Taiwan power outage hits chip foundries TSMC, UMC
TAIPEI, Nov 2 (Reuters) - The world's top two microchip foundries were among 16 firms hit by a temporary power outage on Thursday in a premier high-tech park in northern Taiwan, forcing a brief reduction in output, company and park officials said.
Top microchip foundry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) , and the second largest, United Microelectronics Corp (UMC) , said they had been hit by the outages.
Listed D-Link , a network equipment maker and another firm that supplies nitrogen gas needed in microchip production, also suffered, park officials said.
The power outage caused an estimated T$100-200 million (US$3.1-6.2 million) in losses to 16 technology firms, the administration bureau of the Hsinchu Science Park said in a statement.
Fire broke out in the park's No. 4 power substation, stopping power for 50 minutes, while the park's No. 2 power substation suffered a power outage for eight minutes, the statement said. Both outages occured early on Thursday.
The power outage did not cause any major damage to TSMC's wafer production, but the shortage of nitrogen had reduced its production, TSMC spokesman Tzeng Jinn-haw told Reuters.
``The power shortage has slowed our wafer movements by a half day, which we will hope to make up by working overtime,'' Tzeng said.
UMC said in a statement it suffered a reduction in nitrogen supply to some of its manufacturing facilities after the power shortage affected supply of nitrogen to the park.
The reduced supply led UMC to shut down some of its wafer fabrication equipment, the company said.
UMC secured a temporary backup supply of liquid nitrogen until its nitrogen supplier resumed normal operation, which park officials said they expected later on Thursday.
It described the influence on production as ``minimal''.
On Thursday, TSMC rose by the daily seven percent limit to T$103.5, while UMC shares rose seven percent to T$59, in line with the 3.71 percent rise in the main TAIEX (^TWII - news) market. But D-Link fell T$0.60 to T$40.80.
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The companies' losses "are expected to be minimized as they have bought insurance policies," it added. |
