Taiwan start-up signs tech deal with mainland TV set-top maker

A Taiwanese firm specialising in wireless streaming has signed an unusual deal with mainland-based Coship Electronics to design set-top boxes that let television viewers send on-air content to mobile devices.

CyWee said it signed the agreement last month to sell two million encoder chipsets to Coship within a year.

The Taiwanese firm, spun off in 2007 by a government research institute, said the deal was its biggest ever.

The agreement stands out as Taiwan's laws ban some technology firms, especially in liquid crystal display panels, from tie-ups on the mainland for fear of technology theft. Other companies in technology-rich Taiwan worry about commercial misuse of new schemes introduced on the mainland.

"It could just be that the company in Taiwan is more efficient in design systems than Coship is," said Michael Clendenin, the managing director of RedTech Advisors, an information-technology consultancy in Shanghai. "It shouldn't be a big deal, since it's not manufacturing technology, and I think that's the most sensitive thing from the Taiwan side."

Under the agreement, Coship would use CyWee technology to build boxes that could send television content to smartphones or media tablets, CyWee's sales and marketing vice-president Paul Liu said.

"For example, you can be watching your favourite TV programme on the TV, and another device can watch something else on a portable display," Liu said, predicting more simultaneous viewing within a single home.