Taiwan E-book Industry to Take the Lead

After years of efforts, Taiwan has become an important role in the e-paper industry chain. With AUO's investment in Sipix and PVI's acquisition of E-ink, Taiwan at first time successfully takes the lead from upstream material technology to downstream module production. Therefore, on Nov. 3rd, PIDA cooperated with Department of Investment Service (DOIS) from MOEA, to hold Taiwan E-book Industry Seminar.

Mr. Jang-Hwa Leu, Director of Information Technology Industries Division IDB, MOEA, pointed taiwan's e-book industry would be benefited by not only the solid value chain of Taiwan IT industry, but the increasing global interest in Chinese culture, which would bring a great opportunity for Taiwan to enter the mandarin e-book market. In addition, experts predicted in the seminar that the market size will reach US 1,095 million dollar in 2010. The readability, portability, and power saving features are the key factors that sell E-book in the near future. Full color, however, is taken as an added but not required function for e-book, because "most printed books in the market are black and white except the covers," according to a manager from an e-book module company.

For the future vision of e-book industry, to promote industry standards and develop industry technology are regarded as the foremost mission. E-book industry is expected to enhance global competitiveness, to expand the niche market for Chinese-language digital publishing industry, and to promote the development of a society conducive to e-reading by 2013.

FIG.1 Dr. Scott Liu, chairperson of PVI, talks about the appealing feature for E-book─ Reading Green

Courtesy: PIDA

Known for its prominent green energy cluster, the Southern Taiwan Science Park (STSP) administration also seeks to work with surrounding traditional machinery industry to build a medical device industry cluster. STSP stated that the move is to balance the regional development and to create a sustainable industry infrastructure for the southern Taiwan.

Therefore, the 4-year project "Southern Taiwan Biomedical Device Industry Cluster Development Plan" was put in motion by the STSP administration. This was done in an effort to provide innovative technology and value chain improvement opportunities to traditional small/medium businesses in southern Taiwan, while continuing to actively promote the development of Kaohsiung Science Park . By integrating research institutes and traditional precision machinery production in southern Taiwan, advanced osteological equipment, medical alloys, medical cosmetics, and other potential biomedical devices will be developed. In addition, professional talents will be trained. This project is estimated to bring 300 million US dollars in total annual turnover in 2015. Moreover, 50 enterprises will be assisted to transform, upgrade and establish (including 15 new tenant enterprises in Kaohsiung Science Park.

Speaking of health, in order to maintain a safe working environment, the STSP administration has drafted safety guidelines with data obtained from analysis on high-risk activities and investigation of job-site accidences. The guidelines will be sent to all tenant enterprises. Moreover, in order to acieve long term goal of perpetual environment development, the STSP administration composed the "Southern Taiwan Science Park Environment Report", which demonstrates the relentless effort and commitment to environmental improvement.

Photonic technology plays an important role regarding reduction waste of energy and CO₂. Among all, LED and photovoltaic specially distinguish themselves for their features of "energy-saving" and "energy-generating." Therefore, Southern Taiwan Science Park (STSP) Administration teamed up with Photonic Industry and Technology Development Association (PIDA) to hold Future of Green Photonics Seminar in hopes to provide south Taiwan companies with analysis of green photonic industry’s development in 2010.

STSP has been actively involved in promoting green photonic industry, including solar cells, fuel cells, converting equipments for renewable energy and so on. According to PIDA's report, the revenue of Taiwan's green energy industry (LED plus photovoltaic) is about USD 4.1 billion, which takes 14% of global share. Among that, STSP's revenue occupies 40% of Taiwan's green energy industry revenue with NTD 42.2 billion, accounting for its industry strength domestically and internationally.

This seminar emphasizes topics on saving and generating energy. PIDA LED analyst would take Japan for instance to explore the trend of LED lighting, while CMO’s staff engineer Simon Wang would share the backlight technology applied in large-sized LCD. In the energy generation, PIDA's solar analyst would share the latest progress in solar industry and foresee the industrial development in 2010.

For more information, please visit PIDA's website at
http ://www.pida.org.tw