TSMC still growing:
A service of Semiconductor Business News, CMP Media Inc.
Story posted 6:15 p.m. EDT/3:15 p.m. PDT, 9/22/98
TSMC pushes ahead with fab in south Taiwan science park
By Sandy Chen
TAIPEI, Taiwan -- As several chip makers here delayed wafer fab
expansion plans while waiting for the dust to settle in this country's
new science park, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.
(TSMC) Ltd. continues to move full speed ahead with construction
of a new chip-processing plant in Tainan.
Hsinchu-based TSMC expects the new 8-inch wafer fab to move
into the pre-production stage in the third quarter of 1999. It will be
capable of processing 60,000 wafers a month.
TMSC is proceeding in the southern Taiwan city of Tainan in spite
of a series of mishaps in the new park, including flooding and
drainage problems. Tainan itself also suffers from a lack of power
and other problems with its infrastructure.
These problems, coupled with a capacity-glut in the worldwide
foundry business, led Taiwan's United Microelectronics Corp.
(UMC) to delay its expansion plans last week (see Sept. 18 story.
UMC's archrival, TSMC, is going in the opposite direction. "Our
land [in Tainan] doesn't have drainage problem, because our land
is located in a higher position,'' according to Yen-Chun Huang, a
vice president at TSMC. ''The power situation will become stable
in the first quarter of 1999. So, everything is running according to
our schedule."
Huang said the new Tainan plant, called Fab 6, will not have a
significant contribution to TSMC's capacity in 1999. Next year,
the increased capacity will mostly come from WaferTech, a
newly-opened joint venture in Camus, Wash., between TSMC
and several U.S. chip makers.
WaferTech's 8-inch capacity will increase from 8,000 wafers a
month by year's end, to 30,000 in 1999. In 1999, TSMC's total
8-inch capacity will increase to 200,000 wafers a month, from
160,000 units a month.
In 1999, TSMC's total capital expenditure is forecasted to be $1.3
billion, compared to $930 million in 1998, according to Huang. |
