Taiwan-based Foxconn, one of Apple's main suppliers, is looking to expand its operations in the US to the tune of $10 billion. The company is still deciding which state will get the greatest solo investment, in the form of a $7 billion display factory (worth mentioning here is that Foxconn's display manufacturing has seen a recent buff by the acquisition of Sharp.) Reportedly, investments are being considered in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, and/or Texas. There was no given timeframe for the construction's start or finish, but a final decision should be made public in July. Foxconn's CEO Terry Gou also vowed to press on with a bid for Toshiba Corp.'s semiconductor business, although the Japanese company has already selected a preferred buyer in the form of a Japanese and US joint venture. Such a deal could cost $27 billion and introduce Foxconn (and, likely but indirectly, China) into the memory chip business.

ENERMAX, the Taiwan-based power supply and chassis company, today launched their newest addition to their PC chassis lineup. Dubbed the OSTROG LITE, it stands as a compact mid-tower chassis for entry-level gaming rigs, featuring a low-profile hairline surface front panel. As the name implies, the new product features a separate enclosure for your PSU, making sure to keep all those unsightly cables hidden and, as a bonus, improving the airflow.

Zotac unveiled an over-the-top GeForce GTX 960 graphics card for the Greater China region, where mid-range cards are 'overpackaged' to attract price-conscious buyers looking for more pop for their coin. Part of its Gamer Force series, the new GTX 960 Gamer Force TOP-X graphics card combines a large triple-fan cooling solution, with a metal back-plate that holds another two 60 mm spinners. The PCB features a strong VRM, and support Zotac's in-house design OC+ external overclocking module. Under its cooler shroud, holding its three 90 mm spinners, is an aluminium split fin-stack heatsink. The result? The card is reportedly capable of core clocks of 1,500 MHz. The card will be exclusive to the Greater China region (PRC, HK, and probably Taiwan).

According to stats put out by Taiwan-based industry observer DigiTimes, the top three graphics card vendors by shipments were ASUS, Gigabyte, and MSI (in that order), 2014. ASUS leads the pack with over 5 million graphics cards shipped in the year. Gigabyte comes in second, with over 3.6 million cards shipped. MSI is third, with between 2.8 and 3 million cards shipped in the year. The three sell both AMD Radeon and NVIDIA GeForce graphics cards. 2014 overall, has seen graphics card shipments drop by 10 percent, owing to a pop in the bubble created by crypto-coin miners in 2013. Other notables from the report include a rise in shipments from PRC-based vendors such as Colorful and Onda.

ASUS is preparing to cut prices of its motherboards by 5-10%, according a Taiwan-based newspaper. The Economic Daily News (translated) reports that the company is preparing these 5-10% retail price-cuts across its lineup, in a bid to compete better with second-best (by volume) Gigabyte, trailed closely by ASRock, and MSI. The paper observes that the cuts could impact Gigabyte's sales in China, making it fall short of its 5.5-6 million units shipped goal, down to 5.4 million, in Q3 2014. Its annual target of 21.5 million could drop to 20 million. ASUS shipped 10.4 million motherboards in the first half (Q1 and Q2) of 2014, and aims to ship 22.1 million units by the year-end.Update (17/09): ASUS stated that it currently does not plan to cut prices of its motherboards.

SK Hynix Inc. announced it established a research and development (or 'R&D') center 'SK Hynix Flash Solutions Taiwan Ltd.'. The Company will strengthen global R&D competence and customer support by adding the R&D center in Taiwan.

The Taiwan R&D center will focus on intensifying its competence in development of high value added NAND Flash memory products. The center is located in Hsinchu, the hub of Taiwan IT industry, so it is expected to become a base of the technology support for Chinese and Taiwanese clients.

ID-Cooling is a new Brand in Europe founded by Shenzhen Wan Jing Hua Technology co., Ltd. Located in Shenzhen China. The Company has a long History in the OEM Business for Cooling Products. In the 10 Years of Company History create the Company behind the Brand ID-Cooling a lot technologies for Cooling.

ID-Cooling had their first International release on the Computex 2013 in Taiwan. The Fair was very successful for the Brand a lot of contacts was created and the Distribution Channel in Europe is Interested in ID-Cooling Products.

During the week of Computex 2013, 6 overclocking records were shattered by professional overclockers with G.SKILL extreme performance DDR3 memory. Established in 1989 by computer hardware enthusiasts, G.SKILL is a leading memory & Solid State Drive manufacturer based in Taipei, Taiwan. The company's top priority is quality. All of the products undergo a series of the most rigorous tests and strict quality control processes. In addition to a committed, qualified IC testing house to examine the products, all G.SKILL products are 100% tested to ensure the highest yield, reliability and quality.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) and United Microelectronics Corporation (NYSE: UMC; TWSE: 2303) ("UMC"), a leading global semiconductor foundry, today announced that UMC will join the IBM Technology Development Alliances as a participant in the group's development of 10nm CMOS process technology.

"Established over a decade ago, the IBM alliance allows the partners to leverage our combined expertise and collaborative research and innovative technology development to address the demanding needs for advanced semiconductor applications," said Gary Patton, VP, IBM Semiconductor Research & Development. "UMC is a strong addition to the alliance."

Computex is Asia's largest high-tech event and will run from June 4th to to 8th, 2013 in Taipei, Taiwan and BIOSTAR will be showcasing their embedded/IPC solutions and graphics cards products as well as their line of Intel and AMD based motherboards in the Nangang Exhibition Hall at Booth M0402. The theme of their exhibition this year is their Hi-Fi Puro integrated products, including Intel's next generation Haswell based boards and their FM2 motherboards that support AMD's new Fusion "Richland" CPU. Continuing the tradition of their own in-house audio technology called "Puro Hi-Fi Technology"; Biostar is going to present the 2nd generation of this technology, called "Hi-Fi 3D".

Targeting audiophiles, HTPC enthusiasts and high-end gamers alike, Puro Hi-Fi features an integrated independent audio power design with a built-in amplifier. The technology utilizes audio components with an independent power delivery design for a significant reduction in electronic noise producing superb sound quality. The unique noise-blocking multi-layer PCB layout is conducive for an exceptionally clean signal. That design feature, together with a sampling rate of 192 kHz/24-bit, delivers high quality audio through an analog connection to your home theater system, multi-channel speakers or high-end headphones, allowing you to enjoy true high-definition 7.1-channel surround sound.

According to the latest global graphics card market share seen by Taiwanese tech industry observer DigiTimes, Palit Microsystems and PC Partner have each surpassed ASUSTek. The two relegated ASUS to the position of third biggest graphics card vendor by volume. ASUS is a vendor-neutral graphics card vendor, selling both NVIDIA GeForce and AMD Radeon graphics cards; while Palit beat it with a predominantly GeForce-based product stack. Although Palit Microsystems is vendor-neutral on paper, it virtually stopped making AMD Radeon-based products.

Palit Microsystems runs two major brands, Palit, and Gainward, which target different global markets, and are seldom found in the same market. PC Partner, on the other hand, runs Sapphire, which focuses on AMD Radeon products, and ZOTAC, focusing on NVIDIA GeForce. Both Palit Microsystems and PC Partners also contract-manufacture graphics cards for other companies. With the surge of Palit Microsystems and PC Partner, ASUSTek is pushed down to the third place in global market-share, followed by MSI and GIGABYTE.

EVGA entered the Taiwanese market, which is the backyard of several major NVIDIA and AMD board partners, including ASUS, Gigabyte, and MSI. The American company launched almost its entire GeForce 600 series lineup, including GT 610, GT 620, GT 630, GT 640, GTX 650 Ti, GTX 660 Ti, GTX 670, and GTX 680. Missing in action are the flagship GTX 690, and non-reference design "Classified" series of graphics cards, in which EVGA puts in a lot of design, cooling, and PCB customization. EVGA's products are launched at leading ground and online stores, at competitive prices. They are backed by 5-year product warranties.

A little earlier today, the U.S. branch of Scythe posted a message saying it decided to leave the U.S. market because its parent company halted operations. This spread confusion, with many believing that Scythe was ending operations everywhere. That is false. Not only is Scythe not ending operations everywhere, but it's not leaving the U.S. market, either. With the U.S. office closed for the night, other regional distributors such as Scythe EU swung into action, and allayed concerns.

According to Scythe's EU office in Germany, Scythe U.S. is undergoing "restructuring," with the company likely changing its U.S. distributor, and letting the Taiwan office run things in the interim. With all other branches of Scythe, including EU, Japan, China, and Taiwan, it's business as usual. It's likely that U.S. buyers won't even feel the transition, as it might complete before inventories begin to dry up. Scythe specializes in a range of enthusiast PC components, such as coolers, fans, PSUs, and accessories.

It looks like recent Ultrabook platform growth forecasts by DRAMeXchange are on the money, as sources associated with PC ODMs in Taiwan are coming forward with expectations of 100% growth in Ultrabook and Ultrabook-like notebook shipments in 2013. It's important to note that the figure is augmented with shipments of various "Ultrabook-like" notebooks, which are tough to classify. By the end of 2013, Ultrabooks will make up 10% of the global notebook shipments, according to the sources.

TSMC broke ground for construction of Fab 14 Phase 6, located in Southern Taiwan Science Park (STSP). The new facility will boost the foundry's 12-inch wafer production capacity, leading the way to construction of Phase 7 in 2013. TSMC's facilities in STSP generate 42% of the company's revenues, with a production value of US $6 billion, hiring over 9,000 employees. Phases 1~4 of Fab 14, which specializes in 12-inch wafers, has a quarterly foundry capacity of 540,000 12-inch wafers to produce over 1,200 different types of ICs for about 150 clients a year, according to company executive vice president and co-COO Chiang Shang-yi. In 2013-14, TSMC Fab 14 will become the world's first fab with 20 nanometer SoC volume production, and the company's first plant to start 16 nanometer FinFET volume production.

Global Foundries could soon howdy-neighbor TSMC in upstate New York, with the Taiwanese semiconductor giant looking to set up a fab there. According to an X-bit Labs report, TSMC began groundwork on its US venture by consulting with Deloitte, to look for viable sites in Rensselaer, Saratoga and Oneida counties, that have abundant water, power, and gas to operate 3.2 million square feet buildings with 1,000 employees, 40 percent of which are college-graduated engineers.

Deloitte also took a look around Luther Forest Technology Campus, where Global Foundries' Fab 8 is located. A little earlier this week, Bill Owens, a Congressman from upstate New York flew to Taiwan, to meet with TSMC CFO Lora Ho to pitch upstate a little more. TSMC is a principal foundry partner of companies such as Qualcomm, NVIDIA, and AMD.

Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS) today announces it is teaming up with Thermaltake, G.skill and various media partners to announce its first ever worldwide Modmen PC modding competition. Starting on October 11, 2012, ECS is searching for the Modmen of the year. The Grand Prize winner will become a Taiwan millionaire (approx. US $33,333). To register for the contest head to www.ecs.com.tw. All submissions must be sent before February 28, 2013. To be eligible for this contest all contestants need to have an ECS motherboard purchased after 9/20/2012 or have an ECS Golden Board.

There are two stages of competition. The first stage takes place online. The top 10 case modders will be determined by a combination of online votes and ECS' own modding judges. The modder with the most votes will win US $1,000. The top 5 PC modders that qualify for the second stage of the competition, besides winning cash and prizes, will be flown to Taiwan and given accommodation to compete at Computex for a chance to win the Grand Prize - approx. US$33,333. During the competition the top five contestants will showcase their mods at ECS' booth and a panel of accredited judges and the audience will determine the grand prize winner.

Tt eSports, a division of Thermaltake which specializes in PC gaming peripherals, opened its first specialty ground store in Taiwan. The store deals with Tt eSports-branded products, though in the future, it could be used to sell products under Thermaltake's mainline brand. The store, located in downtown Taipei, is in the ground floor of an IT and consumer electronics-centric mall opposite the Taipei Railway Station. It is jointly operated by Thermaltake, Super A Electronics, which also operates the Studio A retail chain of Apple products in Taiwan, and Taiwan Tea Corporation (TTC).

Starting off with gaming peripherals, indications are, that Tt eSports could expand into pre-built gaming PCs that combine Thermaltake's components such as casing, power supply, cooling, and of course, peripherals. Launch of the new product line could follow that of Windows 8, in October. The joint venture between Thermaltake, Studio A, and TTC plans to start as many as 30 Tt eSports retail stores in Taiwan, over the next two years, according to Thermaltake.

The Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) today announced that it has released new compliance test specifications (CTS) for DisplayPort cable adaptors. The new CTS documents allow VESA members to have DisplayPort cable adaptors compliance tested through VESA's Authorized Test Centers (ATCs) worldwide, or by completing the new self-testing and reporting option.

"The DisplayPort logo signifies that a product is based on next-generation display technology," said Bill Lempesis, executive director at VESA. "By simplifying the certification process for our member companies, we've given them easier access to the logo."

Round 3 of the MSI MOA (Master Overclocking Arena) qualifiers starts on June 15 and allows the top overclockers in the Asia-Pacific region to battle it out for a ticket to Taiwan. During the qualifiers, which have seen many new records so far, the overclocking experts from the Asia-Pacific region compete for eight tickets to the MOA 2012 grand finals to become the master of the "Steel World" competition!

The annual overclocking competition MOA (Master Overclocking Arena) 2012 held by the world's leading mainboard and graphics card manufacturer MSI, has held regional qualifier competitions since April to select powerhouse overclockers to compete in the annual worldwide Grand Final. After the Americas regional qualifier and the EMEA regional qualifier have successfully ended, the Asia-Pacific regional qualifier battle is about to begin; the competition will go on from June 15 to July 12, overclockers can participate in the competition with any model of MSI mainboard and graphics card, but is limited to a single CPU and GPU.

Russian Communication Technology LTD. launched DETSEL-01, one of the smallest Intel x86-powered mini-PCs ever. Measuring just 125 x 74 x 12 mm (roughly the size of a Seagate GoFlex 2.5-inch portable HDD), the DETSEL-01 is driven by an Intel Atom E680 processor (1.60 GHz, single-core with HTT, 4.5W TDP), with 1 GB of DDR2-800 memory, with 128 GB or 64 GB SATA 3 Gb/s SSD handling storage, and an external 12V DC input powering it. Connectivity is aplenty, with 802.11 b/g/n, gigabit Ethernet, Bluetooth 4.0, D-Sub display output (HDMI coming soon), stereo HD audio, and two USB 2.0 ports. The best part about this pocket-sized PC is its ability to run 32-bit Windows XP and Windows 7.

Today during a keynote address at COMPUTEX, Steven Guggenheimer, corporate vice president of the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) division at Microsoft Corp., demonstrated the breadth of innovation happening across Windows and the Windows ecosystem. He announced the second community technology preview (CTP) for Windows Embedded Standard 8, unveiled Quanta's new private cloud server solution, highlighted Ford's launch of its award-winning SYNC in-car connectivity system for Taiwan, and showed off some of the latest Windows devices.

When it comes to delivering Windows technologies across PCs, servers, phones and specialized devices, Microsoft is taking a holistic approach by providing familiar tools and technologies that enable customers and partners to maximize their investments. To that end, Microsoft today announced the second CTP for Windows Embedded Standard 8, which delivers the power of Windows for specialized devices running line-of-business applications within intelligent systems. Windows Embedded Standard 8 encompasses tools for natural, immersive user experiences and the ability for OEMs to define and control the device capabilities, with additional technologies that extend the power of Windows on industry devices. The CTP is available immediately for download by visiting this page.

Intel Corporation Senior Vice President Tom Kilroy officially introduced the next wave of Ultrabook systems during a keynote address at Computex Taipei 2012. Making a bold statement around the importance of touch technology, Kilroy also announced that Intel has signed agreements with several leading touch panel manufacturers to ensure adequate capacity to meet the expected demand for touch-enabled Ultrabook experiences over the next several years.

He also highlighted the company's efforts to deliver user-centric experiences across a range of mobile devices from the Ultrabook to smartphones and tablets, pointing to momentum across all three.

G.SKILL International Co. Ltd., the world's leading manufacturer of extreme performance memory and superior solid-state storage, has teamed up with ASUS, MSI, EVGA and GIGABYTE and will be hosting an industry-first, "G.SKILL World-Class Overclocking Invitational" with G.SKILL's extreme performance DDR3 memory at the Computex 2012.

G.SKILL invited up to 8 professional overclockers from across the world, including legendary overclockers from the United States, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Australia and Japan. Collaborating with 4 industry leading motherboard brands, G.SKILL aims to smash all overclocking world records by using ultra high performance motherboards, VGA and the fastest DDR3 memory, the "TridentX".

Taiwanese proverclocker TIN set a new 3DMark 11 record by scoring P20962 points using a single GeForce GTX 690 graphics card. The score included 25179 graphics, 15213 physics, and 12412 combined scores. The feat was achieved by overclocking an EVGA GeForce GTX 690 to clock speeds of 1509 MHz (base), 1639 MHz (GPU Boost), and 7336 MHz (memory, effective); and sustaining it using liquid nitrogen cooling. The double-headed eagle on steroids was supported by an Intel Core i7-3960X processor clocked at 4.50 GHz, 16 GB of quad-channel DDR3-2133 MHz memory, and EVGA X79 Classified motherboard. Find more information on the feat here.