The Hsinchu Science-based Industrial Park (新竹科學園區) yesterday morning suffered the largest power blackout in two years, causing NT$1.5 billion in losses to around 350 factories, according to the industry's preliminary estimates.
The complete power outage hit the science park's third sector at 7:35am yesterday without previous warning and made the first and second sectors experience a decrease in their power supply. The power was gradually restored by 9:19am.
The electricity failure disrupted production operations at several of Taiwan's high-tech heavyweights, including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC,
"Although we have back-up power supplies, this incident still had some impact on our operations," said TSMC public relations officer Jesse Chou (
As of press time, TSMC was still estimating the extent of the damage.
Local Chinese-language media reports earlier said Macronix International had required Taiwan Power Company (Taipower,
A Taipower official confirmed that this was not a fault on the part of Macronix International.
"A review meeting by Taipower's Hsintao Regional Office at 2pm yesterday concluded that the incident was actually caused by United Microdisplay Optronics Corp (聯誠光電)," Huang Hui-yu (黃惠予), Taipower's news section chief, told the Taipei Times.
She said eight companies were required by Taipower to switch off certain equipment to facilitate the maintenance project, but UMC's subsidiary failed to follow orders and power outage ensued.
"Taipower is not in a position to talk about the issue of compensation. This should be left for the affected companies in the science park to address," Huang said.
Working a 24-hour, 365-day per year production schedule, the shutdown may prove costly for the semiconductor makers.
A stable power supply is important for semiconductor chip manufacturing because the production equipment is sensitive to power fluctuations. But blackouts have struck the science park many times in the past. In particular, power outages occurred four times within two months at the end of 2000.
Lost production time hurts not only local companies, but also the worldwide supply chain. Taiwan is responsible for 10 percent of global semiconductor production, and the Hsinchu-based chipmakers account for manufacturing 80 percent of the world's graphics chips and 15 percent of its memory chips.
United Microdisplay Optronics Corp was not available for response yesterday.
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