Utilizing 3D digital twins to operate facilities has become common for enterprises. BujiBui, a Canada-based startup, levels up its digital twins by offering mobile access. The company is eyeing countries undergoing infrastructure projects, especially those in Asia, hoping to secure a foothold in the market.

Wireless telecommunications has escaped the worst effects of the semiconductor shortage, and that semiconductors for cellular infrastructure equipment will continue to dodge significant shortages going forward. In addition, availability of chips for Wi-Fi access points and cellular phones will continue to improve through 2023, Strategy Analytics said in its recent report.

Networking device assembler Wistron NeWeb expects the shortage of MCUs, MOSFETs, power management ICs (PWM IC) and other chips demanding mature process manufacturing to persist and continue disrupting its output through the first quarter of 2023.

A leading chipmaker has kicked off its next-generation Wi-Fi SoC inspection and is expected to launch related module products as early as the fourth quarter of 2022, according to sources from IC inspection labs.

The massive new nodes created inside and outside self-driving cars will bring new business opportunities for AI solutions, and the entire creation process can be seen as a combination of "kitchen wastes" and "indestructible cockroaches," according to Wei-Bin Lee, CEO of Hon Hai Research Institute under the Foxconn Technology Group.

Silicon Labs, a US-based wireless SoC and MCU provider, continues to work closely with its Taiwan-based foundry and OSAT partners to improve its delivery lead times, according to Luke Pao, country manager at Silicon Labs Taiwan.

Trend Micro, a founding member of Foxconn-initiated EV consortium MIH, has announced that it has set up a new subsidiary, VicOne, that focuses on automobile data security. According to the CEO of MIH, Jack Cheng, Trend Micro has also helped the EV consortium establish a cybersecurity team.

We all live in a connected world with ubiquitous sensors and connected devices. These connected devices are often powered by batteries without direct access to a power supply, which makes power consumption a top concern when choosing the appropriate wireless communication technology for IoT devices.

Canada AI company Pleora Technologies which created GigE Vision, a standard for networking cameras and processing in industrial automation projects, joined the 2022 Canada Trade Office Taipei (CTOT) startup accelerator program, hoping to find strategic partners which are system integrators or hardware manufacturers and together expand its industrial automation markets in Asia.

High-performance computing technology has been widely adopted in advanced countries to facilitate technological innovation, commercial big-data analytics, and aerospace missions. Taiwan's National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC), an institution under the National Applied Research Laboratories (NARLabs), also provides important high-speed computing resources such as high-speed network infrastructure and computing capabilities to support academia and industries in Taiwan. DIGITIMES interviewed NCHC's new director-general Chau-Lyan Chang, a former senior researcher in the Computational Aeronautics Science Division at NASA Langley Research Center. He returned to Taiwan in April 2022 to lead the Center. We asked him about his vision for the center and his perspective on high-performance computing technology's future outlook.

Toyota Motor Thailand has signed an agreement with Thailand's Excise Department to receive tax incentives and a subsidy for Toyota's battery electric vehicle (BEV) model bZ4X, the Bangkok Post reported on April 29. According to the department, Great Wall Motor Thailand and MG Sales Thailand have also signed such an agreement, which brings BEV taxes down from 8% to 2% until 2026 and provides a subsidy of THB70,000-150,000 to each BEV buyer. Furthermore, import duty on BEV from Japan, South Korea, and Europe will decrease to 20%, 40%, and 40% respectively.

Flexible PCB specialist Flexium Interconnect has turned conservative about its sales prospects for the second quarter and all of 2022, due to concerns about supply-chain disruptions caused by COVID lockdowns and restrictions in the Chinese cities of Kunshan and Shanghai.

Taiwan-based network chips supplier Realtek Semiconductor expects its sales to grow sequentially in the second quarter of the year on strong demand after posting impressive revenue and profit gains in the first quarter.

UnaBiz, the IoT service provider and Sigfox Operator for Singapore and Taiwan, had won the bid and was appointed as the new owner of Sigfox, a French global network operator founded in 2010 that builds low-power wireless networks to connect objects such as utility meters.

Wi-Fi core chip suppliers have obtained more available fab capacities at foundries, which are experiencing cutbacks in orders from other areas, and therefore are seeing their tight supply improve, according to sources at IC design houses.

Taiwan-based networking device makers including Arcadyan, Gemtek Technology, Hitron and Sercomm have earlier relocated parts of their production lines from China to Southeast Asia to counter the US-China trade war, and therefore expect COVID lockdowns in several Chinese cities to have only limited impacts on their output, according to industry sources.

IC distributors have stressed product portfolio adjustments, dynamic management, and risk diversification are all important strategies for major manufacturers in 2022 as demand weakens in the consumer electronics sector.

K-Best Technology, a subsidiary of Acer, is gearing up efforts to introduce its wireless communication technology to the world, as it sets sights on business opportunities in the global Internet of Things (IoT) market.

Taiwan is introducing subsidies for electric vehicle (EV) manufacturers that have the capability to develop and integrate key automobile software, and the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) will help connect local car parts suppliers with car OEs to promote EV manufacturing in Taiwan, according to economics minister Wang Mei-hua.

Indonesia smartphone shipments increased 11% to 40.9 million units in 2021, according to IDC, which predicts that smartphone shipments in Indonesia will rise by as much as 8% to 44 million units in 2022.

Taiwan-based networking device makers, including Sercomm, Arcadyan and Accton Technology, remain upbeat about their sales this year, as they still enjoy brisk order visibility despite disruptions in the supply chain, according to industry sources.

Network IC specialist Realtek Semiconductor saw its March revenue climb 14.8% sequentially to a record high of NT$10.45 billion (US$359.4 million). Revenue for the first quarter of 2022 came to NT$29.76 billion, also a historic high.

As leading chipmakers including Qualcomm, MediaTek, Broadcom and Intel are keenly developing Wi-Fi 7 core chips and 5G mmWave mobile SoCs, Taiwan's IC inspection and certification labs are poised to benefit greatly by offering related services needed to bolster the wireless communications technology upgrades, according to industry sources.

Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger has made a short visit to Taiwan and met with TSMC in an effort to secure not only sub-7nm process manufacturing capacity but also additional 28nm and other mature-node process capacities to relieve its extremely-tight supply of LAN connectivity chips, according to industry sources.

China's mobile telecom carriers have slowed down establishment of 5G infrastructure due to COVID impacts and shortage of ICs for fiber-optic communication equipment, leading to weak demand for components used in such equipment, according to Taiwan-based supply chain makers Apogee Optocom, Elite Advanced Laser (eLaser), Browave and EZconn.