ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it plans to launch a new high-end chip testing fab in the US next month to better serve its key customers based in North America, particularly California-based artificial intelligence (AI) customers.
The new US testing facility would be operated by the firm’s subsidiary ISE Labs Inc, it said.
ASE’s major customers, and high-ranking US officials and representatives from American Institute in Taiwan are to attend the fab’s opening ceremony on July 12, it said.
Photo: CNA
ISE Labs last year acquired a 5,942m2 facility in San Jose, California, for US$24 million to expand capacity, ASE said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
ISE Labs’ new testing fab would be part of ASE’s broader global expansion plans, ASE said.
ASE is scouting potential sites to deploy advanced chip packaging capacity in the US, Japan and Mexico, in response to customers’ growing demand to strengthen supply chain resilience amid mounting geopolitical risks, ASE chief operating officer Tien Wu (吳田玉) told reporters on the sideline of the company’s shareholders’ meeting.
“With this substantial US investment, we intend to demonstrate our goal to create a global deployment. Our purpose is to take good care of our North American clients, very important clients, especially our AI clients based in California,” Wu said.
Additionally, ASE has applied to the US government to create a free trade zone in the region, allowing customers from different countries to ship advanced wafers there for testing and simplifying tedious export procedures, Wu said.
In Mexico, ASE has acquired a plot of land to build an automative electronics and power units supply chain there, with its subsidiary Universal Scientific Industrial (Shanghai) Co (環旭電子), Wu said, targeting North America’s automative electronics used in autonomous vehicles and next-generation robots.
In Japan, ASE is looking for a location to build a larger-scale advanced packing facility than its operation in Yamagata, Wu said.
In Malaysia, ASE is looking to expand its capacity in Penang, where the company operates a major manufacturing site, to cope with increasing demand from a European automative chipmaker, he said.
The companies have inked a long-term supply agreement, he added.
ASE also raised its forecast for the revenue growth from advanced packaging technology, or chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS), this year, due to demand for AI chips.
“Earlier this year, we expected to have an additional US$250 million revenue increase from the CoWoS business. Now it looks like we will exceed that figure. AI demand will remain solid in the second half and through next year,” Wu said.
ASE is collaborating with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) to increase supply of CoWoS packaging capacity to catch up with strong AI chip demand, ASE said.
WEAKER ACTIVITY: The sharpest deterioration was seen in the electronics and optical components sector, with the production index falling 13.2 points to 44.5 Taiwan’s manufacturing sector last month contracted for a second consecutive month, with the purchasing managers’ index (PMI) slipping to 48, reflecting ongoing caution over trade uncertainties, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The decline reflects growing caution among companies amid uncertainty surrounding US tariffs, semiconductor duties and automotive import levies, and it is also likely linked to fading front-loading activity, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said. “Some clients have started shifting orders to Southeast Asian countries where tariff regimes are already clear,” Lien told a news conference. Firms across the supply chain are also lowering stock levels to mitigate
IN THE AIR: While most companies said they were committed to North American operations, some added that production and costs would depend on the outcome of a US trade probe Leading local contract electronics makers Wistron Corp (緯創), Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), Inventec Corp (英業達) and Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶) are to maintain their North American expansion plans, despite Washington’s 20 percent tariff on Taiwanese goods. Wistron said it has long maintained a presence in the US, while distributing production across Taiwan, North America, Southeast Asia and Europe. The company is in talks with customers to align capacity with their site preferences, a company official told the Taipei Times by telephone on Friday. The company is still in talks with clients over who would bear the tariff costs, with the outcome pending further
Six Taiwanese companies, including contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), made the 2025 Fortune Global 500 list of the world’s largest firms by revenue. In a report published by New York-based Fortune magazine on Tuesday, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), ranked highest among Taiwanese firms, placing 28th with revenue of US$213.69 billion. Up 60 spots from last year, TSMC rose to No. 126 with US$90.16 billion in revenue, followed by Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) at 348th, Pegatron Corp (和碩) at 461st, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) at 494th and Wistron Corp (緯創) at
NEGOTIATIONS: Semiconductors play an outsized role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development and are a major driver of the Taiwan-US trade imbalance With US President Donald Trump threatening to impose tariffs on semiconductors, Taiwan is expected to face a significant challenge, as information and communications technology (ICT) products account for more than 70 percent of its exports to the US, Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said on Friday. Compared with other countries, semiconductors play a disproportionately large role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development, Lien said. As the sixth-largest contributor to the US trade deficit, Taiwan recorded a US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US last year — up from US$47.8 billion in 2023 — driven by strong