BRING ON THE ORDERS
Innolux LED backlight orders
Everlight Electronics has won orders from Innolux Display for LED backlights for 7-inch LCD panels.
Philips LED orders
Royal Philips has placed US$12.3M worth of LED orders with Opto Tech from for use in World Cup LED signs.
AKT order
LCD equipment supplier AKT (US) has placed OEM production orders for EBT (Electron Beam Array Testers) used in pixel array testing of 5G TFT-LCD panels from Marketech International Corporation (Taiwan).
Motorola CDMA handset orders
Motorola plans to place a low-end CDMA handset orders with Compal, according to media reports
ProMOS ion implanter orders
Advanced Ion Beam Technology (AIBT) (US) has received orders from ProMOS for iStar ion implanters for its 12-inch wafer fab. In the past ProMOS bought ion implanters from Varian Semiconductor Equipment Associates.
Microsoft should be happy
Lenovo Group has announced that it will purchase RMB1.2B worth of OS's from Microsoft for the China market and RMB10B world-wide in 2006. Lenovo began pre-installing OEM copies of Windows in its PCs in November 2005.
Sipix closes China deal
Sipex, a Milpitas, CA based analog IC supplier, has signed a foundry services agreement with Hangzhou Silan Microelectronics Co. Ltd. and Hangzhou Silan Integrated Circuit Co. Ltd. The agreement includes manufacturing, product licenses, process technology transfers and fab equipment sales. With the deal, Sipex will completely stop manufacturing in Milpitas.
Skywirth adopts Philips' LCD TV chip
Skyworth is using Philips' TDA15500 single-chip solution with TV505 reference design in its new 8T84 series LCD TVs. The solution, according to Philips, shortens development time and lowers manufacturing costs. The chip offers IF decoding, audio/video decoding, picture quality improvement, de-interlacing, scaling and sound processing in a single package. Using a single chip also lowers production costs.
Transmeta licenses to Toshiba
Transmeta Corp has closed a deal with Toshiba for licensing its LongRun2 technology for reducing power consumption. Toshiba can use the technologies in 90-nm to 22-nm CMOS process generations.
PC on Wheels
Sinbond's autoelectronics market debut
Auotomotive electronics accounts for 1% of Sinbond's sales. It has recently received first orders from Denso (Japan), a major supplier to Toyota. Sinbond is making its entry in the automotive space with a cable for the oxygen sensor. The entry barrier for this product is higher than that required for, for example, audio, reverse sensors, etc. Sinbond is also in talks with other Japanese and some Taiwan auto makers and expects to earn NT$60-90B from the business in 2006.
Tai Saw IPO
Tai Saw Technology Co., LTD TST, the leading SAW (surface acoustic wave) device supplier in Taiwan for automobiles and other products, will have its IPO on Taiwan's GRETAI exchange on March 22. The company was founded in 1997 by former employees of Motorola.
Comtech, Vishay cooperate in China
Comtech Group Inc., which makes customized module design and subsystem solutions for technology manufacturers in China, has entered into a relationship with Vishay Intertechnology to provide electronic component solutions to the automobile electronics industry in China. Vishay will supply the components while Comtech will provide the design work.
COMPANY NEWS AND INDUSTRY TRENDS
Funai - CMO panel supply deal
Funai Electric Co (Japan) and CMO (Taiwan) have signed a cooperation agreement for supply of LCD TV panels. Funai plans to launch a series of new products in 2Q06 boasting the world's best picture quality. According to the agreement, Funai will provide US$400M financing to CMO. Funai sells its products world-wide under the Emerson, Sylvania, and Symphonic brands.
Formosa NBA capacity expansion
Formosa Plastics, which is invested in both FIC and HTC, plans to build a new N-Butanol (NBA) plant with a 250M ton capacity to be completed by 2008.
Adlink - Knotron alliance
IPC manufacturer Adlink Technology Inc. (Taiwan) and industrial PC vendor Knotron (Germany) to promote small-sized module computers. Adlink aims to promote branded products in Europe, especially the microETXexpress module computer developed by Kontron.
CMO - Thomson deal
CMO and Thomson Licensing Inc. (France) have signed a deal under which CMO will license all of Thomson ’s LCD monitor-related patents. In 2005, Thomson filed patent-infringement litigation against BenQ and AUO. CMO has signed similar agreements with Sharp, Hitachi, Fujitsu and others.
CPT denies merger rumors
CPT is denying reports that it plans to merge with another panel maker, although it isn't ruling out "cooperation."
Lenovo
Lenovo, according to iSuppli, is now the #3 PC company world-wide, having shipped 13.9M units in 2005 for a global market share of 6.4%.
CHINA
Mitsubishi out of China phone market
Japanese companies just can't seem to take the heat in China. Mitsubishi recently became the third Japanese company to exit the China mobile phone market, following Toshiba and Panasonic.
M & A
Genius goes to Japan
Phone camera lens kit maker Genius Electronic Optical (Taiwan) has announced that it plans a JV with a Japanese company in order to supply the Japanese market. Genius can currently produce 40M plastic lenses/month and expects to expand production to 60M by 1Q07.
Motorola completes acquisition of Kreatel
Motorola has completed acquisition of Kreatel Communications AB (Sweden), a developer of IP based digital STBs. Kreatel's flexible STB platform will be integrated into Motorola's end-to-end digital video solutions. Kreatel will maintain its Sweden operations and the company will be integrated into Motorola's Connected Home Solutions business.
KLA-Tencor to acquire ADE
KLA-Tencor Corp. plans to acquire ADE Corp. for US$488M in stock. The acquisition will help KLA-Tencor expand its silicon wafer inspection business. Last month KLA-Tencor withdrew its offer to acquire August Technology Corp.
M&As in the LCD driver backend sector
Gold bumping company Fupo is looking to merge with a larger LCD driver backend service company in order to keep pace with the trend of providing turnkey services - a challenge for small companies like Fupo.
ACCOUNTABILITY CORNER
Asia Optical DSC shipment
Asia Optical had set its DSC shipment forecast at 6M units - it's only March and the company has downgraded to 3.9M units. Following its decision to withdraw from low-mid-end models, that number sounds high too and we expect further downgrades. Premier, on the other hand, expects to ship 15M units in 2006, a 15% global market share.
