Rather than exporting masks, the nation’s leading mask manufacturers plan to export turnkey mask factories as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to affect much of the world.
As a solution to unmet global demand for masks amid the pandemic, Taiwan Comfort Champ Manufacturing Co (台灣康匠) is offering a “total solution” for mask production, including the raw materials, production equipment and testing technology.
“We have miniaturized our mask production line so that it fits in a shipping container. Production can start as soon as you remove the container floor,” Taiwan Comfort Champ chairman Andy Chen (陳勇志) told a news conference in New Taipei City’s Tucheng District (土城) yesterday.
Photo: Chen Jou-chen, Taipei Times
Except for the machines that make and package the masks, the “one-stop mask factory” includes all of the equipment and technical support to produce the critical non-woven layer that serves as the mask’s filtration material, Chen said.
The news conference was organized by the government-backed Taiwan Textile Research Institute (紡織產業綜合研究所).
Each miniature mask factory costs as little as US$5 million and can produce as many as 600,000 masks per day if continuously operated, Taiwan Comfort Champ said.
Higher capacity modules capable of producing up to 2 million masks per day are also available, a company release said.
The mini-factory allows production to rapidly increase and is more environmentally friendly, Chen said.
“Keeping the entire production and packaging process in the same area saves a lot of packaging and transportation costs,” he said.
Despite the unprecedented demand for masks internationally, Taiwan Comfort Champ did not get to cash in on the opportunity because the government set pricing controls, he said.
“We had to drop a lot of foreign orders,” he added.
The company has received inquiries from the US, Canada, Indonesia, Japan and Spain, but investors tend to be hindered by technical hurdles, Taiwan Comfort Champ said, adding that the first turnkey mini factory is to be shipped to Thailand.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday obtained the government’s approval to inject an additional US$10.26 billion to finance the construction of its second fab in Kumamoto, Japan, and a second fab in Arizona, using advanced process technologies. The Department of Investment Review approved TSMC’s investment applications on the basis that Taiwan remains a major technology and manufacturing hub for the chipmaker, which makes its most advanced chips at home, the company operates its research-and-development center here and the majority of its capacity remains in Taiwan. The latest capital injections — US$5.26 billion for its Japanese venture Japan Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing
DIVERSIFYING: Following customers’ demand to improve supply chain resilience, ASE is looking for sites in the US, Japan and Mexico, a company executive said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it plans to launch a new high-end chip testing fab in the US next month to better serve its key customers based in North America, particularly California-based artificial intelligence (AI) customers. The new US testing facility would be operated by the firm’s subsidiary ISE Labs Inc, it said. ASE’s major customers, and high-ranking US officials and representatives from American Institute in Taiwan are to attend the fab’s opening ceremony on July 12, it said. ISE Labs last year acquired a 5,942m2 facility in San
Local companies believe that nearly a third of all job opportunities will vanish in 10 years due to the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), according to a survey released by online job bank yes123 on Tuesday. In the survey of 1,016 companies on the labor market’s third quarter outlook, the job bank focused in part on AI’s impact on workers and asked companies what percentage of jobs they felt would be lost to AI’s round-the-clock productivity and high-speed computing prowess. Respondents felt on average that 29.2 percent of job opportunities would be lost to AI over the next 10 years, but there
Taiwanese workers earned an average of NT$47,000 per month this year, but 40 percent are struggling financially and 18 percent plan to switch jobs within 12 months, two separate surveys showed yesterday. The amount equals a 5.4 percent increase from a year earlier to a decade high, 104 Job Bank (104人力銀行) said. The government is due to review the nation’s minimum wages. Employees at computer and consumer electronics manufacturers reported the highest average monthly wage of NT$60,000 a month, followed by semiconductor firms at NT$59,000, and vendors of shoe and textile products, along with software and Internet businesses at NT$55,000, 104 Job