Taiwan’s tech news headlines in August of 2023 captured items and developments including: TSMC’s first European facility, set for Germany; Taiwan’s deepening partnership with Phoenix in the US state of Arizona; Foxconn’s growth in India; a Taiwanese micro fusion reactor energy system; and more.
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Global semiconductor news from August 2023 >
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Taipei Blockchain Week 2023 – December 11-16
- Taiwan: Arizona’s Moov Technologies, large-scale marketplace for used semiconductor equipment, to open new office in Taipei, building on secondary semicon market presence
- Taiwan’s Foxconn looks to standardized EV platform, seeing India or Thailand for production of 3-seat EV under $20K and focused on corporate delivery fleets
- Taiwan’s TSMC commits 3.5BN Euros to its first European facility in Germany, gaining heavy state support for what will be an $11BN plant
“…telecom operators and network gear providers need to buy up to 6 chips from different suppliers such as Intel, Broadcom, NXP and Marvell… EdgeQ’s approach is to replace all those chips with one ‘system-on-a-chip.'”
- Taiwan: An intro to Alpha Ring, micro-fusion reactor firm producing energy free from radiation pollution and at lower temperatures than standard nuclear fusion systems
- Taiwan: TSMC adds plan for next-gen 2-nm chips plant in southern city of Kaohsiung to existing plans for 2-nm facility in northern Hsinchu county, with possible 3rd plant for Taichung
- Taipei Blockchain Week 2023 set for December 11–16, featuring a core conference and a 3-day multi-chain hackathon and demo day
- Taiwan: UK’s Crypto Quantique expands in Taiwan with quantum encryption tech for semiconductor and IoT spaces, partnering Andes Technology processor manufacturer
Taiwan ‘is best-positioned to create what he calls “red-free” or “China-free” defense supply chains that friendly countries, such as Australia and Japan, could leverage for their own military logistics.’
Now, Lo, who also goes by Max, has fully transitioned the company to making dual-use drones that can also be mounted with guns, drop bombs or surveil enemy sites. Taiwan’s military is partnering with private companies including Geosat to build 3,000 military-use drones by next year.
- Startup Island TAIWAN inks MOU with Arizona’s Greater Phoenix Economic Council to boost collaboration and investment opportunities
- Taiwan’s CakeResume, used by Google, Nvidia and TSMC, raised $5M Series A from Mynavi, one of Japan’s largest HR firms, aiming for Indonesia, Vietnam and India entry
- Taiwan: A video intro to the T-Radar Pro, portable small drones-focused detection system
- Taiwan: AI program to assist with drafting court rulings potentially to begin trial run late September, using system jointly developed by the Judicial Yuan and Chunghwa Telecom
- India: Taiwan’s Foxconn to increase investment in Telangana by $400M, possibly using in-development Kongarkalan facility for manufacture of AirPods and other accessories
‘…Flax Typhoon, “a nation-state actor based out of China”, has since mid-2021 mainly “targeted [Taiwan] government agencies and education, critical manufacturing, and [IT] organizations…”‘
- Taiwan’s Foxconn India arm announces close to $10BN annual earnings, accounting for more than 5% of Foxconn business globally
- Thailand’s Arun Plus, part of state-owned oil and gas group PTT, and Taiwan’s Kymco to establish JV forming Aionex, aiming to produce e-bikes and operate battery-swapping services
- Vietnam: A quick overview of Startup Island Taiwan’s recent Taiwan Tech Solution Day in Ho Chi Minh City, a showcase of 14 of Taiwan’s digital tech startups
- The Philippines’ Ayala conglomerate inks JV to bring Taiwan’s Gogoro into the country to provide 2-wheeled e-scooters, battery-swap tech and battery-swap stations
The US, Taiwan and Semiconductors – A Crucial Supply Chain Partnership
Semiconductor news, August 2023
- “An Open Alternative to Intel and ARM: What is RISC-V?”
- Qualcomm, NXP Semiconductors and others to form new company to speed development of RISC-V, open-source standard and chips architecture, in bid to challenge near-ubiquitous Arm chips tech
- China: Spacemit CPU startup completes Series A funding of ‘several hundred million RMB’ backed by Lenovo, with focus on RISC-V chips, open-source architecture seen as workaround to restricted Intel and Arm chips
“While US rules…slowed down China’s development of advanced chipmaking…they left largely untouched the country’s ability to use techniques older than 14-nm. That has led Chinese firms to construct new plants faster than anywhere else in the world.”
- South Korea: Seongnam city in Seoul launched Semiconductor Fabless Alliance in July with reps from semicon demand and supply firms, industry associations and academia
- China: State-run Nat’l Natural Science Foundation launches $6.4M program for chiplets tech, adding to country’s bid for semiconductor self-sufficiency
- “…telecom operators and network gear providers need to buy up to 6 chips from different suppliers such as Intel, Broadcom, NXP and Marvell… EdgeQ’s approach is to replace all those chips with one ‘system-on-a-chip.'”
- Taiwan: TSMC adds plan for next-gen 2-nm chips plant in southern city of Kaohsiung to existing plans for 2-nm facility in northern Hsinchu county, with possible 3rd plant for Taichung
“Baidu, ByteDance, Tencent & Alibaba have made orders worth $1BN to acquire about 100K A800 processors from [NVIDIA] to be delivered this year… further $4BN worth…to be delivered in 2024…”
- China: Xingji Meizu, smartphone/consumer-tech firm from Geely EV firm founder, to discontinue chip design and development business
- ICYMI: NVIDIA chipmaker unveils Grace Hopper ‘superchips’, part of the company’s AI-focused supercomputing platform built for large-scale generative AI workloads
- Taiwan: UK’s Crypto Quantique expands in Taiwan with quantum encryption tech for semiconductor and IoT spaces, partnering Andes Technology processor manufacturer
- China: State bodies including government-backed chip fund to invest $1.7BN in Shenzhen’s CR Micro wafer production firm in ongoing bid to boost tech capacity and independence
- Taiwan’s TSMC commits 3.5BN Euros to its first European facility in Germany, gaining heavy state support for what will be an $11BN plant
‘The European Commission will analyse the US ban on new US investment in China in sensitive technologies as the issue is also important to [EU] economic security…’
“The EU and Member States also have a common interest in preventing that our companies’ capital, expertise and knowledge fuel technological advances that enhance military and intelligence capabilities of actors who may use them to undermine international peace and security,” the spokesperson said.
- India: Foxconn to commence iPhone 15 production in Tamil Nadu prior to the device’s September launch, marking steps to mitigate China-related supply risks
- Taiwan: Arizona’s Moov Technologies, large-scale marketplace for used semiconductor equipment, to open new office in Taipei, building on secondary semicon market presence
Indo-Pacific Tech News, September 2023 edition
ASIA TECH DAILY
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