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Silicon photonics (SiPh) has become a prominent field in the future development of chips, and domestic IC design company MediaTek is stepping up its layout in the field of silicon photonics. According to media reports, MediaTek's development direction prioritizes the development of optical co-packaging (CPO) heterogeneous integration technology. The reason is that there are many manufacturers that can provide photonic integrated circuits (PICs), but few that can provide integrated solutions. What customers need is a service that can integrate all content, which has also become a strategic consideration for MediaTek.

[Times reporter Zhang Hanqi reports from Taipei] Trump's 2.0 policy has brought more uncertainties to the global industry, such as export restrictions, upgraded technology control and tariff barriers, which will pose additional challenges to the global supply chain. Under the situation of deepening technological decoupling, according to ISTI data in 2024, the amount of PCB imports from Taiwan to the United States has grown significantly, reaching US$610 million, accounting for 28.4% of the total US imports, a significant increase compared to 21.9% in 2023, highlighting Taiwan's competitive advantages and solid position in the US market.

According to statistics from the Industrial Technology Research Institute's International Industrial Science and Technology Research Institute, Taiwan's semiconductor industry output value exceeded NT$5 trillion for the first time in 2024, reaching NT$5.3151 trillion, an increase of 22.4%. It is expected that the output value will further exceed the NT$6 trillion mark in 2025, reaching NT$6.1785 trillion, an increase of another 16.2%.

In the freezing cold of December 2024, Minister of Economic Affairs Chih-hui Kuo flew across half the globe to the European continent. After completing an inspection of TSMC's German plant, he immediately rushed to the Czech Republic to unveil the Prague Taiwan Trade and Investment Center. The Ministry of Economic Affairs will use TSMC's German plant as the axis to deploy service bases in Europe, with the Czech Republic as the first stop, to take the lead in laying out the strategic fortress of the Central and Eastern European chip triangle.

According to Chinese media reports, according to an analysis report released by SEMI, global silicon wafer shipments in 2024 will decrease by 2.7% year-on-year to 12,266 million square inches (MSI), while silicon wafer sales will decrease by 6.5% year-on-year to US$11.5 billion during the same period.

The generative AI craze has driven the demand for data transmission and made silicon photonics (SiPh) technology a new focus of the market. Related concept stocks have also attracted much attention. With the help of Taiwan Electro-Mechanical Corporation and Nvidia, the market predicts that silicon photonics will become the darling of the Taiwan stock market this year (2025), which has also aroused the curiosity of investors. What exactly is silicon photonics? What are the related concept stocks?