total land area of 349.7 hectares, 72.5% is occupied by public and service facilities and conservation zones for which regular security monitoring puts a large draft on the existing security guard staff, Hsin noted. Through collaboration with the staff, flight missions cover regular patrols, recognition of anomalous vehicles, inspection of construction progress, detection via thermal sensing, remote real-time monitoring, detection of urgent cases for immediate handling, Hsin indicated.The drones can also collect information for analysis or model building for decision making, Hsin said.CIRC plans to offer high-precision and high-payload drone solutions for diverse commercial use in the first half of 2020, Hsin noted.A subsidiary of LED backlight unit (BLU) maker Coretronic, CIRC is a startup engaged in development of human-machine interaction, motion control, intelligent recognition and fusion of sensing.CIRC-developed automatic surveillance drone systemPhoto: CIRC

Law Insurance Broker, startup BravoAI and insurance marketing software developer GoUP Tech have cooperated to develop an AI-based solution for evaluating existing life insurance policies as a basis for adjusting insurance, according to Law Insurance.The solution combines BravoAI-developed OCR (optical character recognition) technology and language model analytics with 23,000 cloud computing-based scenarios of life insurance established by GoUP Tech, Law Insurance Broker president Chao Hui-hsien said.It takes about two weeks to manually evaluate existing life insurance policies - from analyzing the policies, discussing with clients, and making recommendations for adjustment in policy to meet needs based on current conditions, Chao noted. To shorten the the labor-consuming and repeated process, the AI-based solution, which uses recognition of the uploaded images of the first pages of policies, natural language processing and connection with scenarios, can finish the evaluation in 5-10 minutes, Chao indicated.In case of settling compensation claims for medical treatment, it is necessary to inspect diagnosis reports and doctors' instructions, and digitization of such unstructured data entails interpretation of the entire context to hike accuracy for character speculation, according to BravoAI chairman and CEO Jack Chao.BravoAI has applied AI to semantic analysis as well as property insurance using image recognition to assess damage to properties, Chao said.

The world's top-5 notebook brand vendors saw their combined shipments (excluding detachable models) for November 2019 suffer a 2% on-month decrease, compared with previous years' sequential increases for the month, according to Digitimes Research.The decrease was attributed partly to relatively higher inventory of Wintel models at vendors rushing to advance shipments pull-in to counter the US-China tariff war, and partly to Intel CPU shortfalls failing to improve significantly.Among the top-5 vendors, HP registered a sequential shipment decline of nearly 10% in November due in part to the firm still undergoing organizational restructuring. Lenovo leaped back to the second place as its shipments for the month surged over 20% sequentially on strong demand from e-commerce shoppers. Dell suffered the weakest performance among the top-3 vendors in shipments of both business-use and consumer models, Digitimes Research's figures show.Meanwhile, the world's top-3 notebook ODMs posted a 4% on-month shipment contraction in November. But shipments by Compal Electronics only inched down 1% sequentially thanks to increases in orders from HP, Lenovo and Acer.