Happy New Year from the Power Company in Taiwan...
Published on Wednesday, December 27, 2000
BUSINESS
Power cut hits six
Taiwan-listed chip firms
REUTERS in Taipei
A power failure at Taiwan's Hsinchu science park, heart
of the island's high-technology industry, hit six
locally-listed computer chip-makers on Monday, state
utility firm Taiwan Power said.
Taiwan's state-funded Central News Agency estimated
total losses of all companies affected by the outage at
about NT$300 million (HK$71.4 million).
Taipower spokeswoman Huang Hui-yu said a
transformer at a plant belonging to memory chip firm
Macronix had suffered a malfunction and brought down
power at the other firms. Macronix remains without
electricity, she said.
''We will not supply power to the company with the
malfunction until they solve the problem. Power was
restored at the others at 8.22pm'' after the outage
occurred at 6.34pm, Ms Huang said.
A Macronix official, who declined to be identified, said
the transformer problem had cut power at the
company's second wafer fabrication facility. He declined
to give further details.
Power had already been restored to the other firms,
which included Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing
(TSMC) and United Microelectronics (UMC), the
world's top two made-to-order chip-makers, or
foundries.
Dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chip firms
Winbond, Mosel Vitelic and Powerchip also lost
power, Ms Huang said.
A TSMC official said its eighth wafer fab, which was
acquired in a merger with Worldwide Semiconductor a
year ago, had lost electricity for only a short period.
''Fab eight was affected, but not greatly. It lost
electricity briefly, and we immediately switched to a
private power plant. It has resumed operation,'' the
official said. He said the company was still calculating
losses.
An UMC official said five of its seven wafer fabs in the
science park had lost power, adding that the company
had not yet compiled a damage estimate.
Winbond spokesman C.Y. Chang said the DRAM firm
had lost power at fabs four and five. ''The backup is on
and there are no problems. Losses are probably several
million Taiwan dollars,'' Mr Chang said.
Officials of Powerchip and Mosel were not immediately
available.
Besides the five listed firms, another five companies lost
power, including Acer Display Technology, a member
of tech conglomerate Acer Group, and a plant belonging
to Philips Electronics.
Companies at the Hsinchu science park have scrambled
to improve their power supplies since a island-wide
power failure in July 1999 and a devastating earthquake
in September of the same year stalled production and
caused billions of dollars in damage. |
