TSMC’s four-month non-stop profits interrupted

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC)(TPE: 2330) has been making profits between June and October but it has ended last month, the chip maker said on Dec. 10.

TSMC said that the total revenue for November was US$2.4 billion, which was 10.5% less than what the figure was for October. TSMC said that the dropping figures reflected the fact that some of its clients have gone through its regular year-end adjustments for procurement. The November revenue, however, increased 63% anyway, to compare with the same figures for the same period for last year, TSMC said.

“Next year, the global semiconductor industry will grow 4% or 5% annually. We do not see any unusual inventory adjustment on the supply chain, so we expect next year’s growth will be very healthy,” said Mark Liu (劉德音), TSMC co-chief executive officer.

United Microelectronics Corp (TPE: 2303), TSMC’s competitor, also said that the company has experienced a business drop of 14.52% during the same period.

Ting Hsin’s deal with IOI Properties Group may be declined: finance minister

Taiwan’s Minister of Finance Chang Sheng-ford (張盛和) said on Dec. 10 that the deal of Ting Hsin International Group’s selling its stakes of Taipei 101 to Malaysia’s IOI Properties Group (KLSE: IOIPG) may be declined by the government anyway.

“The Ministry of Economic Affairs will carry out a strict mechanism when reviewing the application of the deal. I do not think the case can be closed, now that it is the government’s policy to keep the authority of the building under a Taiwanese major shareholder,” Chang said.

Chang said that the government possesses a total of 44% of the shares of the skyscraper. The Ministry of Finance is planning to buy more shares but it concerns share prices.

“A minor shareholder is also interested in selling its shares to us but the final agreement is not reached. Once the case is closed, the government will become the new major shareholder of the building,” Chang said.

Renminbi’s onshore exchange rate continues to plunge despite central bank’s pushing upward

Traders have pushed the onshore exchange rate for Renminbi to its lowest level since June, despite People’s Bank of China’s raising of the official rate to its highest level since March.

China Economic Review reported that traders gained more leeway to influence the exchange rate since March, when the nation’s central bank doubled the currency’s trading band to 2% on either side of the fixing.

Institute releases environmental violations information for publicly listed firms in China

Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, a Beijing-based firm, released the latest information to call out more than 200 publicly listed firms for excessive pollution on Dec. 9.

Data collected by the institute said that 1,069 firms it examined had environmental violations on the records, including a total of 34 out of the 36 listed iron and steel companies in China and nearly 80% of China’s listed power companies.

The data singled out a number of regular violators, including top state enterprises Sinochem International (SHA: 600500) and Aluminum Corp of China (NYSE: ACH).

Taiwan is the 10^th trading partner for the U.S.: Department of Commerce

The latest statistics by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of the Census showed that Taiwan is ranked as the 10^th major trading partner for America.

The statistics showed that a total of US$56.4 billion was reached via trading business between two nations during the first 10 months of this year, which increased 7.1%, to compare with the same figure for the same period a year ago. Taiwan is ranked as the 10^th trading partner among other 223 nations.

The total U.S. exports to Taiwan was US$22.2 billion which increased 6.6%, while imports from Taiwan was US$34.2 billion, which increased 7.4%.

The same statistics showed that China is ranked as the second major trading partner for the United States. The total amount of business between two nations reached US$483.6 billion during the first 10 months this year, while U.S. exports to China was US$99.6 billion.

The post Cross-strait News Daily Round-up for Dec. 10 appeared first on VR World.

In a blog, Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) stated that it has filed patent infringement complaints with the US District Court in Delaware (where most US companies are incorporated) as well as with the International Trade Comission regarding Samsung (KRX:005935) and Qualcomm’s (NASDAQ:QCOM) infringement of its patents (You can view the complaints here (ITC) and here (Delaware)) .

Nvidia is alleging that Samsung’s devices that use Qualcomm’s chips are infringing upon Nvidia’s own technologies that have been patented. Not just that, but by filing a complaint with the ITC, Nvidia is seeking that such devices that infringe upon these patents be banned from importation and sale within the United States.

The devices that Nvidia claims infringe upon their patents include the Galaxy Note 4, Galaxy Note Edge, Galaxy S5, Galaxy Note 3, and Galaxy S4 as well as the Galaxy Tab S and Galaxy Note Pro. Nvidia claims seven different patents were violated by Samsung’s Exynos processors as well as Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processors. The Qualcomm Snapdragon processors that are claimed to infringe upon these patents include the Snapdragon S4 (using the Adreno 225), Snapdragon 400 (using the Adreno 305), Snapdragon 600 (using the Adreno 320), Snapdragon 800 and 801 (using the Adreno 330), and Snapdragon 805 (using the Adreno 420).

A careful reading Nvidia’s patent infringement complaint shows that Nvidia has made a clear decision here to go after Samsung and Qualcomm. Obviously, this hurts Nvidia’s chances of ever landing a design win inside of Samsung, but by going after Samsung and Qualcomm, the company goes after the biggest seller of Android smartphones and the biggest seller of Android smartphone SoCs. Additionally, the complaint states that Nvidia is claiming that Samsung infringes on their GPU patents by saying Samsung uses Mali and PowerVR graphics, which aren’t actually theirs but rather graphics they license from ARM and Imagination technologies, however Nvidia has chosen not to include them in the suit.

Qualcomm and Samsung are not GPU pioneers or innovators in graphics technology. Qualcomm dominates the global market for smartphone applications processors, with a market share exceeding 50%, and is also a leader in tablet application processors. Samsung leads the global market in sales of smartphones, selling about twice as many as its nearest competitor, and is also a global leader in the sales of tablet computers, nearly tripling its market share over the past two years. Many of Samsung’s smartphones and tablet computers are powered by mobile processors supplied by Qualcomm, which use GPUs commercially known as
“Adreno.” Other smartphones and tablets sold by Samsung use GPUs commercially known as “Mali” or “PowerVR.” All of these products infringe the Asserted Patents. The market success of Qualcomm and Samsung in these areas is built on the back of NVIDIA’s pioneering graphics technology, and Qualcomm and Samsung continue to release new products using NVIDIA’s technology.

The patents in question,  6,198,488, 6,992,667,  7,038,685, 7,015,913, 6,697,063, 7,209,140 and 6,690,372 all pertain in one way or another to graphics patents and it appears quite clear that Nvidia is attacking the two biggest players in Tegra’s own mobile SoC space.

The claims Nvidia makes are all utility patents and they go into deep technical detail about certain graphics processes that Nvidia believes Qualcomm and Samsung are infringing upon. The reality of the situation is that Nvidia could theoretically sue Apple, Imagination Technologies, ARM and virtually any smartphone or SoC manufacturer in the world for patent infringement based upon these claims. But Nvidia is choosing not to instead going after Samsung and Qualcomm, and really it seems like Samsung is just collateral damage here, but it could also be that Nvidia wants to weaken Samsung in order to make room for other vendors that might use their chips like Tegra K1. It could also be that Nvidia may just want to generate IP licensing revenue from all of Samsung’s billions of dollars in sales of Galaxy devices and that could be good enough for them. Until we get some comment from Qualcomm and this thing actually goes to court, we probably won’t know the outcome of this suit. Once again, the tech industry continues to sue one another for patent infringement.

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