Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc (ASE, 日月光半導體), the world’s biggest chip packager, said yesterday it had signed a memorandum of understanding with US chipmaker Spansion Inc to form a chip testing and packaging venture in Suzhou, China.
The deal is ASE’s latest strategic alliance with chipmakers after forming a joint venture with NXP Semiconductor in Suzhou in a bid to boost growth by taking over factories owned by its partners, who hope to cut costs.
“This joint venture will enable ASE to expand its role in the rapidly growing flash memory segment,” ASE chairman Jason Chang (張虔生) said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
‘EXCITED’
“We are excited to see more and more semiconductor companies adopt the asset-light strategy, which leads to the acceleration of outsourcing demand. ASE is well prepared to capitalize on this industry trend and embrace these opportunities.”
The joint venture with Spansion may represent a new growth driver for ASE, which makes a minimal portion of its revenues by providing testing and packaging services for flash memory chipmakers, ASE said.
“The joint venture will broaden ASE’s product line-up. ASE will be able to provide extensive chip testing and packaging services for customers,” the company said in the filing.
ASE may invest US$100 million in the joint venture, including buying a share of a Suzhou plant owned by Spansion, company spokesman Freddie Liu (劉詩亮) told the Taipei Times.
The financial details are not finalized, Liu said. ASE hopes to close the deal by the end of the year, he said.
ASE will obtain a contract from Spansion to provide chip testing and packaging services for the US company in the next few years at the Suzhou factory, the statement said.
CUSTOMER BASE
“Through our partnership with ASE, the Spansion Suzhou facility is expected to serve a broader customer base, which should result in lower costs through greater economies of scale and increased utilization,” Spansion chief executive Bertrand Cambou said in the statement.
Spansion employs about 1,100 employees at its Suzhou factory, which is the flagship factory in the firm’s final manufacturing network. It opened in 1998.
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) today announced that his company has selected "Beitou Shilin" in Taipei for its new Taiwan office, called Nvidia Constellation, putting an end to months of speculation. Industry sources have said that the tech giant has been eyeing the Beitou Shilin Science Park as the site of its new overseas headquarters, and speculated that the new headquarters would be built on two plots of land designated as "T17" and "T18," which span 3.89 hectares in the park. "I think it's time for us to reveal one of the largest products we've ever built," Huang said near the
China yesterday announced anti-dumping duties as high as 74.9 percent on imports of polyoxymethylene (POM) copolymers, a type of engineering plastic, from Taiwan, the US, the EU and Japan. The Chinese Ministry of Commerce’s findings conclude a probe launched in May last year, shortly after the US sharply increased tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, computer chips and other imports. POM copolymers can partially replace metals such as copper and zinc, and have various applications, including in auto parts, electronics and medical equipment, the Chinese ministry has said. In January, it said initial investigations had determined that dumping was taking place, and implemented preliminary
Intel Corp yesterday reinforced its determination to strengthen its partnerships with Taiwan’s ecosystem partners including original-electronic-manufacturing (OEM) companies such as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and chipmaker United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電). “Tonight marks a new beginning. We renew our new partnership with Taiwan ecosystem,” Intel new chief executive officer Tan Lip-bu (陳立武) said at a dinner with representatives from the company’s local partners, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the US chip giant’s presence in Taiwan. Tan took the reins at Intel six weeks ago aiming to reform the chipmaker and revive its past glory. This is the first time Tan
CUSTOMERS’ BURDEN: TSMC already has operations in the US and is a foundry, so any tariff increase would mostly affect US customers, not the company, the minister said Taiwanese manufacturers are “not afraid” of US tariffs, but are concerned about being affected more heavily than regional economic competitors Japan and South Korea, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said. “Taiwan has many advantages that other countries do not have, the most notable of which is its semiconductor ecosystem,” Kuo said. The US “must rely on Taiwan” to boost its microchip manufacturing capacities, Kuo said in an interview ahead of his one-year anniversary in office tomorrow. Taiwan has submitted a position paper under Section 232 of the US Trade Expansion Act to explain the “complementary relationship” between Taiwan and the US
RSS