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Powerchip looking to build new plant across the Strait

Powerchip Semiconductor Corp (力晶半導體) is considering teaming up with international companies to build a new chip plant in China, a company official said yesterday.

The possible partners include Powerchip's technology source and marketing partner, Mitsubishi Electric Corp of Japan, said Powerchip Vice President Eric Tang (譚仲民).

The international firms will be "world-class companies" with which Powerchip can cooperate in technology and production capacity, Tang said.

US-based chip design house Cascade isn't a likely partner because it is too small, he added. Powerchip is a shareholder in Cascade.

The company doesn't yet have a timetable for its China plan at the moment, Tang said.

Powerchip's first priority is to increase the production capacity in its 300mm (12-inch) wafer plant in Taiwan to 15,000 wafers a month by the end of the year, he said.

The plant is now going through pilot runs, and its monthly capacity will eventually be raised to 30,000 to 35,000 wafers, he added.

The second priority is to transform the company's less-advanced 200mm (8-inch) wafer plant to a memory-chip foundry, he said. Currently only about 25 percent of the plant's capacity is used for manufacturing made-to-order memory chips, while the rest is for manufacturing of commodity dynamic random access memory, or DRAM, chips.

Meanwhile, United Microelectronics Corp (聯電), the world's second-largest producer of made-to-order chips, doesn't have a timetable for submitting an application to the Taiwanese government for building a chip plant in China, said Chitung Liu(劉啟東), UMC spokesman.

But the company "has been in contact" with the government on the issue, he said.
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