COMPANY NEWS AND INDUSTRY TRENDS

US$250M Kyocera’s Expansion Investments

Kyocera is expected to invest US$250M (¥30B) to boost its production capacity of 240-megawatts to 500-megawatts by March, 2011 in order to address the increasing demand for solar modules. The company has signed supply contracts with silicon producers to guarantee the increase in manufacturing capacity as this contract will allow Kyocera to expand capacity in quadripartite global manufacturing network for solar modules, which includes plants in Yohkaichi and Ise, Japan; Tijuana, Mexico; Kadan, Czech Republic; and Tianjin, China. Kyocera is aiming to be the leader in solar module manufacturing, both in quantity and quality.

Tatung to Invest US$20M in Proview Electronics

Tatung Group will invest US$20M to acquire a 20% share in Proview Electronics and both sides are expected to benefit from the investments. Tatung will benefit from the strategic alliance, less production costs and larger economic scale in sales and production while Proview will profit from the orders coming in from Tatung, from the latter’s overseas manufacturing plants to ship its products all over the world, and from the display panels from Chunghwa Picture Tubes, an affiliate of Tatung.

Changhong to Buy Sterope

Changhong is planning to buy 75% of Sterope Investments B.V from a JV between Changhong and Irico Group Electronics. Last December 2006, Changhong and Irico Group has acquired 75% shares of Orion PDP, a PDP TV maker which is wholly-owned by Sterope.

Broadcom Acquires Octalica for $31M

Broadcom has agreed to purchase Octalica, a fabless semiconductor company specializing in the design and development of networking technologies based on the MoCA standard, for $31M cash in order to add MoCA technology to its product lines which include Wi-Fi, Ethernet, and Bluetooth products, among others. According to the terms of the agreement, a certain portion of the acquisition amount will be placed in escrow payable to the stockholders. The deal is expected to close by June 30, 2007.

Atmel Sold its Wafer Fabrication Facility

Atmel Corp. has declared that it has sold its Irving, Texas wafer fabrication facility for approx $38M cash to unidentified buyer in order to cut production cost. Atmel’s 1Q 2007 revenues of $391.3M has decreased by 2% from its 1Q 2006 revenues($400.8M) and 4% decrease from its 4Q 2006 revenues ($408.9M).

Emcore Purchased Opticomm (San Diego) for $4M

Opticomm (San Diego) was bought by Emcore for $4M initial consideration for all its shares including the its fiber optic video, audio and data networking business, technologies, and intellectual property. Opticomm was established in 1986 with its Optiva Platform, a complete line of transmission systems, as its flagship product.

Ritek to Spin Off its Optronics Unit

Ritek is planning to spin off its optronics unit that will take effect this August and is projected to make NT$100M in earnings and NT$500M to NT$600M in revenues this 2007 Ritek's optronics unit make 25% of the company’s total revenues. There are also plans to list the unit in GRETAI Securities Market in future.

ASRock Ship Stats

ASRock Incorporation (Asustek's Subsidiary)  MBs Shipments for 2005 and 2006 (thousand units)

Products	2005	2006	shipment comparison (YoY)
MBs	11.33	10.438	92.13%

Source: THT Research

Microsoft to shoot up its smartphone shipments to 20M units in 2008

Microsoft is expected to shoot up its shipment to 20M smartphones embedded with the configurable operation system Windows Mobile 6 in 2008. High Tech Computer Corp. is most likely to land the biggest number of orders from Microsoft. Other communication device suppliers like ASUSTeK, Arima Communications Corp, and HIGIGA Communications are anticipated to share Microsoft`s orders as well.

Sprint Nextel to outsource some of its US$3B WiMAX contract

Sprint Nextel is planning to install WiMAX network in some 10 U.S. big cities including Washington, Chicago, Boston, and Philadelphia to offer broadband wireless connections. The contract is estimated to be worth US$3B. It has contracted Motorola, ZyXEL Communications Corp. and ZTE Corp. to construct the networks. Motorola is likely to land orders from Sprint Nextel to complete first-stage construction of the WiMAX networks in US. Motorola may contract GemTek of Taiwan to provide some of the equipment.

Four Major Panel Makers to increase Production Capacities in China

Major panel makers like AU Optronics (AUO), Chi Mei Optoelectronics (CMO), Samsung Electronics and LG.Philips LCD, are escalating their LCM capacities in China in order to lower production costs amid fast dropping panel prices. CMO is increasing its monthly capacity to 1.3M units in Foshan and 2.6M units in Ningbo plant. AUO’s production capacity in Xiamen is projected to be larger than its current 2M units in Suzhou. Samsung will double its capacity by more than 2M units at the end of 2007 while LG. Philips will increase its LCM investments in China.

Nvidia decided not to join Computex Taiwan 2007

Nvidia has decided not to join at Computex Taiwan 2007 but it will maintain a small display room to showcase its new products during the trade show. Nvidia had not participated both in CES (in US) and CeBIT (in Germany) stating that it had changed its strategy over its investments at trade shows.

Apple to launch new iPods with WiFi

As Apple is planning to launch its new iPods with Wi-Fi in the 2H of 2007, it has contracted Universal Scientific Industrial (USI) to manufacture the Wi-Fi modules and Foxconn to be its OEM system assembler. USI will start its shipments later in April, while Foxconn will do so in the 3Q.

Asustek to reach its estimated target of 7-8M units

Asustek Computer is expecting to reach its target shipments of 7-8 million notebooks for 2007, sustained by new shipments of notebooks to Dell starting June. It is also projected to launch a series of low-cost notebook-style PCs based on Intel's Classmate PC platform in the 2H 2007, further pushing Asustek's total PC shipments. These low-cost Classmate PCs are to be fitted with 7-inch LCD panels from AU Optronics (AUO) and SSD (solid state disk) drives with memory densities varying from 1GB to 40GB priced at US$199, US$249, US$299, US$399 and US$549, respectively. CPUs and chipsets for the Classmate PCs will come from Intel. It is also planning to ship 5M own-brand models this 2007 in contrast with only 2.74M units last 2006.

Microsoft's Deals in the Asian Region

Microsoft has announced that it made four deals with Asian companies like Lenovo Group Ltd, Fuji Xerox Co, NEC Corp and Seiko Epson Corp in order to increase its sales in the Asian region.  Software makers lost more than US$3.9B of prospective sales in Asia last year due to piracy. Microsoft announced its plans in the Asian region: (1) plans to offer its new Office 2007 program for a free 60-day trial in Taiwan to persuade consumers to buy original copies of software; (2) plans to set-up a research center with Lenovo; (3) plans to start a Web site with Intel Corp; (4) plans to strengthen its efforts in the digital world by venturing into new projects like a US$3 software package for governments that subsidize student computers.

Microsoft to partner with Samsung

Microsoft Corp and Samsung Electronics Co have plans to share each other's patents to accelerate development of electronics products at both companies. Samsung may utilize Microsoft's patents for computers, televisions and printers while Microsoft will gain access to Samsung's patents for digital media and computer-related products. The amount involved in the agreement remains undisclosed.

Toshiba Entertainment sold to Hakudo DY Media Partners Inc

Toshiba Corp had decided to let go its film and DVD production and distribution business as it sells its 100%-owned subsidiary Toshiba Entertainment Inc to Hakuhodo DY Media Partners Inc for an undisclosed amount and is planning to focus on its core electronics and energy operations like network technology, broadcasting and telecom technology and digital media products that can create a synergy with fields where the company already has established its strengths

Carlyle Group not purse buyout plans of ASE

The Carlyle Group has decided not to pursue its plans to buyout Advanced Semiconductor Engineering due to disagreement about the offer price. Last November, 2006, an investment consortium led by Carlyle Group had offered to buy all of the Kaohsiung-based chip packager's 4.6 billion outstanding shares at a price of NT$39 (US$1.2) per share, amounting to a US$5.46 billion bid. The offer was increased to NT$39.5 per share by Carlyle after ASE organized a taskforce to assess the bid and negotiated with the consortium. However, ASE’s share rose to NT$41.75 before the close of trading yesterday signifying a 5.7% discount to Carlyle's renewed offer.

Innolux Display to purchase LCD panels from China-based suppliers

Innolux Display is planning to acquire LCD panels from Info Vision Optronics (IVO) due to low supply of LCD monitor panels. Innolux plans to secure as many panels as possible from the China-based maker's fifth-generation (5G) plant. Innolux will increase its purchases with Korea-based players and will also start buying panels from China for the first time this year.

BRING ON THE ORDERS

Asustek landed orders from Chunghwa Telecom

Asustek Computer will manufacture 35,000 set-top boxes (STBs) supporting MOD (media on demand) technology for Chunghwa Telecom (CHT) amounting to NT$120M (US$3.63M). CHT is also planning to solicit bids for 370,000 STBs supporting either MOD or Microsoft's IPTV platform before June worth NT$2 billion.

Intel transferred PBGA orders to Nan Ya

Intel transferred some of its plastic ball-grid array (PBGA) southbridge chip orders to Nanya Printed Circuit Board (NPC)late March as production of flip-chip (FC) substrate SEMCO became unstable.

Projective orders from Texas Instruments to Increase by 40%

In the 2Q of 2007, handset chip orders from Texas Instruments (TI) to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC) is expected to increase by more than 40% as inventory levels decreases and at least 50 handsets adopting TI's low-cost handset chip (LoCosto). Orders from the two manufacturers have been affected by rising inventory levels for handset chips since the 2H, 2006. TI's LoCosto solution is 100% manufactured at foundries of TSMC, UMC and Semiconductor Manufacturing International (SMIC), with production being on 90nm and 0.13-micron nodes.

Google orders handsets from HTC

High Tech Computer (HTC) landed orders from Google for handsets with shipments to start at the end of 2007 and may reach 1M units as it hit global market in 2008. The Google handset has Texas Instruments' (TI) 3G platform and EDGE, has built-in G-mail and Google search and may adopt dual brand (Google and the service provider) but it will not have GPS functionality. Google may likely partner with Orange, a European telecom provider, for the launching of the handset but it is not closing its doors on other providers.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY DISPUTES

HP filed patent infringement lawsuits against Acer, Inc

HP filed two patent lawsuit against Acer, Inc. claiming that it has infringed five patents. The first lawsuit aims to stop Acer from selling "desktops, notebooks, media cen-ters and related products for home and business use" in the US, plus cash compensation. The second lawsuit intends to block imports of Acer computers. Last March, HP already sued Acer involving technologies incorporated in Acer-branded personal computers like power conservation, temperature controls, data transfer and video display resolution. In the world market today, HP had a 19.1% global market share while Acer and Lenovo tied for 3rd place with 6.7% share.