Semiconductor manufacturing capacity has been tight, sending some major IC design houses in Taiwan seeking support from Chinese backend firms for packaging lower-end chips. Notebook vendors and ODMs currently do not have a clear outlook for second-half 2021 amid uncertainty arising from the development of the pandemic and component shortages. But they generally believe notebook demand in first-half 2021 will remain stable. Meanwhile, startups in Canada are keen to seek partnerships from Taiwanese manufacturers, according to Jordan Reeves, executive director of Canadian Trade Office in Taipei.
MediaTek may seek capacity support from China OSATs for lower-end chips: Taiwan's first-tier IC designers including MediaTek, now facing increasingly tight capacity support from domestic backend houses, are expected to release some orders to Chinese OSATs JCET, Tongfu Microelectronics and Tianshui Huatian Technology in second-half 2021, according to industry sources.
Notebook demand to remain robust in 1H21: Notebook brands and their ODM partners believe that demand for notebooks will remain stable in the first half of 2021 though at the moment they do not have a clear picture of the second half of the year due to low order visibility, according to industry sources.
Connecting Canada startups with Taiwan: Q&A with Jordan Reeves, executive director of Canadian Trade Office in Taipei: The Canadian Trade Office in Taipei is endeavoring to accelerate collaboration between Canadian startups and Taiwanese companies. Canada's AI strength and car-manufacturing prowess and Taiwan's competitiveness in ICT hardware manufacturing are complementary and have great potential to create synergies.