Elpida Memory Inc’s bankruptcy protection filing might have a mixed impact on the nation’s memorychip industry.
Memory module maker Adata Technology Co (威剛科技) said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday that the bankruptcy protection filing announced by Japan-based Elpida, one of the world’s biggest memorychip makers, had no impact on it due to its diversification strategy of purchasing memorychips.
Memorychip makers Winbond Electronics Corp (華邦電子) and Powerchip Technology Corp (力晶科技) said Elpida’s bankruptcy protection filing had a limited impact on their business, because they have no accounts receivable due from Elpida.
Powerchip, which has a production and marketing partnership with Elpida, said it had stopped its DRAM supply to Elpida in the fourth quarter of last year amid the sector’s slowing demand.
However, Elpida’s bankruptcy might bring Rexchip Electronics Corp (瑞晶電子), a local PC DRAM venture between Powerchip and Elpida that is entering the mass-production stage of Elpida’s 30-nanometer (nm) products, under some pressure.
Despite Rexchip having stopped shipments to Elpida temporarily on Monday, the company reported US$76.4 million in accounts receivable from Elpida for last month and posted US$58.7 million in sales to Elpida, company statistics showed.
That total of US$135.1 million might not be paid to Rexchip in the short term, affecting the company’s cash flow, the company said.
“We will discuss with Powerchip, our major stockholder, seeking a new sales model to Elpida in the future, which will basically be cash transactions,” Rexchip said in its stock exchange filing.
Walton Advanced Engineering Inc (華東科技), a domestic memory assembly and testing service provider, will also be affected by Elpida’s bankruptcy.
Powertech Technology Inc (力成科技), the nation’s biggest computer memorychip packager, will also likely be majorly affected by Elpida’s bankruptcy, a Barclays Capital’s research report said yesterday.
Barclays Capital analyst Andrew Lu (陸行之) said the brokerage house expected to see a one-off loss for Powertech of as much as NT$6 billion (US$203 million) to NT$7 billion, or NT$8 to NT$9 per share, on earnings in a worst-case scenario, compared with the consensus estimate for the company’s earnings per share of NT$7.62 this year and NT$9.48 next year.
However, the loss would only happen in the worst-case scenario, which means Powertech has not yet decided whether to collect its accounts receivables from Elpida and write off its loss, Lu said.
Powertech said its accounts receivables due from Elpida totaled NT$4.5 billion as of yesterday, accounting for 5.4 percent of its assets.
In the meantime, Barclays’ global DRAM research team sees the main beneficiaries of Elpida’s bankruptcy as Samsung Electronics Co and Hynix Semiconductor Inc of South Korea, as well as US memorychip maker Micron Technology Inc.
That means the Nanya-Micron camp, such as Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) and Inotera Memories Inc (華亞科技) in Taiwan, might also benefit.
Powerchip spokesman Eric Tang (譚仲民) also said he expected Elpida’s bankruptcy to be positive for the memorychip market.
Taiwan’s technology protection rules prohibits Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) from producing 2-nanometer chips abroad, so the company must keep its most cutting-edge technology at home, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. Kuo made the remarks in response to concerns that TSMC might be forced to produce advanced 2-nanometer chips at its fabs in Arizona ahead of schedule after former US president Donald Trump was re-elected as the next US president on Tuesday. “Since Taiwan has related regulations to protect its own technologies, TSMC cannot produce 2-nanometer chips overseas currently,” Kuo said at a meeting of the legislature’s
TECH WAR CONTINUES: The suspension of TSMC AI chips and GPUs would be a heavy blow to China’s chip designers and would affect its competitive edge Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, is reportedly to halt supply of artificial intelligence (AI) chips and graphics processing units (GPUs) made on 7-nanometer or more advanced process technologies from next week in order to comply with US Department of Commerce rules. TSMC has sent e-mails to its Chinese AI customers, informing them about the suspension starting on Monday, Chinese online news outlet Ijiwei.com (愛集微) reported yesterday. The US Department of Commerce has not formally unveiled further semiconductor measures against China yet. “TSMC does not comment on market rumors. TSMC is a law-abiding company and we are
FLEXIBLE: Taiwan can develop its own ground station equipment, and has highly competitive manufacturers and suppliers with diversified production, the MOEA said The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) yesterday disputed reports that suppliers to US-based Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) had been asked to move production out of Taiwan. Reuters had reported on Tuesday last week that Elon Musk-owned SpaceX had asked their manufacturers to produce outside of Taiwan given geopolitical risks and that at least one Taiwanese supplier had been pushed to relocate production to Vietnam. SpaceX’s requests place a renewed focus on the contentious relationship Musk has had with Taiwan, especially after he said last year that Taiwan is an “integral part” of China, sparking sharp criticism from Taiwanese authorities. The ministry said
US President Joe Biden’s administration is racing to complete CHIPS and Science Act agreements with companies such as Intel Corp and Samsung Electronics Co, aiming to shore up one of its signature initiatives before US president-elect Donald Trump enters the White House. The US Department of Commerce has allocated more than 90 percent of the US$39 billion in grants under the act, a landmark law enacted in 2022 designed to rebuild the domestic chip industry. However, the agency has only announced one binding agreement so far. The next two months would prove critical for more than 20 companies still in the process
RSS