Local printed circuit board (PCB) manufacturers are worried that power cuts in China will reduce factory utilization and throttle revenue growth as the industry enters its peak season, the Taiwan Printed Circuit Association (台灣電路板協會) said yesterday.
The warning came as association members expect to be affected by power rationing in China, which has ordered factories to halt operations for seven to 10 days.
Apple Inc supplier Unimicron Technology Corp (欣興電子) on Monday said that its factories in Suzhou and Kunshan in Jiangsu Province were told to stop production from midday on Sunday through tomorrow.
Photo: Reuters
The two cities are manufacturing hubs for Taiwanese PCB makers and face the most stringent electricity curbs.
“It is challenging for PCB suppliers to allocate manufacturing activities, as the industry is entering the peak season, with demand surging ahead of the Christmas shopping season in the US and Europe, and Lunar New Year gift buying China,” the association said.
Some association members plan to ask employees to start a long vacation before China’s National Day holiday on Friday, it said.
Others have proposed cutting utilization to cope with the energy crunch, it said.
Some PCB firms are also in talks with customers to reschedule shipments or to deliver from manufacturing sites outside of China, the association said.
Its members are also concerned about a potential shortage of raw materials and chemicals if upstream suppliers are affected by the power cuts, it said.
That could lead to a decline in factory utilization, it added.
PCB manufacturers are closely watching whether the power crunch would extend into next month and whether the Chinese government would further tighten energy use, it said.
Longer blackouts and stricter rules would threaten PCB companies’ factory utilization and revenue growth, it said.
China is a major production site for Taiwanese multilayer PCB manufacturers, accounting for 37.3 percent of their combined production, association data showed.
Flexible PCBs are next at 26.7 percent, followed by high-density interconnected boards at 19.1 percent, the data showed.
In Taipei trading yesterday, PCB stocks continued to be affected, with Unimicron Technology closing down 0.72 percent at NT$137, Tripod Technology Corp (健鼎科技) falling 1.71 percent to NT$115 and Compeq Manufacturing Co (華通電腦) dropping 1.57 percent to NT$37.6.
That compared with a 1.28 percent decline in the electronic components subindex and the TAIEX’s 0.76 percent loss.
TECH BOOST: New TSMC wafer fabs in Arizona are to dramatically improve US advanced chip production, a report by market research firm TrendForce said With Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) pouring large funds into Arizona, the US is expected to see an improvement in its status to become the second-largest maker of advanced semiconductors in 2027, Taipei-based market researcher TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said in a report last week. TrendForce estimates the US would account for a 21 percent share in the global advanced integrated circuit (IC) production market by 2027, sharply up from the current 9 percent, as TSMC is investing US$65 billion to build three wafer fabs in Arizona, the report said. TrendForce defined the advanced chipmaking processes as the 7-nanometer process or more
China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) plans to start mass-producing its most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip in the first quarter of next year, even as it struggles to make enough chips due to US restrictions, two people familiar with the matter said. The telecoms conglomerate has sent samples of the Ascend 910C — its newest chip, meant to rival those made by US chipmaker Nvidia Corp — to some technology firms and started taking orders, the sources told Reuters. The 910C is being made by top Chinese contract chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯) on its N+2 process, but a lack
Who would not want a social media audience that grows without new content? During the three years she paused production of her short do-it-yourself (DIY) farmer’s lifestyle videos, Chinese vlogger Li Ziqi (李子柒), 34, has seen her YouTube subscribers increase to 20.2 million from about 14 million. While YouTube is banned in China, her fan base there — although not the size of YouTube’s MrBeast, who has 330 million subscribers — is close to 100 million across the country’s social media platforms Douyin (抖音), Sina Weibo (新浪微博) and Xiaohongshu (小紅書). When Li finally released new videos last week — ending what has
OPEN SCIENCE: International collaboration on math and science will persevere even if the incoming Trump administration imposes strict controls, Nvidia’s CEO said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said on Saturday that global cooperation in technology would continue even if the incoming US administration imposes stricter export controls on advanced computing products. US president-elect Donald Trump, in his first term in office, imposed restrictions on the sale of US technology to China citing national security — a policy continued under US President Joe Biden. The curbs forced Nvidia, the world’s leading maker of chips used for artificial intelligence (AI) applications, to change its product lineup in China. The US chipmaking giant last week reported record-high quarterly revenue on the back of strong AI chip
RSS