Taiwanese businesses have called for a law on industrial espionage, especially by China, as growing ties have made it easier for Chinese firms to steal secrets, officials and media said yesterday.
Lee Kun-yao (李焜耀), chairman of the flat-panel maker AU Optronics Corp (AUO, 友達光電), made the appeal while meeting President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) with a group of high-tech entrepreneurs on Wednesday.
The proposal was prompted by a spate of cases involving the theft of business secrets from Taiwan’s high-tech companies, Lee said, without providing details.
“Taiwan really needs such a law now as it faces mounting competition from mainland China,” another official from AU Optronics told reporters.
The idea seemed to be supported by several firms, including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電).
“Such a law will better help Taiwan’s industry,” TSMC spokeswoman Elizabeth Sun (孫又文) said.
Currently, suspects are indicted on charges such as breach of trust and embezzlement, but Lee said the punishment for such crimes was not enough.
The Taiwan Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers’ Association, which groups the nation’s major electronics firms, also called for a law as early as possible.
TSMC filed a lawsuit against Chinese rival Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯) in the US in 2003, alleging SMIC improperly obtained its trade secrets and infringed patents. In 2005, SMIC agreed to pay TSMC US$175 million to settle the case after the Taiwan chipmaker filed new evidence of corporate espionage with a US court.
Nvidia Corp’s demand for advanced packaging from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) remains strong though the kind of technology it needs is changing, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said yesterday, after he was asked whether the company was cutting orders. Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip, Blackwell, consists of multiple chips glued together using a complex chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) advanced packaging technology offered by TSMC, Nvidia’s main contract chipmaker. “As we move into Blackwell, we will use largely CoWoS-L. Of course, we’re still manufacturing Hopper, and Hopper will use CowoS-S. We will also transition the CoWoS-S capacity to CoWos-L,” Huang said
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) is expected to miss the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump on Monday, bucking a trend among high-profile US technology leaders. Huang is visiting East Asia this week, as he typically does around the time of the Lunar New Year, a person familiar with the situation said. He has never previously attended a US presidential inauguration, said the person, who asked not to be identified, because the plans have not been announced. That makes Nvidia an exception among the most valuable technology companies, most of which are sending cofounders or CEOs to the event. That includes
INDUSTRY LEADER: TSMC aims to continue outperforming the industry’s growth and makes 2025 another strong growth year, chairman and CEO C.C. Wei says Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday said it aims to grow revenue by about 25 percent this year, driven by robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips. That means TSMC would continue to outpace the foundry industry’s 10 percent annual growth this year based on the chipmaker’s estimate. The chipmaker expects revenue from AI-related chips to double this year, extending a three-fold increase last year. The growth would quicken over the next five years at a compound annual growth rate of 45 percent, fueled by strong demand for the high-performance computing
TARIFF TRADE-OFF: Machinery exports to China dropped after Beijing ended its tariff reductions in June, while potential new tariffs fueled ‘front-loaded’ orders to the US The nation’s machinery exports to the US amounted to US$7.19 billion last year, surpassing the US$6.86 billion to China to become the largest export destination for the local machinery industry, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, 台灣機械公會) said in a report on Jan. 10. It came as some manufacturers brought forward or “front-loaded” US-bound shipments as required by customers ahead of potential tariffs imposed by the new US administration, the association said. During his campaign, US president-elect Donald Trump threatened tariffs of as high as 60 percent on Chinese goods and 10 percent to 20 percent on imports from other countries.
RSS