Chiayi County Commissioner Weng Chang-liang (翁章梁) on Tuesday urged Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to choose his county after local media reported that it is the chipmaker’s preferred location to build an advanced IC packaging and testing plant.
The DigiTimes reported earlier in the day that TSMC was deciding whether to build the plant in Chiayi County or Yunlin County, with Weng’s county the more likely choice.
Weng said that he is delighted that TSMC is evaluating the possibility of building a plant in Chiayi.
Photo courtesy of the Chiayi County Government
The county government would do its best to help TSMC solve administrative problems arising from an investment project in Chiayi, he said.
Early this month, Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) approved a plan to allocate NT$8.5 billion (US$306.36 million) to set up a Chiayi science park in an 88 hectare site in Taibao City (太保) that was previously occupied by Taiwan Sugar Co (台糖).
Chiayi has a lot of land that is suitable for high-tech firms and good access to transportation systems, Weng said, adding that many firms have poured funds into the county, as they recognize its great growth potential.
With industrial parks in the county’s Machouhou (馬稠後), Shuishang (水上) and Chungpu (中埔) townships, and an aviation industrial park in Minhsiung Township (民雄), Chiayi has joined the growing list of tech areas in Taiwan, he said.
The Digitimes report cited industrial sources as saying that because TSMC’s customers have placed large orders for high-end IC packaging and testing services, the chipmaker is to build a new plant to meet the demand.
TSMC declined to comment on the Digitimes report.
TSMC operates four advanced IC packaging and testing plants — in Taoyuan, Hsinchu City, Taichung and Tainan.
The company is building a fifth IC packaging and testing plant in Miaoli County’s Jhunan Township (竹南), with phase one of the project to focus on 2.5D chip and system-on-IC technologies scheduled to start mass production this year.
Arisa Liu (劉佩真), an economist with the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院), said that the chipmaker aims to provide one-stop shopping services for customers from upstream pure-wafer foundry operations through backend IC packaging and testing.
This strategy is expected to help TSMC win more orders, in particular from major customers at a time when the chipmaker is aggressively expanding production capacity and upgrading technologies to cement its lead over competitors, Liu said.
TSMC had planned US$100 billion in capital expenditure from last year to next year.
Its spending was about US$30 billion last year, and it is to rise to US$40 billion to US$44 billion this year, it said last week.
Overseas, TSMC is building a wafer plant in Arizona using its 5-nanometer process technology, while it is expanding production of its mature 28-nanometer process in Nanjing, China.
The firm has also announced plans to team up with Sony Group Corp to build a wafer fab in Japan featuring the 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer processes.
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