First steps in the long journey back...
semibiznews.com
Taiwan's fabs negotiating resumption of power supply
By Mark Carroll
EE Times
(09/22/99, 05:40:07 PM EDT)
HSINCHU, Taiwan ( ChipWire) -- Chip makers in
Taiwan are currently negotiating with the Taiwan
government to determine when their production
facilities will have power to go back on line following
the devastating earthquake that struck the island
early Tuesday.
According to Peter Chang, vice president of
operations for UMC Group, "At present, the
government of the Republic of China has decided that
restoring electricity to the general public is the first
priority. Therefore, at this time, it is not exactly clear
when electrical power will be restored to our facilities
and normal production can resume."
Electrical power hasn't been restored on Taiwan
because two nuclear power plants in the north of the
island have yet to go back on line. "The government
has told us that they will be back on line by Thursday
afternoon," said Ron Norris of Taiwan Semiconductor
Manufacturing Co. (TSMC). "Even that added
electricity won't be enough to supply both the home
and industrial needs of the island though. We are
negotiating with the government to see if we can ge a
larger allotment of power."
TSMC had about 10-to-20% of its standard power on
today, or basically enough to run administrative lights
and computers. "We need to have full power before
we can go inside the clean rooms and begin to fully
check out the damage," Norris said. "We don't want
to send people in until the evacuation procedures are
fully up and running."
At least one fab in Taiwan is already back up and
running. Powerchip Semiconductor Corp. was only
down for one hour; the company has an alternative
power source that it uses in conjunction with the
government's power grid. Powerchip is a contract
manufacturer of DRAM, with most of its 22,000
wafers per month going to Mitsubishi Electric Corp. of
Japan.
It will still take time to get fabs back up and running
after power is restored in Taiwan. All the chemical
piping of the facilities will need to be checked, as will
the status of the equipment. "It will take about a
week for us to check out the equipment and get back
to a full ramp," said Norris. "We know already that
some repairs will need to be made"
For its part, UMC maintains that it can get back up
and running in five days. "The clean rooms are
intact," said Chang. "There appear to be only some
broken ceiling tiles. All process gas, water, air
handling, and power lines appear to be fully intact.
Our backup power systems operated as intended in
response to the disruption, allowing the clean room to
maintain the required level of air purity."
It is near certain that the quartz tubes that hold
wafers in the fabs' furnaces, and the wafers that were
inside them, are ruined. "The quartz tubes are
broken," said Norris. "We have already ordered
spares and they will be delivered soon." UMC also
said that it will need new quartz tubes.
Just how many wafers have been damaged due to the
power shutdownm is not yet known. "Any wafers that
were in a furnace at the time arem most likely no
good," said one securities analyst here. "Typically,
furnaces are loaded with a hundred or so wafers. For
wafers in a lithography machine the situation isn't so
bad. Wafers that were actually in a lithography
process are also probably damaged, but the others in
the cassette will be fine."
Whether insurance will cover the damages and lost
revenue is an open question. "It's definitely a gray
area," said the securities analyst. "I was on the
phone all day with the fabs' CFOs and that's what
they were all doing, checking out there insurance
policiesIt seems that they are covered since it's a
business liability."
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