Samsung Electronics Co, the world’s largest memory chipmaker, yesterday said it would invest about 2.25 trillion won (US$1.9 billion) to build a new non-memory chip line to address booming demand for mobile processors.
The company said the new line, to be built by the end of next year in Hwaseong, south of Seoul, would mainly produce advanced mobile application processors.
It will help meet the expanding demand for smart mobile solutions, Samsung said in a statement.
Photo: EPA
Samsung said in January it would spend a total of 25 trillion won in capital expenditure this year, with 15 trillion won going to its chip business.
Market research firm Gartner forecasts that global demand for system semiconductor chips for use in smartphones and tablets would grow from US$23.4 billion last year to US$59.4 billion in 2016.
Samsung yesterday also vowed to press ahead with the US launch of its newest smartphone this month, despite a fresh lawsuit filed by rival Apple Inc seeking to block the cutting-edge model.
Apple has asked a court for the Northern District of California in San Jose to ban sales of the Galaxy S III on grounds of patent infringement, Samsung said.
“Samsung believes Apple’s request is without merit,” the South Korean firm said in a statement. “We will vigorously oppose the request and demonstrate to the court that the Galaxy S III is innovative and distinctive.”
The Galaxy S III has so far been launched in 28 countries, mainly in Europe and the Middle East. It was launched in China yesterday and will be available in 145 nations by next month.
Samsung has not given an exact date for the phone’s US launch, but says it will be “later this month.”
Samsung, the world’s biggest technology firm, shipped 44.5 million smartphones in the first quarter, exceeding the 35.1 million units shipped by Apple, market researcher Strategy Analytics said in April.
It said the South Korean firm also overtook Nokia as the biggest maker of all types of mobile phone in the same period.
TECH RACE: The Chinese firm showed off its new Mate XT hours after the latest iPhone launch, but its price tag and limited supply could be drawbacks China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) yesterday unveiled the world’s first tri-foldable phone, as it seeks to expand its lead in the world’s biggest smartphone market and steal the spotlight from Apple Inc hours after it debuted a new iPhone. The Chinese tech giant showed off its new Mate XT, which users can fold three ways like an accordion screen door, during a launch ceremony in Shenzhen. The Mate XT comes in red and black and has a 10.2-inch display screen. At 3.6mm thick, it is the world’s slimmest foldable smartphone, Huawei said. The company’s Web site showed that it has garnered more than
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp (世界先進) and Episil Technologies Inc (漢磊) yesterday announced plans to jointly build an 8-inch fab to produce silicon carbide (SiC) chips through an equity acquisition deal. SiC chips offer higher efficiency and lower energy loss than pure silicon chips, and they are able to operate at higher temperatures. They have become crucial to the development of electric vehicles, artificial intelligence data centers, green energy storage and industrial devices. Vanguard, a contract chipmaker focused on making power management chips and driver ICs for displays, is to acquire a 13 percent stake in Episil for NT$2.48 billion (US$77.1 million).