UMC to invest US$3 billion in semiconductor equipment in 2000
Taipei, March 23, 2000 (CENS)--United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC), the flagship of the UMC Group and Taiwan's second largest provider of wafer foundry services, plans to procure wafer foundry equipment with an estimated investment of US$3 billion this year, more than 1999's investment of US$2.1 billion.
The Cabinet-level Fair Trade Commission recently approved UMC's combining four semiconductor manufacturers into the UMC Group. The other four affiliates of the group are United Semiconductor Corp., United Integrated Circuits Corp., United Silicon Inc., and Utek Semiconductor Corp.
The UMC Group is constructing a 12-inch wafer plant at its factory in the Tainan Science-based Industrial Park, southern Taiwan. The group is also constructing another 12-inch wafer plant at its factory in the Hsinchu Science-based Industrial Park, northern Taiwan, through a joint venture with Hitachi of Japan.
The UMC Group is not considering establishing any overseas wafer foundry plants, including in mainland China. However, it is planning to sell an existing 5-inch wafer plant to Episil Technologies Inc., and the contract may be signed early next month.
The group has adjusted the combination of its product lines to maximize the average gross profit rate of wafer foundry services for this year, with telecommunication ICs (integrated circuits) to take up 25% of total revenue and ICs used in PCs to account for 40%.
Forty percent of the group's orders come from the U.S., followed by Europe with 25%, the domestic market with 25%, and Japan with 10%. |
