Changhua County-based Depo Auto Parts Industrial Co (帝寶工業), which specializes in manufacturing automotive lighting products, said a fire broke out yesterday at one of its plants and the blaze raged for four hours before being contained.
Dark black smoke that shot skyward was visible across much of Changhua County’s Lugang Township (鹿港) as firefighters and emergency teams battled the blaze, according to footage aired by local cable TV network UBN.
At press time, Depo officials said they were still investigating the cause of the fire at the plant, which erupted at about 1:30pm.
The state-run Central News Agency reported the fire likely began at a four-store plating and coating complex at the plant, citing the Changhua County Government’s firefighting bureau.
“The fire caused no injuries,” Depo spokesman Edward Lu (呂理豐) said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
“There was no major damage to the company’s finances,” Lu added.
Depo has three plants in Taiwan. The other two are located at Greater Tainan’s Sinying (新營) and Yungkang (永康) townships.
The company also manufactures auto body parts such as side bumpers and plates for the after-market business segment and markets its products under its own brand name.
Shares of Depo closed down 1.46 percent at NT$95.6 yesterday.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said that its investment plan in Arizona is going according to schedule, following a local media report claiming that the company is planning to break ground on its third wafer fab in the US in June. In a statement, TSMC said it does not comment on market speculation, but that its investments in Arizona are proceeding well. TSMC is investing more than US$65 billion in Arizona to build three advanced wafer fabs. The first one has started production using the 4-nanometer (nm) process, while the second one would start mass production using the
A TAIWAN DEAL: TSMC is in early talks to fully operate Intel’s US semiconductor factories in a deal first raised by Trump officials, but Intel’s interest is uncertain Broadcom Inc has had informal talks with its advisers about making a bid for Intel Corp’s chip-design and marketing business, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Nothing has been submitted to Intel and Broadcom could decide not to pursue a deal, according to the Journal. Bloomberg News earlier reported that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is in early talks for a controlling stake in Intel’s factories at the request of officials at US President Donald Trump’s administration, as the president looks to boost US manufacturing and maintain the country’s leadership in critical technologies. Trump officials raised the
‘SILVER LINING’: Although the news caused TSMC to fall on the local market, an analyst said that as tariffs are not set to go into effect until April, there is still time for negotiations US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that he would likely impose tariffs on semiconductor, automobile and pharmaceutical imports of about 25 percent, with an announcement coming as soon as April 2 in a move that would represent a dramatic widening of the US leader’s trade war. “I probably will tell you that on April 2, but it’ll be in the neighborhood of 25 percent,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago club when asked about his plan for auto tariffs. Asked about similar levies on pharmaceutical drugs and semiconductors, the president said that “it’ll be 25 percent and higher, and it’ll
CHIP BOOM: Revenue for the semiconductor industry is set to reach US$1 trillion by 2032, opening up opportunities for the chip pacakging and testing company, it said ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光投控), the world’s largest provider of outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) services, yesterday launched a new advanced manufacturing facility in Penang, Malaysia, aiming to meet growing demand for emerging technologies such as generative artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The US$300 million facility is a critical step in expanding ASE’s global footprint, offering an alternative for customers from the US, Europe, Japan, South Korea and China to assemble and test chips outside of Taiwan amid efforts to diversify supply chains. The plant, the company’s fifth in Malaysia, is part of a strategic expansion plan that would more than triple