Formosa Plastics Group (FPG, 台塑集團) yesterday announced that it is to form a joint venture in Taiwan with Japanese chemicals company Tokuyama Corp to manufacture and sell high-purity isopropyl alcohol (IPA) to the electronics industry.
FPG chairman and president Jason Lin (林健男) is to be chairman of the new venture, which is to be called Formosa Tokuyama Advanced Chemicals Co, while Tokuyama Corp general manager Haruyoshi Honda is to be general manager.
FPG and Tokuyama Corp are each to hold a 50 percent stake in the new company. The companies have invested NT$1 billion (US$34.16 million) of capital into the new venture.
Tokuyama Corp said in a statement that the company’s board of directors approved the joint venture at a meeting yesterday. FPG confirmed the formation of the joint venture in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
“Due to the advances made in 5G, IoT [Internet of Things], AI [artificial intelligence] and other technologies, the semiconductor market is expected to continue expanding over the medium and long term, and accordingly demand for high-purity IPA is forecast to gradually increase,” Tokuyama said in the statement.
The joint venture would allow the company to “immediately respond” to the needs of its customers in Taiwan, the Japanese firm said.
Tokuyama’s IPA is made for the electronics industry using a “proprietary method” to achieve a “purity level of over 99.99 percent,” according to the company’s Web site.
“This product is ideal for cleaning and drying electronic devices, including semiconductors and glass substrates,” the Web site says.
Tokuyama is a supplier of high-purity chemicals to a number of leading Taiwanese semiconductor companies, including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), United Microelectronics Corp (聯電) and Winbond Electronics Corp (華邦電子), according to a Ministry of Economic Affairs statement last year.
Tokuyama established its first factory in Taiwan in Hsinchu in 1996, followed by a NT$600 million plant in Yunlin County that was completed last year as a part of the government’s Invest in Taiwan initiative, the statement said.
The plant for the joint venture is to be on a 1.6 hectare plot in Kaohsiung, with construction scheduled to be completed by September next year and production beginning by December, the Central News Agency reported yesterday, citing FPG and Tokuyama sources.
The plant is expected to produce 30,000 tonnes of high-purity IPA per year, made from propylene supplied by FPG, the report said.
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