United Microelectronics Corp (UMC,
"We'll continue to construct more 300mm factories in other countries. So, don't worry," UMC chairman Robert Tsao (曹興誠) said yesterday at a press conference following the opening of Fabless Semiconductor Association's (FSA) Asia-Pacific headquarters in Taipei.
The US-based FSA, established in 1994, represents more than 700 members including fabless and fab-lite semiconductor companies as well as their foundry and supply chain partners.
Tsao's remarks came after Dwight Decker, a FSA board member, addressed the growing concern over a capacity shortage from foundries, against a backdrop that an increasing number of IDM plants are forced to move to the fabless, or fab-lite model to improve cost structure.
Tsao, who declined to reveal details of UMC's fab construction plan, said local chipmakers are tending to keep primary investment in Taiwan.
"I don't see any strong reason to do that [to move manufacturing to China] as the chip demand there is still very limited," Tsao said.
UMC owns two advanced 12-inch fabs -- one in Singapore and the other in Tainan Science-based Industrial Park (
Decker did not expect the capacity problem to be fixed in the next five to 10 years, though some new Chinese foundries are aggressively expanding their production.
"The total production of those emerging Chinese foundries is just too small," he said.
The total output of Chinese makers is merely about 10 percent of the combined wafer shipment of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and UMC, he added.
Chinese chip-foundry start-ups Semiconductor Manufacturing In-ternational Corp (
Commenting on the semiconductor industry, MediaTek Inc (聯發科技) chairman Tsai Ming-chieh (蔡明介), who attended the press conference yesterday, expected to see two-digit growth this year, compared to last year.
A recovery in semiconductor demand has boosted the utilization rate of plants owned by UMC and TSMC, the world's largest contracted chipmaker, to more than 90 percent last month.
Tsai's upbeat outlook is in line with the forecast made by US-based technology research house Gartner Inc. The Asia-Pacific semiconductor industry is on the rebound and growth in Taiwan is projected to be 11.4 percent annually until 2007, Gartner said yesterday.
TSMC chairman Morris Chang(張忠謀) warned in the second quarter that aggressive expansion of the company's Chinese competitors will result in a sharp price drop and drag down the sector.
TSMC's first fab located in Shanghai's Songjiang Science and Technology Park of China is under construction and is scheduled to start small amount mass production by the end of next year.
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