DRAM-module orders at CeBIT
Taiwan-based DRAM-module makers did receive orders prior to CeBIT 2005. Companies as A-Data and Transcend showed their new products and received orders from clients in Europe and the US, mainly for flash-cards, MP3-players and portable multimedia players. Taiwan DRAM-module makers do not usually receive orders until after the CeBIT, the module makers said. The companies are confident about demand for flash-products throughout the year. Peter Su, chairman of Transcend, said that the supply of flash memory is expected to run short of demand this quarter, and spot prices may rise. Demand for Secure Digital (SD) and MultiMediaCard (MMC) cards is expected to be strong, and the global market for mobile phones that support memory cards is expected to reach 75 million units in 2005, 150 million units in 2006 and 300 million in 2007, the makers stated.
Transcend will add two production lines for DRAM modules and flash-memory products this year, the company expects capacity to jump 60% this quarter, Su said.
AMD: K8 CPUs to 50% of Q2-output
AMD plans to ramp up the output of its K8 CPUs to three million units in the third quarter, up from about two million in Q1, according to chipset makers. AMD’s K7 CPUs totaled four million units in Q1. AMD decided to ramp up its K8 processors in order to take up Intel’s 64-bit-enabled CPUs.
For Q3, the production of the K8 may reach 4.5 million units and account for 70-80% of AMD total CPU output, while the K7 CPUs will total about two million for 20%.
Taiwan chipmakers VIA, SiS and ULi have all reacted positively to AMD’s plan to increase its K8 CPUs. The three makers have all ramped up the proportions of their K8-compatible chipsets since the second half of last year as the K8 solutions generated on average 3-4% more gross margins than the P4 solutions.
Mobo makers: abundant chipsets for socket 775 P4
Chipsets from Intel and nVidia for socket 775 Pentium 4 CPU’s are expected to see greater availability in Q2 and this will place pressure on Taiwan-based chipset makers, according to market sources. Nvidia will begin volume shipments of its first P4 supporting chipsets in april, targeting the high-end segment. Sources also pointed out that first-tier Taiwan motherboard makers have already received these chipsets and they will be ready to roll out Pentium 4 motherboards with the chipsets by the end of March.
In addition, Intel is expected to start to ramp up the supply of its value versions of the i915 chipset, the 915PL and 915GL, in Q2. Although Intel began shipping the 915PL/GL chipsets in January, the initial volumes were rather limited.
Meanwhile, chipset maker VIA will start volume shipments of three versions of its new Pentium 4-compatible chipsets, the PT880 Pro, PT894 and PT894 Pro, by the end of March. The three all support PCI Express and DDR2 memory.
However, to curtail the impact of the availability of nVidia chipsets and the increasing supply of Intel chipsets, Taiwan chipmakers, including VIA and SiS, are likely to focus their production on AMD64/K8-compatible chipsets.
Sparkle launches three GeForce 6 PCIe graphics cards
Sparkle, a Taiwan manufacturer VGA cards, is introducing three new PCI Express-ready GeForce 6 series graphics cards to its line-up. All three support Microsoft’s DirectX9, Shader model 3.0 and DVI interfaces. The 6800 GT is available with 256MB of graphics memory and offers Dual DVI as standard. Equipped with high speed GDDR3 memory, this card will deliver fluid frame rates for the most advanced games and applications. The 6600 GT and the 6800 GT have the added benefit of being nVidia Scalable Link Interface (SLI) multi-card ready, and this helps scale performance as it allows the user to run two graphics cards in parallel.
Asus: no spin off OEM notebook business
Asustek Computer will continue in own-brand and contract notebook business and has no plans to spin off its OEM unit at the moment, said vice chairman T.H. Tung, countering rising speculations that Asustek was poised to spin off its OEM notebook business in order to promote its own-brand models
However, Tung confirmed that Asustek would shift part of its OEM notebook orders to its 100%-subsidiary, Asusalpha Computer, starting the second quarter.
Asusalpha is expected to complete the migration of its production of Apple notebooks from its plant in northern Taiwan to Suzhou, China by the end of Q1 and the capacity left over at the Chungli plant would be allotted to OEM orders, Tung explained. Tung also noted that there is still room for further development of the own-brand notebooks because the world’s top-10 vendors now dominate just about 80% of the global market, while leaving the remaining 20% up for grab.
Prices for 17-inch LCD fall below $ 190
Prices for entry-level 17-inch LCD monitors recently fell below NT$5900 ($190), as white-box makers have been aggressively pricing their 17-inch monitors.
In addition, prices for entry-level 17-inch models from first-tier makers as Acer and Chi Mei Group (offering CMV-branded products) now stand at less than $243, while second-tier makers have lowered their prices to less than $227.
For the Taiwan LCD monitor market, ViewSonic currently has a 20.8% market share, followed by Acer with 18.1% and Chi Mei Group with 15.5%, according to IDC.
AMD accuses Atop for selling stolen defective CPUs
AMD has filed a lawsuit against the chairman of Taiwan-based Atop Electronics, Chen Yue-han , for his alleged involvement in stealing and selling 60,000 suspect AMD CPUs that Taiwan police seized earlier this year, the Chinese-language Liberty Times reported, quoting police sources. The police said that the CPUs were defective AMD K7 and K8 CPUs that should have been destroyed at the company’s testing plant in Singapore two years ago. Chen denied the accusation, stating that he imported more than one million second-hand AMD CPUs legally during the July-October period in 2003 through a Singapore-based company, DCP Corporation, which was jointly set up by Chen and another shareholder of Atop. After being cleaned and re-tested, the bulk of the second-hand AMD CPUs had been sold to companies in Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, the Netherlands, Belgium and the US, the Liberty Times quoted Chen.
While raiding Atop Electronics on March 8, Taiwan’s law enforcement agencies seized another 75,000 suspect AMD CPUs, as well as 25,000 fake STMicroelectronics flash memorychips, te paper reported.
ECS announces dual-Intel/AMD-board
Addressing an old dream of power users to be able to share the same system between both Intel and AMD processors, ECS was showing at CeBIT a new P4 motherboard that makes this possible with just a converter card for an AMD K8 processor and DDR400 memory.
The solution is codenamed PF88 and it is expected to be launched in April. Marketing at ECS said that shipments should begin before May. Both the P4 motherboard and K8 converter card use SiS northbridges, the SiS965 southbridge on the motherboard is used as part of both platforms. ‘It’s also important to mention the solution is designed to support the x86 architecture 64-bit extensions as well as the upcoming dual-core technologies from Intel and AMD,’ ECS noted. The converter card uses a proprietary interface developed by ECS. Details about the interface were not disclosed, except that the interface isn’t based on PCI Express technology.
Fraud allegations may affect PQI’s ability to secure flash
Memory module maker PQI’s ability to secure NAND flash supply from Samsung may be affected by recent allegations that PQI engaged in fake transactions with its subsidiaries. PQI responded by stating that its suppliers are all providing normal levels of flash. Jack Kuo admitted that PQI established several overseas subsidiaries, with which it conducted transactions worth about NT$1 billion (in memory module sales) last year that were not properly reported in its financial statements, leading to a difference of NT$10 million in the company’s reported gross profits.
In addition, company chairman Jance Lu recently confirmed that she has been restricted from leaving the country due to the alleged fake transactions with the Hong Kong subsidiaries
Other memory makers indicated that the timing of the incident may affect PQI’s ability to secure enough NAND flash supply from Samsung, which soon plans to determine its NAND flash allocations for Taiwan’s module makers. However, Kuo claims that the company is in talks with its suppliers (mainly Samsung and Hynix Semiconductor) and expects the event to have no effect on its purchase of NAND flash from the companies. Last year, PQI was the second largest Taiwan-based buyer of Samsung flash products, while this year, the company trails only Transcend and A-Data.