There's a trade fair held in Taipei, Taiwan, which fuels the worldwide PC industry and starts on June 1. So we decided to keep an eye on what was happening in Taiwan in the run-up to the show, which we shall attend. Today's news from Taiwan, in brief, is that the tiny island, coveted by Red China, will be the largest manufacturer of the ever-popular CD-R drives by next year, displacing Japan. Acer and A-Open (which makes great BX cases, we can assure you, and accommodates Intel Sun River boards adequately), will push the way. Soon, Davicom Semi and ZyXel will produce some super chipsets for 56K modems at a competitive price. Chip foundry TSMC, tipped to takeover the Cyrix fab, made sales in April of $163 million. Unlike US companies, it releases its yield figures. It sold 128,500 eight-inch wafers for the month. ®