Science and Technology Weekly|Taiwan earthquake affects semiconductor factories Tesla turns to autonomous driving development

The earthquake in Taiwan affected semiconductor factories

On April 3, several earthquakes struck Hualien County, Taiwan, with the largest magnitude of 7.3. TSMC replied to reporters that some factories have been evacuated, some of UMC's machines have been shut down, and UMC has suspended the operation of some factory machinery and equipment. Memory manufacturer Winbond said that the factory facilities are operating normally, and the actual impact is being assessed. Nanya Technology said that some machines have preventive shutdowns. It is reported that the impact of the earthquake on TSMC's second quarter fiscal quarter is about $60 million, in this regard, TSMC told reporters that the news is "not released by TSMC". Subsequently, TSMC also said that in addition to being located in areas with large amplitudes, some production lines still need to be adjusted and calibrated to resume automated production, and the wafer factory equipment has been largely restored.

Comments: Taiwan is located in the Pacific Rim Seismic Zone, earthquakes are frequent, and Taiwan is also the world's semiconductor manufacturing powerhouse, accounting for about 46% of foundry capacity last year. According to TSMC's official website, since the 921 earthquake in 1999, the company has adopted seismic management measures that exceed regulatory standards. However, objectively, located in the seismic zone, foundry wafer fabs such as TSMC will continue to face the threat of earthquakes.

AUO, Innolux and other panel faucets were once suspended for 12-18 hours

On April 3, the earthquake in Taiwan caused the factories of local panel leading companies AUO and Innolux to suspend production for maintenance. On April 5, a Taiwanese industry veteran told CBN that AUO and Innolux's factories were back to normal within 12-18 hours.

Comments: The earthquake in Taiwan has affected the production of panel factories north of Taichung, including some factories of AUO and Innolux, as it takes about 1-2 days to restore production capacity due to the suspension and recalibration of machines. The overall supply of LCD panels in April will be affected. In addition, semiconductor driver chip wafer foundries, such as TSMC, VIS and UMC, are north of Taichung, and their production capacity is also affected by half a day to a day, which will affect the supply of panel driver chips. These will support the price increase trend of LCD panels.

The Qingming holiday drives the consumer market around the world

According to Meituan data, the average daily consumption scale of the Qingming holiday increased by 39% year-on-year, and the consumption scale of Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Chengdu and other cities ranked among the top in the country.

During the holiday, the topic of "all scenic spots across the country look like there are 100 million people" became popular on social networks. Scenic spots continue to focus on spring travel, such as Wuhan, Hubei, Luoyang, Henan, Wuyuan, Jiangxi are all popular destinations, and the recently popular Kaifeng "Long Live Mountain Martial Arts City" once again ushered in the peak of passenger flow, and the order volume of Meituan cultural tourism during the Qingming holiday in Kaifeng increased nearly 4 times year-on-year.

Different from the Qingming holiday in previous years, this year's "spelling holiday" long-term tour is more popular. According to Meituan data, from the perspective of tourist structure, the proportion of inter-provincial tourists during this Qingming holiday has increased significantly, and the travel radius of tourists has continued to expand since the beginning of this year.

Comments: During this year's Qingming holiday, the consumption of many life service industries such as food, housing, transportation, travel, shopping and entertainment has improved, highlighting the potential of domestic demand. At the same time, new consumption patterns and festivals created by various regions in combination with regional characteristics have achieved remarkable results in promoting consumption, a large number of cross-format linkage scenarios have emerged, and the online and offline marketing methods of the platform have been continuously renovated, and the consumer market is expected to continue to heat up in 2024.

Operators respond to the risk of canceling mobile phone numbers at will: they will expand the coverage of the "secondary number" unbinding service

Recently, the police officer "Xu Dudu" of the Public Security Bureau of Tongling City, Anhui Province, said in a popular science video posted on his social media account: "Canceling a mobile phone number is tantamount to selling yourself, and a mobile phone number that is canceled at will is likely to cause property losses." Subsequently, the topic rushed to the first place on the hot search list on Weibo, causing widespread heated discussions among the masses.

For market concern, China Mobile's official customer service responded to the first financial reporter on April 6, China Mobile number has a 90-day "freezing period" after the account is closed, and the number will enter the number library again for subsequent market launch after the "freezing period". China Mobile's official customer service told reporters that it will continue to expand the application scope of the "secondary number" unbinding service under the guidance of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Comments: The trouble caused by the "second release" has plagued consumers for a long time. It is understood that under the guidance of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, China Mobile has previously developed a "secondary number" unbinding service with two other operators. The service will unbind the Internet applications that have been accessed in batches before the number is put into the market again, and has now covered 11 applications: Alipay, Taobao, Douyin, Toutiao, Meituan, Volkswagen, Bilibili, Vipshop, Zhenai, Paipai and Kuaishou. The second is that users can also self-unbind after opening the card, which has covered 15 applications.

However, some consumers have reported to reporters that many commonly used apps bound to mobile phone numbers "One Card Check 2.0" are not covered, and no one will specifically remember how many applications their mobile phone numbers are bound to, and it is extremely difficult to ensure that all of them are unbound before canceling their mobile phone numbers. At present, it seems that the unbinding of mobile phone numbers and APPs is a "big project", operators insiders told reporters that due to the different ways and operations of different applications to unbind mobile phone numbers, it will be more difficult for operators to carry out unified operations.

After Apple gave up building cars and laid off employees, Tesla canceled low-cost car development and switched to self-driving projects

According to the latest filing documents in California, Apple will lay off 614 employees in California. The layoffs come after Apple canceled its self-driving car program.

At the same time, Tesla is shifting from the development of low-cost cars to the development of robotaxi.

Musk said on X: "Tesla's Robotaxi will be unveiled on August 8. ”

Comments: Xiao Jianxiong, founder, chairman and CEO of AutoX, an autonomous driving technology company, told the first financial reporter: "Tesla already has relatively mature autonomous driving technology, which is its advantage over Apple, which further shows that L4 autonomous driving still has development potential." ”

Currently, only China and the United States have opened up public road testing of autonomous driving, but there are still strict restrictions. Xiao Jianxiong suggested that China should like the United States as soon as possible, and permit "iron cars" with autonomous driving capabilities to start unmanned driving when they enter the L4 autonomous driving area.

Tsai Chongxin on Ali: We found that we were lagging behind

On April 3, in a new interview video released by Norway's sovereign wealth fund Norges Bank Investment, Joe Tsai, co-founder and chairman of Alibaba, talked about the tough competition Alibaba faces, saying that when Alibaba looked inside and reflected on the situation over the past few years, he found that Alibaba was lagging behind. "Because we forgot who our real customers were. Our customers are users who shop using our app and we don't give them the best experience. So in a way, we're kind of self-defeating. Tsai Chongxin said that Ali must first admit his mistakes and reshuffle personnel. He commented that the new Alibaba CEO Wu Yongming is "very, very user-focused, focused on the product, the interface and the user experience", which is the most important thing for Alibaba.

Comments: Previously, Taotian Group made drastic organizational adjustments, and the digital "post-80s" became the leaders of Taobao and Tmall's core business, judging from Tsai Chongxin's speech, whether it can improve the user experience of Taobao and Tmall and make up for Alibaba's mistakes in the past few years may become an important indicator for Alibaba Group to consider the new management team of Taotian Group. At the same time, the consumption potential of China's consumer market may still bring growth space for Alibaba.

Xiaomi's stock price once exceeded the opening price of the listing five years ago

On April 2, Xiaomi Group's stock price opened 15% higher after the release of the Xiaomi Auto SU7, and then gradually declined. Previously, Xiaomi's listing opened at HK$16.6 and finally closed at HK$16.8. Although it suffered a breakdown under the macro environment at that time, at the evening celebration banquet on the day of listing, Lei Jun, the founder of Xiaomi Group, said, "It is necessary to double the income of investors who buy Xiaomi shares on the first day of listing." More than five years have passed, and the stock price of Xiaomi Group has fluctuated. Today, the new energy vehicle business has entered the core business territory of Xiaomi Group, which also gives the secondary market new expectations.

Comments: Wind data shows that from December 31, 2018 to April 2, 2024, Xiaomi Group's share price has risen by 1.45%, with an all-time high of HK$35.9 and a low of HK$8.28, with a maximum drawdown of -76.85%. At present, the secondary market has high expectations for Xiaomi, and it mainly focuses on its "people, cars, and homes" ecology and high-end strategic layout. Industry insiders commented that Xiaomi started with traffic, and the new retail model created by traffic marketing has a slight advantage over other car companies, but under the disadvantages of entering the game too late and the disappearance of policy dividends, the key to breaking the situation lies in innovation, developing technical advantages that no one else has, and improving product competitiveness.

Venture capital vane

According to IT orange data, this week (April 1-7), there were 82 investment and financing events in the field of venture capital, among which in the field of artificial intelligence, Bohan Intelligent received a new round of strategic financing of tens of millions of yuan. As a provider of artificial intelligence integrated platform and intelligent data processing solutions, Light Source Capital serves as the exclusive financial advisor of Bohan Intelligence, and has launched a new round of financing for Bohan Intelligence. Maitu Intelligent MyTwins.ai, a developer of digital life technology, completed an angel round of financing of 10 million yuan, which was jointly led by Jiangmen Venture Capital, Yongxi Asset Management and Westlake Science and Technology Venture Capital, with Yuanqi Capital as the exclusive financial advisor.

In the field of biomedicine, Inzheng Gene has completed a new round of financing, which is a gene editing platform technology solution provider and a gene editing platform technology company, focusing on the development of the underlying technology of gene editing tools. This week, Ingenomics completed a $10 million Pre-A+ round of financing, co-led by Suntech Pharma Group and its subsidiary Suntian Pharmaceutical, followed by Qiming Venture Partners, the Innovation and Technology Venture Fund of the Innovation and Technology Commission of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government and the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Venture Fund.

In the field of semiconductors, Zhongxuan Semiconductor completed an angel round of financing of tens of millions of yuan. It is jointly funded by the National Science and Technology BOE, the National Nuclear Yao Neng, and Wangzhong Investment. Sidi Semiconductor, a provider of semiconductor power modules and application solutions, has received tens of millions of angel round financing, led by Jiuhe Venture Capital, and the funds will be mainly used for product research and development and production.

In the field of automobile transportation, Runxin Micro, a software-defined vehicle solution provider, completed the B round of financing, with the participation of ICBC Investment, Suzhou Venture Capital, Pilot Production Investment, and Nuclear Capital. Century Yunan, a new energy vehicle charging solution provider, has completed hundreds of millions of yuan in A+ financing, with investors from Liangxi Science and Technology Innovation Industry Fund of Funds (Bohua Capital Management) and Sunshine Haitian Parking Industry Group.

(This article is from Yicai)