CSMC Technologies Corp (
The plant, planned for 2007, will make standard 8-inch chip wafers, adding to the company's three less-advanced, 6-inch wafer manufacturing lines in Wuxi, west of Shanghai, Chief Financial Officer Frank Lai said. This year, CSMC will double capacity on those lines to 55,000 wafers a month.
The news comes as Taiwanese rivals, leaders in the so-called foundry business, run factories at capacity amid a global recovery in chip demand after a near three-year slump. China's foundry capacity will jump 75 percent to the equivalent of 2 million 8-inch wafers this year, Gartner Inc. has forecasted. That will account for 12 percent of the world's total, compared with 4.6 percent in 2002, the company said.
CSMC's customers include Japan's Fujitsu Ltd and China's Hangzhou Silan Microelectronics Co (
United Microelectronics Corp (UMC,
Founded in 1997 by Peter Chen, the former chief executive of Taiwanese chipmaker Mosel Vitelic Inc (
CSMC focuses on making silicon wafers six inches in diameter, two generations behind the most advanced equipment used today to produce 12-inch wafers. Chinese companies, which enjoy lower wage and land costs, can sell the chips at cheaper prices.
Last year, CSMC bought a 6-inch wafer production line from Agere Systems Inc, a spin-off from Lucent Technologies Inc, and one from Chartered Semiconductor.
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