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Formosa Epitaxy sees bright future for white LED application



Formosa Epitaxy sees a bright future in white LED as the application expands

into the handset, car and other special lighting applications, according to

Chien Fen Ren, Chairman of the company. Handsets will be the major users of

white LED with demand of over 700 million units per year as the applications on

panels itself will also increase over the next few years. There are

approximately 4.0 billion LEDs used in the 1.5-inch to 7.0 inch LCD panels,

generated an output production value of US $1.0 billion from 2001 to 2005. Chien

predicted that LEDs would be widely used in car headlights by 2008. In addition,

Formosa Epitaxy has announced a new green LED chip for use in RGB LEDs applied

in large-size panel backlighting.

Local pre-recorded discs makers to form an association



Latest development in local industry, as there are more than 30 pre-recorded

discs makers including U-tech Media, Infodisc Technology, Feng Sheng Technology,

and Homenema Disk, is planning to form an industry association in order to boost

their competitiveness in the world as they want to fight with rivals from South

Korea, Russia, and China. This year, the local optical disc makers are facing

the tougher competition of low-price optical discs from abroad, which they can

no longer offer the same global market. Locally, a 4X speed DVD disc cost only

NT $3.00 (equivalent to US $0.10) that they could perform well, which much

lessen than the materials used in production of optical disc itself. Besides

pre-recorded discs makers, local supplier of materials and equipment, blank

optical discs such as CMC Magnetics, Ritek and others, will join the association

as well.

Ranking of DRAM makers remain unchanged in Q3



The world's ranking of top eight DRAM makers remained unchanged in the

third quarter, however the percentage of market share slightly shifted,

according to a statistics report of a research firm. Continuing on the number

one slot is Samsung Electronics of Korea with less than of 30 percent of market

share, followed by Hynix, Micron and Infineon. The fifth and sixth positions saw

the battle between Elpida Memory of Japan and Nanya Technology, Taiwan between

which their difference market share was less than 0.4 percent. Among the eight

DRAM makers, Nanya Technology grew the fastest with 33.8 percent growth rate

because of the production volume of 12 inch fab. The researcher's report also

mentioned that the shift of memory chipset to NAND, most of the DRAM makers the

growth rate of DRAM is 10 percent with the improved production process.

Sharp considers Quanta Display for its 32 inch LCD panels



Sharp is considering outsourcing LCD panels less than 32 inches to Taiwan

makers, and on top of the list is Quanta Display Inc. Katsuhiko Machida,

President, Sharp said the outsourcing move will help the company to save

production cost, however Sharp will continue making its own LCD panels bigger

than 37 inches. Machida said Sharp was talking with several Taiwanese makers and

that he expected procurement to start in next spring season. Taiwan makers such

as AU Optronics Corp, Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp, Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd (CPT)

and Quanta Display are producing about a third of the world's large-sized LCD

screens. This news has excited Taiwan stock market immediately. Quanta Display

shares gained 4.7 percent to NT $11.10 on the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday,

while Sharp rose 1.1 percent to 11,736 in Tokyo.

Taiwan Xbox 360 suppliers expect strong growth in revenues



The contract suppliers of Microsoft's XBox including Foxlink (Cheng Uei

Precision Industry), Ji-Haw Industrial (JH) and Kye Systems are expected to see

strong growth in revenues for the fourth quarter before the official launching

of new generation XBox before end of November. As of mid of November, the total

estimated revenues from these three companies are NT $31.97 billion, NT $5.61

billion and NT $2.32 billion respectively. In addition, Cheng Uei's revenue

hit a new high last quarter alone to NT $7.6 billion while the company pointed

out the company's revenues have risen since August, when it began offering the

Xbox 360's connectors. Microsoft plans to debut Xbox 360 in the US on Nov 22

and is expecting to sell three million units in December and 10 million units

for the whole next year.

Source: www.computex.com.tw