One plant is expected to come online in second half of 2021, second plant will be operational in 2022

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/09/30
By: Eric Chang, Taiwan News

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is planning to build two fabrication plants dedicated to next-generation integrated circuit packaging.

According to a TSMC blog post, as workloads for semiconductors have evolved, packing technologies have become increasingly important, and can be critical to a product’s performance, function, and cost. In many cases, making a large monolithic chip using the most advanced processes is not optimal, which is where packaging technologies come into play.

TSMC has several advanced 2.5D packaging and 3D silicon stacking technologies it calls 3DFabric, according to Tom’s Hardware. “TSMC’s logic-on-logic stacking CoW (chip-on-wafer) and WoW (wafer-on-wafer) technologies require advanced frontend production facilities, whereas interposed-based packaging processes like CoWoS (chip-on-wafer-on-substrate) and package-on-package interconnects like InFO (integrated fan-out) use backend fab technologies,” the report said.

TSMC currently has four advanced packaging facilities in Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Taichung, and Tainan. According to Digitimes, TSMC is expecting demand for its 3DFabric services to remain strong in the coming years, so it is planning on building two more packaging facilities.
[FULL  STORY]

YEARS-LONG BATTLE: Lee Chin-cheng was initially sentenced to 10 years in prison after being found guilty of leaking information, but his term has been reduced to six months

Taipei Times
Date: Oct 01, 2020
By: Staff writer, with CNA

A former Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) official involved in an insider-trading case that began more than decade ago had his sentence reduced to six months by the High Court yesterday.

Lee Chin-cheng (李進誠), a former prosecutor who served as director-general of the commission’s Examination Bureau in 2005, had a previous six-year sentence reduced to one year by the High Court after it was ordered by the Supreme Court in July 2017 to review the case.

The High Court then reduced the one-year sentence to six months based on the provisions of the 2007 Criminal Commutation Act (罪犯減刑條例), which allows offenders convicted prior to April 24, 2007, to have their sentences reduced.

The High Court did not immediately explain why Lee, indicted for leaking confidential information to an investor, was given a lighter punishment.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan’s Foxconn, Wistron, Pegatron to commit to India’s new incentive scheme

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/09/29
By: Ching-Tse Cheng, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Three Apple suppliers in Taiwan are reportedly planning to invest a total of US$900 million in India in the next five years under the Indian government's new incentive plan for large-scale electronics manufacturing.

The three Taiwanese contract manufacturers — Foxconn, Wistron, and Pegatron — all plan to participate in India's US$6.65 billion production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme, according to Reuters. The scheme is expected to help add 0.5 percent to India's economic growth in five years by encouraging local electronics production and attracting large investments from major global manufacturers.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 09/29/2020
By: Pan Tzu-yu and Ko Lin

Taipei, Sept. 29 (CNA) The average age of employees in the local job market continues to rise in Taiwan, with the figure hitting a record high at the end of 2019, the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said Tuesday.

According to data released by the DGBAS, the average age of workers in Taiwan was 40.2 years as of the end of last year, up 0.1 years from a year earlier.

Over the past seven years since records began being kept in 2012, the average age of Taiwan's labor force has increased by 1.2 years, the data showed.

Employees in the 25-44 age group accounted for 58.1 percent of the entire labor force in Taiwan at the end of 2019, down from 58.2 percent a year earlier, while the 45 or older age bracket made up 33.1 percent, up from 32.9 percent a year earlier, the DGBAS said.
[FULL  STORY]

LOCAL CAPITAL: Fubon Life Insurance Co’s NT$25.52 billion purchase of Sunworld Dynasty Hotel Taipei helped commercial transactions more than double quarterly

Taipei0 Times
Date: Sep 30, 2020
By: Crystal Hsu / Staff reporter

Commercial property transactions totaled NT$67.64 billion (US$2.32 billion) in the July-to-September quarter, more than doubling from the previous quarter and a year earlier, driven by self-occupancy and investment demand from local technology and insurance companies, Cushman & Wakefield Taiwan (戴德梁行) said yesterday.

Local capital drove all of the deals, of which 72 percent were concentrated in Taipei, Taoyuan and Tainan, Cushman & Wakefield said.

Fubon Life Insurance Co (富邦人壽), the main subsidiary of Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控), acquired Sunworld Dynasty Hotel Taipei (王朝大酒店) near the Taipei Arena MRT Station for NT$25.52 billion, the property consultancy said.

The transaction came with an agreement from the property’s US owner, Sunrider International, to lease the complex to keep the hotel going and generate rent income for Fubon Life.
[FULL  STORY]

Agreement signed at 20th Republic of China-Paraguay Economic Cooperation Conference

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/09/26
By:  Central News Agency

Taiwan and Paraguay on Thursday (Sept. 24) signed a letter of intent (LOI) aimed at promoting technical cooperation between the two countries, during a meeting held remotely via video conferencing.

Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the signing was conducted by the two sides at the 20th Republic of China-Paraguay Economic Cooperation Conference, co-chaired that day by Economics Minister Wang Mei-Hua (王美花) and Paraguayan Minister of Industry and Commerce Liz Cramer. "The LOI on technical cooperation signed at the conference is aimed at building mutual trust in the technical competence of the two sides' respective conformity assessment bodies and harmonizing their regulatory systems through bilateral cooperation and exchanges in the areas of standardization, metrology and conformity assessment," the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) said in a press release Friday.

During the meeting, Wang pointed out that despite the ongoing pandemic, bilateral exchanges have continued to flourish uninterrupted. Citing an example, she said Taiwan's imports of beef from Paraguay have continued to increase, rising 55-fold from US$1.14 million in 2006 to US$64.51 million in 2019.

"Paraguay is now Taiwan's second-largest source of beef imports globally," the minister said, noting that Taiwan will continue to actively assist Paraguay in boosting its agricultural product exports to the island nation through events such as the Food Taipei and Food Kaohsiung annual trade fairs as well as various activities including agri-product procurement missions to Paraguay.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 09/25/2020
By: Pan Tzu-yu and Frances Huang

Taipei, Sept. 25 (CNA) The United States ranked as the largest debtor to banks in Taiwan for the 20th consecutive quarter at the end of June, the central bank said Friday.

Data compiled by the central bank showed outstanding international claims by Taiwanese banks on the U.S. as of the end of June totaled US$91.90 billion, up about US$7.55 billion from a quarter earlier on a direct risk basis.

The growth came after the value of U.S.-based assets owned by Taiwanese banks increased in the wake of a significant rebound by U.S. stock markets at a time when the Federal Reserve eased its monetary policy to fight COVID-19, the central bank said.

On an ultimate risk basis, which calculates a country's consolidated debts after risk transfers, outstanding international claims by the local banking sector on the U.S. was also the largest at US$89.32 billion at the end of June, up from US$83.90 billion at the end of March, the data showed.    [FULL  STORY]

Global demand for high-end products a boost to Taiwan's economy

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/09/22
By: Huang Tzu-ti, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwan’s exports in August totaled US$45.5 billion, rising for the sixth consecutive month and representing an annual growth of 13.6 percent.

August was the month with the most growth since February 2018, said Huang Yu-ling (黃于玲), director of the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ Department of Statistics (DOS). The stellar performance can be attributed to the buoyant demand for high-end semiconductor products and remote technology-related goods.

Exports for electronics and ICT products grew year-on-year by 28.2 and 26.4 percent, respectively, while machinery and optical equipment exports saw 7 and 5.4 percent increases, respectively. Demand for goods in traditional industries like plastics and chemicals was still sluggish but is expected to pick up as economic activity returns globally.

The three largest export markets for Taiwan in August were the U.S. (US$13.7 billion), China (US$12.9 billion), and Europe (US$8.1 billion).    [FULL  STORY]