Netherlands-based ASML Holding NV, a leading global supplier of chipmaking machinery, on Wednesday announced plans for a factory in New Taipei City to support international customers and the development of the semiconductor industry.
ASML’s announcement came after President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) praised the company’s commitment to continuously investing in Taiwan at a meeting on Tuesday with its chief operations officer, Frederic Schneider-Maunoury.
ASML continues to invest globally and in Taiwan to prepare for the company’s continued growth, and to support global customers and the development of the semiconductor industry, the company said in an e-mail reply to Taiwanese media.
Photo courtesy of the Presidential Office via CNA
Vice Premier Shen Jong-chin (沈榮津), who was at Tuesday’s meeting, said that ASML should begin construction on the New Taipei City project in July next year.
ASML is the world’s sole supplier of extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) photolithography machines used by semiconductor manufacturers to produce cutting-edge chips.
It has become one of the foremost wafer-foundry equipment suppliers to Taiwanese manufacturers, including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker.
Photographer: Peter Boer/Bloomberg
At Tuesday’s meeting, Tsai told Schneider-Maunoury that investing in Taiwan was “a very correct direction” and that the government would continue to provide support, a press release issued by the Presidential Office said.
ASML has five factories in Taiwan employing more than 4,500 people and plans to increase its investments in the country, the release said.
The company in 2020 launched a global EUV training center for engineers at the Southern Taiwan Science Park (南部科學園區) in Tainan.
ASML’s new project next year would be its biggest investment in Taiwan yet, and the continued cooperation between the company and Taiwan will enhance each other’s semiconductor capabilities, Tsai said in a social media post later on Tuesday.
Tsai said she was grateful that ASML had taken concrete actions to invest at a time when the world is focusing on Taiwan.
“I believe this would dispel the over-hyped risk of investing in Taiwan,” she said.
The company’s teams are based in Hsinchu City, New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口), Taichung and Tainan, with its first office dating to 2003, ASML’s Web site says.
ASML is aggressively expanding its presence in Asia to enhance collaborations with its largest customers, aiming for significant growth opportunities.
On Wednesday, the company held a groundbreaking ceremony of its new semiconductor cluster in South Korea, home to the world’s two biggest memorychip makers: Samsung Electronics Co and SK Hynix Inc, Yonhap news agency reported.
ASML is building a US$181 million chip cluster in Hwaseong, about 40km south of Seoul, which would include a local repair center, training center, research and development center for parts, and education and experience center, the report said.
The construction is expected to be completed by the end of 2024, it said.
South Korea accounted for 33.4 percent of ASML’s total sales last year, up from 29.7 percent the previous year, company data showed.
CAUTIOUS RECOVERY: While the manufacturing sector returned to growth amid the US-China trade truce, firms remain wary as uncertainty clouds the outlook, the CIER said The local manufacturing sector returned to expansion last month, as the official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose 2.1 points to 51.0, driven by a temporary easing in US-China trade tensions, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The PMI gauges the health of the manufacturing industry, with readings above 50 indicating expansion and those below 50 signaling contraction. “Firms are not as pessimistic as they were in April, but they remain far from optimistic,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said at a news conference. The full impact of US tariff decisions is unlikely to become clear until later this month
Popular vape brands such as Geek Bar might get more expensive in the US — if you can find them at all. Shipments of vapes from China to the US ground to a near halt last month from a year ago, official data showed, hit by US President Donald Trump’s tariffs and a crackdown on unauthorized e-cigarettes in the world’s biggest market for smoking alternatives. That includes Geek Bar, a brand of flavored vapes that is not authorized to sell in the US, but which had been widely available due to porous import controls. One retailer, who asked not to be named, because
CHIP DUTIES: TSMC said it voiced its concerns to Washington about tariffs, telling the US commerce department that it wants ‘fair treatment’ to protect its competitiveness Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reiterated robust business prospects for this year as strong artificial intelligence (AI) chip demand from Nvidia Corp and other customers would absorb the impacts of US tariffs. “The impact of tariffs would be indirect, as the custom tax is the importers’ responsibility, not the exporters,” TSMC chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said at the chipmaker’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Hsinchu City. TSMC’s business could be affected if people become reluctant to buy electronics due to inflated prices, Wei said. In addition, the chipmaker has voiced its concern to the US Department of Commerce
STILL LOADED: Last year’s richest person, Quanta Computer Inc chairman Barry Lam, dropped to second place despite an 8 percent increase in his wealth to US$12.6 billion Staff writer, with CNA Daniel Tsai (蔡明忠) and Richard Tsai (蔡明興), the brothers who run Fubon Group (富邦集團), topped the Forbes list of Taiwan’s 50 richest people this year, released on Wednesday in New York. The magazine said that a stronger New Taiwan dollar pushed the combined wealth of Taiwan’s 50 richest people up 13 percent, from US$174 billion to US$197 billion, with 36 of the people on the list seeing their wealth increase. That came as Taiwan’s economy grew 4.6 percent last year, its fastest pace in three years, driven by the strong performance of the semiconductor industry, the magazine said. The Tsai