Acer Semiconductor Manufacturing (ASMI), Acer Group's money-losing chip unit, has announced salary cuts ranging from 5% to 30 percent for its middle and senior level management.
The pay cuts will take effect immediately beginning this month, with ASMI chairman and Acting CEO Stan Shih taking the largest 30% cut, a company spokeswoman said. Shih is the founder and chairman of the diversified Taiwan-based Acer Group, which last year posted revenues of US$6.5 billion.
Formerly a DRAM (dynamic random access memory) making joint venture with Texas Instruments, chip maker ASMI is trying hard to lessen its dependence on the volatile memory chip market by broadening its product base to include logic chips as well as contract manufacturing. In a statement issued yesterday, the company said that it expects to complete such a transition in its core business by 2000.
On June 10, 1998, ASMI became majority-owned by Acer Inc., Acer Group's core PC-making parent company, following the completion of Acer's purchase of TI's stake in the venture.
As a result of plummeting DRAM prices, however, the chip maker continues to be a major drag on Acer's earnings.
Last year, Acer's share of the losses at the joint venture mounted to US$173 million.
Acer, in Taipei, is at http://www.acer.com/