TaiwanHighTech.Com

The world of OEM and beyond...Dell P4 NB Dell's Inspiron 5150 notebook, using Intel's mobile Pentium 4 processor, is being made by Compal. The new chip was introduced on June 11. Apple, Acer NB Compal has received orders from Apple and Acer for its 15.4 inch wide screen NBs. Compal already makes Dell and HP NBs with the same screen using the Centrino chip. Compal will ship 30-40K Powerbooks a month beginning 2H03. Quanta and Asustek currently make the 15.2 inch and 12.1 inch PowerBooks. Compal will ship 20-30K Centrino NB a month to Acer beginning 4Q03. Compal is king of 15.4 inch NBs. Handset PCB The top 4 Taiwan handset PCB makers will ship 37.4M units in 2Q03, up 3.3% QoQ. That is lower than previous estimates, but not as bad as it could have been (SARS). Taiwan makers ship 40% of global handset PCBs. LCD shipments down in May Taiwan LCD monitor makers saw their May shipments drop by a total of 10% in May, most likely due to SARS. Jean saw shipments down 40% and Sampo shipments were down because it could not find enough healthy workers for its Kunshan plant. Compal actually saw shipments increase. The other companies on the list are Amtran (down by 8K monitors), Lite-On (down by 22K monitors) and BenQ. (down by 20K monitors). Wireless PDA modules to ??? MB maker USI has begun shipping wireless PDA modules this quarter. They won't name the customer, but yd guesses that its IBM, with which they have a ten year relationship. The modules are Wi-Fi (802.11b) modules that support VoIP to enable users to access the internet via their PDAs using hotspots. Rumors, rumors, rumors - mobile phonesRumors have it that Wintek received an order from Nokia for STN color panels for its phones. Also in the rumor mill is the Picvue won BenQ's co-brand color STN panel orders as well. Taiwan #2 in DRAMAccording to DRAMeXchange, Taiwan has replaced the US as the second largest DRAM supplier in the world. 1. S. Korea; 2. Taiwan; 3. Germany; 4. US. However, Taiwan trails far behind #1 S. Korea. SK has 46.9% world market share while Taiwan has 18.3%. Dell slim-type combo drivesQuanta Storage has started shipping slim-type combo drives to Dell, shipping several thousand units per month initially. Other Taiwan slim-type combo makers are shipping well too - Lite-On IT is selling to Sony and a Taiwan NB maker. NECNEC is buying motherboards for its Tablet PC from Arima. Arima will be the first Taiwan MB company to ship Tablet PC MBs to Japan. Shipments to begin by the end of 2003. NEC outsources most of its PC orders to FIC, Arima, and Quanta. TAIWAN @ CHINA Tablet PC Microsoft is teaming up with Legend to market Tablet PCs in China. We assume that Legend will buy them from Taiwan (Wistron) and own-brand them. Legend and WistronRumors have it that Wistron (formerly Acer) is making three NB PCs for Legend and is doing ODM of Legend's Lenovo ET 180 Pocket PC. The Lenovo is a PDA phone with a 400MHz Intel PXA255 processor, 64MB of RAM, 32MB of ROM and a 65,536-color semi-transflective TFT LCD panel. It is sold for 5,880 yuan (about $710). Wistron expects to ship 300K wireless handhelds in 2003. Hon Hai plantHon Hai Precision Industry Co is setting up a new factory in Songjiang, a suburb of Shanghai where Quanta and TSMC are also setting up factories. The plant will make TFT-LCD equipment for Hon Hai's flat panel operations. Hon Hai is pushing full steam ahead in China, in spite of SARS and in contrast to other Taiwan companies (such as TSMC and Quanta) that have slowed their efforts. Legend Centrino NBFIC will be making Legend's new centrino NB, the QDI E360 which has a 14.1-inch panel, is 28-31mm thick and weighs 2.5 kg. It will sell in the mainland market for 13,588 yuan (about US$1,642). Legend buys other NBs from Quanta, Compal, Wistron and Mitac. FIC's order will account for 120-150K NBs for 2003, about half of what Legend buys from Taiwan. COMPANY NEWS Ritek #1 in the world... ... in recordable DVDs since 2H02, with a global market share of 30% in rewritable DVDs and 28% in write-once DVDs in 1Q03. Ritek now sells to Ricoh (Japan)and will likely soon win approval from the DVD Forum Working Group-6 (WG6), a DVD Forum group responsible for the DVD-R/RW specifications. Ritek's monthly disc capacity is 10M units. TSMC With Microsoft likely to switch its X-box 2 order from Nvidia (US) to ATI (Canada), TSMC will suffer, as it is the one that makes the Nvidia chips. The good news is that most of the impact won't be felt until 2005, but until then TSMC will have to scramble to replace that expected revenue source. Flat panel prices up The SARS effect, which lead to decreased production of flat panel displays (used in PCs and TVs) when Japanese equipment suppliers cancelled trips to China, will also result in higher prices. 15-inch flat panel screens now cost $190 per unit, versus $170 in 1Q03. Did MediaTek st**l?? DVD chip designer MediaTek (#1 in the world) had problems in the past with ESS Technology (US), with ESS claiming (and suing) that MediaTek had stolenESS's proprietary DVD user interface and DVD software. Well, the two companies have recently reached an agreement -- MediaTek is paying a ESS $45M licensing fee and ongoing royalties up to $45M in exchange for ESS terminating all its legal claims against MediaTek. Some have said that the settlement amounts to an admission of guilt by MediaTek. SiS buys TridentHere's the story: SiS is a new subsidiary of UMC. SiS has a subsidiary called Xabre Graphics. Xabre just bought Trident Microsystems (US), a maker of graphic card chips. Xabre will now use parent UMC to make the graphic chips. This adds another "chip" to UMC's pocket, which in the last year added SiS (of course) and also ALi's chip. Hmmmm - looks like we have a hungry giant here. ArimaArima is undergoing reorg and expects to shift its focus from NB mfg to the clone market . NB currently account for 80-90% of Arima's revenues, but is expected to drop to 60% in 2004. The company plans to develop 5-10 new products that will bring it better ROI (such as wireless PDAs, smartphones, LCD TVs, DSC) in the future. For NBs, Arima will move from OEM/ODM to the clone market. HTCWith T-Mobile delaying th introduction of its smart phones with embedded Microsoft softwrae due to problems with the software, HTC is expecting shipments to be lower than expected this quarter. 2Q02 LCD and CDT monitor shipments down due to SARSAccording to MIC (government-sponsored), Taiwanese companies will ship fewer monitors in 2Q than expected. The LCD monitor shipment has been revised from 7525K units to 7400K units, while CDT monitor shipments have been revised down from 8423K units to 8100K units. 3Q MB Production1Q03 saw MB production in Taiwan rise by 7.2%, however, production output fell by 10% in 2Q because of the impact of SARS. Although 3Q is traditionally slow, Taiwan companies expect to see production increase dramatically in 3Q03 due to the partial global economic recovery, the short war and the easing of SARS. Taiwan is expected to produce 28M MB in 3Q03. VIA sues MediaTekVIA Tech is suing MediaTek for violating its patent for its ODD controller IC (US patent no. 6,459,665). The move is seen by many as an effort by VIA spinoff VOS to gain market share from MediaTek. SARS UpdateAccording to the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA), SARS cost Taiwan $13.4 B in lost export orders in 2Q03. On the other hand, some electronics firms saw profits and orders rise in March when SARS was in China but not Taiwan and many foreign firms switched their orders from China to Taiwan. MSI PC??? MB maker MSI has decided to compete with its customers, introducing its own line of PCs for the Taiwan market (and maybe elsewhere) under the Mega PC brand. MSI hopes to ship 1M PCs in 2003 and may introduce its a NB this year too. Strange. More of What Nobody WantsAlthough THT's Tablet PCs report is a great hit, nobody wants or is buying Tablet PCs. However, companies keep coming out with new models. HP and Acer both will launch Tablet PCs this summer. For HP it is its second model and it is being made by LGE (S. Korea). Acer's TravelMate 240 is a 14.1 inch Centrino Tablet PC (sort of - its display will be a regular NB display but you'll be able to input data on the screen in addition to the keyboard). Maybe Acer is onto something - the 240 will sell for only about $1,000 and it sounds like it's just a NB you can write on. Mediatek -David vs. Goliaths... Mediatak is a Taiwan DVD chip designer but plans to diversify into mobile phone chips, putting it into direct competition with Motorola and Texas Inc. Mediatek is doing great - its engineering team is excellent and its net profits are growing. However, competition from companies such as VIA are threatening its core business. Mediatek will launch its chips in 2H03, first targeting Taiwan mobile phone makers and urging them to cut costs by buying Mediatek chips. Ramifications of the Palm/Handspring DealTaiwan handheld OEM makers Picvue, Asustek, and Inventec are expecting to see increased OEM orders as a result of Palm's acquisition of Handspring. Asus Stinks #2This week is not only "Motherboard Madness" week at THT, it's also "We Hate Asus" week. The story is that Asus sent Tom's Hardware Pages (the hardware review site) a motherboard sample for review that is very different than the one sold in the shops. According to Tom's Hardware, Asus sent its P4P800 MB for review with a better chipset (Canterwood PAT) than the one on the board as it is sold to consumers (Springdale). Lite-On DSC moduldesLite-On is expanding into and has begun to ship DSC modules for camera phones. Lite-On makes mobile phones for Alcatel, Haier, LG, Siemens, and Sony Ericsson. None of those companies have ordered camera phones, so the shipment must be for a new customer. Global SunGlobal Sun is expecting 35% QoQ sales growth following the introduction of its a+g design and the increased shipments solutions using TIs 11b+ chipset. In addition, the company's GPRS+WLAN dual mode card is expected to see brisk sales in June. For more on Global Sun and how it plans to fight the competition as 11g+ solutions become standard, get our Global Sun Report, Summer 2003. EXHIBITIONS Computex RescheduledComputex 2003 has been rescheduled for Sept 22-26, according to CETRA. According to our sources, SARS is winding down in Taiwan and visits to the island should be okay beginning in July. By September, there should be no fears and CETRA is expecting 30,000 visitors from 150 countries at Computex. So far, 1,148 companies have registered for 2,467 booths.