ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging service provider, yesterday said it plans to spend NT$5.26 billion (US$162.15 million) acquiring a manufacturing facility from an affiliate as part of its latest efforts to expand advanced packaging capacity.
ASE is to acquire a fab, named K18, in Kaohsiung’s Nanzih District (楠梓) from Hung Ching Development and Construction Co (宏璟建設), ASE chief financial officer Joseph Tung (董宏思) told an online media briefing yesterday.
Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc (日月光半導體), a major subsidiary of ASE, jointly built the fab with Hung Ching. Advanced Semiconductor owns a 25 percent share in the fab.
Photo: CNA
Advanced Semiconductor also signed a cooperative development contract with Hung Ching in June 2020 to build the K13 plant, which was renamed the K18 plant.
“To accommodate the future operational growth of Advanced Semiconductor’s Kaohsiung plant, Advanced Semiconductor intends to exercise its right of first refusal to purchase the K18 plant from Hung Ching to meet the needs of expanding advanced production capacity,” Tung said.
ASE plans to add bumping and flip-chip packaging capacity at the K18 fab, Tung said.
Similarly, ASE in June said that it would jointly build a new plant, called K28, in Kaohsiung in cooperation with Hung Ching.
The capacity expansion aims to cope with growing demand for advanced packaging services used in artificial intelligence (AI) chips and high-performance computing (HPC) chips.
The fab is expected to start operations in the fourth quarter of 2026.
ASE has also expanded its advanced testing and packaging capacity overseas.
The company last week said it plans to buy 16 hectares of land in Kyushu, Japan, for about NT$701 million in preparation for building an advanced testing and packaging plant there.
ASE last month launched its second testing facility in San Jose, California, to expand advanced chip testing capacity such as burn-in testing to satisfy customers’ rising engineering needs for emerging semiconductor applications such as AI and HPC.
ISE Labs, fully owned by ASE, has spent about US$500 million on the company’s US labs and hired more than 200 Taiwanese employees.
Separately, ASE yesterday posted 6.7 percent annual growth in revenue for last month, rising from NT$48.35 billion to NT$51.6 billion and hitting the highest level since December last year.
On a monthly basis, revenue expanded 10 percent from NT$46.93 billion, a company filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange showed.
During the first seven months, ASE has accumulated NT$324.64 billion in revenue, increasing 2.89 percent from NT$315.52 billion for the same period last year.
With an approval rating of just two percent, Peruvian President Dina Boluarte might be the world’s most unpopular leader, according to pollsters. Protests greeted her rise to power 29 months ago, and have marked her entire term — joined by assorted scandals, investigations, controversies and a surge in gang violence. The 63-year-old is the target of a dozen probes, including for her alleged failure to declare gifts of luxury jewels and watches, a scandal inevitably dubbed “Rolexgate.” She is also under the microscope for a two-week undeclared absence for nose surgery — which she insists was medical, not cosmetic — and is
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
GROWING CONCERN: Some senior Trump administration officials opposed the UAE expansion over fears that another TSMC project could jeopardize its US investment Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is evaluating building an advanced production facility in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and has discussed the possibility with officials in US President Donald Trump’s administration, people familiar with the matter said, in a potentially major bet on the Middle East that would only come to fruition with Washington’s approval. The company has had multiple meetings in the past few months with US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and officials from MGX, an influential investment vehicle overseen by the UAE president’s brother, the people said. The conversations are a continuation of talks that
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
RSS