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.
Taiwanese suppliers to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC, 台積電) are expected to follow the contract chipmaker’s step to invest in the US, but their relocation may be seven to eight years away, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. When asked by opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Niu Hsu-ting (牛煦庭) in the legislature about growing concerns that TSMC’s huge investments in the US will prompt its suppliers to follow suit, Kuo said based on the chipmaker’s current limited production volume, it is unlikely to lead its supply chain to go there for now. “Unless TSMC completes its planned six
Intel Corp has named Tasha Chuang (莊蓓瑜) to lead Intel Taiwan in a bid to reinforce relations between the company and its Taiwanese partners. The appointment of Chuang as general manager for Intel Taiwan takes effect on Thursday, the firm said in a statement yesterday. Chuang is to lead her team in Taiwan to pursue product development and sales growth in an effort to reinforce the company’s ties with its partners and clients, Intel said. Chuang was previously in charge of managing Intel’s ties with leading Taiwanese PC brand Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), which included helping Asustek strengthen its global businesses, the company
Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday said second-quarter revenue is expected to surpass the first quarter, which rose 30 percent year-on-year to NT$118.92 billion (US$3.71 billion). Revenue this quarter is likely to grow, as US clients have front-loaded orders ahead of US President Donald Trump’s planned tariffs on Taiwanese goods, Delta chairman Ping Cheng (鄭平) said at an earnings conference in Taipei, referring to the 90-day pause in tariff implementation Trump announced on April 9. While situations in the third and fourth quarters remain unclear, “We will not halt our long-term deployments and do not plan to
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar