Taiwan’s major chip companies, led by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), reported limited damage from yesterday’s magnitude 7.2 earthquake, the strongest in 25 years, major science parks and analysts said.
“There were no major production disruptions due to the quake at companies that operate in the park,” Hsinchu Science Park (新竹科學園區) Bureau deputy director-general Chen Shu-chu (陳淑珠) said by telephone.
“As the earthquake was larger than magnitude 5, the companies were required by law to evacuate their workers,” Chen said.
Photo: An Rong Xu, Bloomberg
Infrastructure at the science park, including for power and water, was not affected, she said.
Contract chipmakers TSMC, United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電) and Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電), as well as flat-panel maker Innolux Corp (群創), halted some of their production lines earlier yesterday in the park as a preventive step, she said.
TSMC employees returned to work after being evacuated temporarily from some factories across Taiwan after the temblor hit, the chipmaker said in a statement, adding that it was inspecting its facilities to ensure their safety.
As a precautionary measure, the company suspended all construction work at multiple sites nationwide, TSMC said. Construction is to resume following safety checks, it said.
TSMC said in a separate statement late last night that more than 70 percent of its chipmaking tools had recovered within 10 hours of the earthquake, while that the recovery rate of chip equipment operations at its most advanced factory, such as the Fab 18 in the Southern Taiwan Science Park's (南部科學園區) Tainan section, had exceeded 80 percent.
TSMC said its major machines including all extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography equipment remained undamaged, although a few pieces of equipment in some areas were damaged, affecting production lines there.
The company has allocated resources to expedite comprehensive recovery and maintained close communication with its customers about any relevant impacts, it added.
UMC, which also temporarily evacuated workers at its fabs at the Southern Taiwan Science Park, said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange that some uncompleted wafers were damaged, but it expected there would be no substantial effect on its finances, as wafer production and shipments were being restored.
Market researcher TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said that the memory and foundry industries should have had “minimal damage” from the earthquake, as the DRAM factories operated by Micron Technology Inc and Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) are primarily in central and northern Taiwan, while foundry companies operate factories far from the epicenter on the east coast.
“Most chip manufacturers would quickly restore wafer capacity lost during the quake by extending working hours,” TrendForce said in a note.
The impact on artificial intelligence chip supply to Nvidia Corp should be manageable, as the chips are made in TSMC’s fab in Tainan, TrendForce said.
Operations at the fab should resume promptly, as only some equipment was briefly taken offline for checks, it said.
No evacuations were conducted at the Tainan fab, it added.
Micron delayed its release of DRAM price quotes as it awaited damage assessments, as most of its chips are made in Taichung, TrendForce said.
The US chipmaker might restart price discussions for chip delivery this quarter after factoring in damage from the quake, TrendForce said, adding that Samsung Electronics Co and SK Hynix Inc also stopped price discussions.
Wafer probing service provider Chunghwa Precision Test Technology Co (中華精測) said its operations were recovering gradually after conducting checks of its manufacturing facilities in Taoyuan.
No major impact was expected, it said.
The administration agency of Southern Taiwan Science Park said companies at its Tainan and Kaohsiung sections, including Innolux and HannStar Display Corp (瀚宇彩晶), had sustained limited damage and were operating normally, as their plants are designed to withstand a magnitude 7 quake.
PATENTS: MediaTek Inc said it would not comment on ongoing legal cases, but does not expect the legal action by Huawei to affect its business operations Smartphone integrated chips designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) on Friday said that a lawsuit filed by Chinese smartphone brand Huawei Technologies Co (華為) over alleged patent infringements would have little impact on its operations. In an announcement posted on the Taiwan Stock Exchange, MediaTek said that it would not comment on an ongoing legal case. However, the company said that Huawei’s legal action would have little impact on its operations. MediaTek’s statement came after China-based PRIP Research said on Thursday that Huawei filed a lawsuit with a Chinese district court claiming that MediaTek infringed on its patents. The infringement mentioned in the lawsuit likely involved
Taipei is today suspending work, classes and its US$2.4 trillion stock market as Typhoon Gaemi approaches Taiwan with strong winds and heavy rain. The nation is not conducting securities, currency or fixed income trading, statements from its stock and currency exchanges said. Authorities had yesterday issued a warning that the storm could affect people on land and canceled some ship crossings and domestic flights. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) expects its local chipmaking fabs to maintain normal production, the company said in an e-mailed statement. The main chipmaker for Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp said it has activated routine typhoon alert
GROWTH: TSMC increased its projected revenue growth for this year to more than 25 percent, citing stronger-than-expected demand for AI devices and smartphones The Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER, 台灣經濟研究院) yesterday raised its forecast for Taiwan’s GDP growth this year from 3.29 percent to 3.85 percent, as exports and private investment recovered faster than it predicted three months ago. The Taipei-based think tank also expects that Taiwan would see a 8.19 percent increase in exports this year, better than the 7.55 percent it projected in April, as US technology giants spent more money on artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure and development. “There will be more AI servers going forward, but it remains to be seen if the momentum would extend to personal computers, smartphones and
Catastrophic computer outages caused by a software update from one company have once again exposed the dangers of global technological dependence on a handful of players, experts said on Friday. A flawed update sent out by the little-known security firm CrowdStrike Holdings Inc brought airlines, TV stations and myriad other aspects of daily life to a standstill. The outages affected companies or individuals that use CrowdStrike on the Microsoft Inc’s Windows platform. When they applied the update, the incompatible software crashed computers into a frozen state known as the “blue screen of death.” “Today CrowdStrike has become a household name, but not in