Foundry Makers Expect Sustained Sales Growth
December 12, 1997 (TAIPEI) -- Taiwan's 11 microchip wafer foundries project that their annual production will expand 76 percent to NT$248 billion in 1998, up from an estimated NT$140 billion in 1997.
The foundries, including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. (TSMC), United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC), Winbond Electronics Corp., Macronix International Co., Ltd., and Holtek Microelectronics, Inc., all operate 8-inch wafer fabrication plants. All of those fabs are operating at full capacity.
The move to 8-inch wafers, with 0.25-micron to 0.35-micron circuit rules, helped increase unit wafer production by 20 percent to 30 percent.
UMC's parent company expects to report limited sales growth in 1998, because monthly production at each of its three factories will increase by only about 3,000 units a month. However, consolidated sales of UMC and its IC affiliates -- United Semiconductor Corp., United Silicon Inc., and United Integrated Circuits Corp. -- are expected to reach NT$52 billion in 1998.
And if UMC's non-microchip affiliates are included, sales will likely reach NT$68.5 billion, up by more than 50 percent from an estimated NT$43.2 billion in 1997.
Promos Technologies Inc., an affiliate of Mosel Vitelic Inc., has a monthly capacity of more than 20,000 units of wafers. The capacity is expected to reach 35,000 units at the end of 1998, the company said.
Over 90 percent of output at Taiwan's wafer foundries is in the form of either OEM wafer making or production of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) microchips.
TSMC and UMC, two of Taiwan's leading wafer OEMs, both expect to post total profits of almost NT$28 billion in 1997.
However, DRAM makers have been major losers. Mosel Vitelic, Nan Ya Technology Corp., TI-Acer Inc., Powerchip Semiconductor Corp., and Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp. are suffering losses, industry sources said.
(Commercial Times, Taiwan) |
