Covestro Taiwan Ltd (台灣科思創) yesterday launched a new research and development center that is to specialize in resin synthesis and fiberoptic coating after its parent company, Covestro AG, acquired a resins business from Royal DSM, it said.
The German company in September 2020 agreed to buy the resins and functional materials business from Royal DSM for about 1.61 billion euros (US$1.69 billion), corporate data showed.
The Dutch company’s local units, such as Covestro Resins (ROA) Ltd (帝昇) and Covestro Resins (Taiwan) Ltd (新力美), are next month to be integrated into Covestro Taiwan Ltd, with their employees continuing resins development, Covestro Taiwan said.
Photo courtesy of Covestro Taiwan Ltd
The Covestro Global Energy Curing Innovation Center was established at National Central University (NCU) in Taoyuan as part of its collaboration with local universities, the company said.
The 1,322m2 facility marks the first global research center located on a Taiwanese university campus and managed by a foreign company, it said.
Aiming to find new solutions to make its ultraviolet (UV)-cured resin synthesis process more sustainable, the company asked eight NCU professors, along with about 20 students, to work on four projects, and expects results by the end of next year, research center head Steve Shih (石健學) told the Taipei Times in an interview.
“Tin is a key production component, and we have managed to minimize tin residues to lower than one part per million, but in the event something goes wrong, we need another material with comparable performance that can substitute for tin,” Shih said, citing an example of one of the center’s projects.
The company is also attempting to seek appropriate bio-based materials, such as plant matter, to replace fossil-based material, as 25 percent of its products are to be made from bio-based materials by 2030, Shih said.
Covestro Taiwan is also working with National Taiwan University and National Chung Hsing University on cutting-edge research on resin development, Shih added.
UV-curable resin is used in a variety of coating applications for fiber optic cables, solar panels, electronic materials, ink printing, floors, premium wood items and papers, Covestro Resins Ltd general manager Troy Shao (邵仲益) told the Taipei Times.
It can also be used inside computing technology given its ability to refract light, Shao said.
A leading Taiwanese semiconductor company has utilized Covestro Taiwan’s technology to make its manufacturing process more sustainable and efficient, he said.
Covestro Taiwan is optimistic that its technology will be applied in Taiwanese 5G networks and to help install thinner glass fibers, he added.
Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves hit a record high at the end of last month, surpassing the US$600 billion mark for the first time, the central bank said yesterday. Last month, the country’s foreign exchange reserves rose US$5.51 billion from a month earlier to reach US$602.94 billion due to an increase in returns from the central bank’s portfolio management, the movement of other foreign currencies in the portfolio against the US dollar and the bank’s efforts to smooth the volatility of the New Taiwan dollar. Department of Foreign Exchange Director-General Eugene Tsai (蔡炯民)said a rate cut cycle launched by the US Federal Reserve
Handset camera lens maker Largan Precision Co (大立光) on Sunday reported a 6.71 percent year-on-year decline in revenue for the third quarter, despite revenue last month hitting the highest level in 11 months. Third-quarter revenue was NT$17.68 billion (US$581.2 million), compared with NT$18.95 billion a year earlier, the company said in a statement. The figure was in line with Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co’s (元大投顧) forecast of NT$17.9 billion, but missed the market consensus estimate of NT$18.97 billion. The third-quarter revenue was a 51.44 percent increase from NT$11.67 billion in the second quarter, as the quarter is usually the peak
Nvidia Corp’s major server production partner Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) reported 10.99 percent year-on-year growth in quarterly sales, signaling healthy demand for artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure. Revenue totaled NT$2.06 trillion (US$67.72 billion) in the last quarter, in line with analysts’ projections, a company statement said. On a quarterly basis, revenue was up 14.47 percent. Hon Hai’s businesses cover four primary product segments: cloud and networking, smart consumer electronics, computing, and components and other products. Last quarter, “cloud and networking products delivered strong growth, components and other products demonstrated significant growth, while smart consumer electronics and computing products slightly declined,” compared with the
The US government on Wednesday sanctioned more than two dozen companies in China, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, including offshoots of a US chip firm, accusing the businesses of providing illicit support to Iran’s military or proxies. The US Department of Commerce included two subsidiaries of US-based chip distributor Arrow Electronics Inc (艾睿電子) on its so-called entity list published on the federal register for facilitating purchases by Iran’s proxies of US tech. Arrow spokesman John Hourigan said that the subsidiaries have been operating in full compliance with US export control regulations and his company is discussing with the US Bureau of
RSS