The government will take action if needed to help domestic DRAM companies, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday as it sought to assuage fears over the impact of Elpida Memory Inc’s filing for bankruptcy protection in Japan on Monday.
The ministry said in a statement that to ensure stability and continued development for the DRAM industry, government agencies would closely monitor how Tokyo-based Elpida would undergo a court-led reorganization.
Meanwhile, the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) said it would delist Elpida stock — in the form of Taiwan Depositary Receipts (TDR) — on March 28, following the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s announcement on Monday that it was delisting Elpida’s shares on the Tokyo bourse that day.
Elpida TDRs will be banned from margin trading on the local bourse when the market reopens today after a four-day holiday, meaning all transactions will have to be conducted in cash, the stock exchange said in a separate statement.
Shares of Elpida dropped 23.95 percent to close at ￥254 in Tokyo yesterday. Its TDR ended 6.9 percent lower at NT$7.02 in Taipei on Friday last week.
The ministry and the Financial Supervisory Commission held an emergency meeting yesterday, one day after Elpida filed a petition for corporate reorganization proceedings with the Tokyo District Court to seek protection from creditors for ￥448.03 billion (US$5.53 billion) in debt as of March 31 last year.
Elpida operates a 12-inch fab in Hiroshima, Japan, with a monthly capacity of 120,000 wafers. Its Taiwanese subsidiary, Rexchip Electronics Inc (瑞晶電子), also operates a 12-inch fab with a monthly capacity of 85,000 wafers.
In a statement issued on Monday, Elpida blamed the company’s demise on “the record-breaking strong yen against the US dollar, and the steep fall of the price of DRAM products [because of] fiercer competition in the DRAM industry.”
Sluggish demand for DRAM chips from its customers hurt by the flooding in Thailand last year was another factor behind the company’s failure, it added.
While Elpida said it did not plan to exit the DRAM business and was aiming for restructuring under the Tokyo court’s supervision, Taiwanese companies should take responsive measures to protect their interests in terms of accounts receivable and other issues with the Japanese firm, the ministry said.
Domestic downstream companies should also diversify their sources of supply, the ministry said, as analysts forecast a near-term price spike in memory chips.
“DRAM prices will likely rise (albeit slowly) due to supply shortages,” Samsung Securities’ Seoul-based analysts MS Huang and Eric Yoo said in a note yesterday.
“We expect DRAM prices to stage a mild recovery from the second quarter,” Daiwa Capital Markets analyst Jae H. Lee said in a note on Monday.
The ministry downplayed concern that Elpida’s demise could adversely impact Taiwanese firms that rely on the Japanese company for technology support.
Elpida has made the transition to 30-nanometer (nm) process as its main technology starting this year and is nearing completion of its migration to 25nm process technology.
“There are no such concerns in the near to medium term because Taiwanese firms that have entered into technology cooperations with Elpida have embarked on 3X-nanometer process and are ready to begin mass production,” it said.
ENDEAVOR MANTA: The ship is programmed to automatically return to its designated home port and would self-destruct if seized by another party The Endeavor Manta, Taiwan’s first military-specification uncrewed surface vehicle (USV) tailor-made to operate in the Taiwan Strait in a bid to bolster the nation’s asymmetric combat capabilities made its first appearance at Kaohsiung’s Singda Harbor yesterday. Taking inspiration from Ukraine’s navy, which is using USVs to force Russia’s Black Sea fleet to take shelter within its own ports, CSBC Taiwan (台灣國際造船) established a research and development unit on USVs last year, CSBC chairman Huang Cheng-hung (黃正弘) said. With the exception of the satellite guidance system and the outboard motors — which were purchased from foreign companies that were not affiliated with Chinese-funded
PERMIT REVOKED: The influencer at a news conference said the National Immigration Agency was infringing on human rights and persecuting Chinese spouses Chinese influencer “Yaya in Taiwan” (亞亞在台灣) yesterday evening voluntarily left Taiwan, despite saying yesterday morning that she had “no intention” of leaving after her residence permit was revoked over her comments on Taiwan being “unified” with China by military force. The Ministry of the Interior yesterday had said that it could forcibly deport the influencer at midnight, but was considering taking a more flexible approach and beginning procedures this morning. The influencer, whose given name is Liu Zhenya (劉振亞), departed on a 8:45pm flight from Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) to Fuzhou, China. Liu held a news conference at the airport at 7pm,
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
RSS