Chip tester King Yuan Electronics Co (京元電子), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said it is mulling whether to build a new production line in the US in response to strong testing demand for chips used in artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC).
The remarks came after Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) unveiled a new US$100 billion US expansion plan, including two advanced packaging fabs, to address demand from its US clients and potential tariffs.
“That [US expansion] needs to correspond with the development of market conditions. We will be preparing for that,” King Yuan chairman Lee Chin-kung (李金恭) told reporters on the sidelines of a media gathering in Hsinchu.
Photo: CNA
King Yuan said that US President Donald Trump’s plan to hike tariffs poses great uncertainty to the whole semiconductor industry.
It is hard to gauge the impact as of the present, it said.
King Yuan is one of the key back-end assembly partners to TSMC for its advanced packaging, or chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, technology, which is primarily adopted for AI chips. The firm provides final test and burn-in test services for TSMC and Nvidia.
Apart from the US, King Yuan has also included Southeast Asian nations on its shortlist as the region has risen to be a major global semiconductor hub.
King Yuan expects AI-related revenue to account for more than 20 percent of its total revenue this year, Lee said.
That would be a spike from a single-digit percentage revenue contribution last year.
The company has a positive revenue outlook for this year and expects demand for advanced technologies to outpace mature technologies, King Yuan president Gauss Chang (張高薰) said.
A majority of the company’s customers in the consumer electronics segment have reduced their inventory to a healthy level, which would help drive growth, while customers in the automotive segment are still digesting excessive stockpiles, he said.
“Based on the normal seasonality, the first quarter is usually a low season,” Chang said. “The second quarter will be a better period than the first, followed by a strong second half fueled by AI and HPC demand.”
To cope with the dramatic increases in AI-related demand from customers, King Yuan has rented a factory in Miaoli County’s Toufen City (頭份) and is building a clean room and preparing for new equipment to move in, Chang said.
The firm is also building a new fab in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼), he said.
King Yuan has budgeted for record-high capital expenditure of NT$23.3 billion (US$709.2 million) this year, an increase of 68 percent from NT$13.8 billion last year.
Anna Bhobho, a 31-year-old housewife from rural Zimbabwe, was once a silent observer in her home, excluded from financial and family decisionmaking in the deeply patriarchal society. Today, she is a driver of change in her village, thanks to an electric tricycle she owns. In many parts of rural sub-Saharan Africa, women have long been excluded from mainstream economic activities such as operating public transportation. However, three-wheelers powered by green energy are reversing that trend, offering financial opportunities and a newfound sense of importance. “My husband now looks up to me to take care of a large chunk of expenses,
SECTOR LEADER: TSMC can increase capacity by as much as 20 percent or more in the advanced node part of the foundry market by 2030, an analyst said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to lead its peers in the advanced 2-nanometer process technology, despite competition from Samsung Electronics Co and Intel Corp, TrendForce Corp analyst Joanne Chiao (喬安) said. TSMC’s sophisticated products and its large production scale are expected to allow the company to continue dominating the global 2-nanometer process market this year, Chiao said. The world’s largest contract chipmaker is scheduled to begin mass production of chips made on the 2-nanometer process in its Hsinchu fab in the second half of this year. It would also hold a ceremony on Monday next week to
TECH CLUSTER: The US company’s new office is in the Shalun Smart Green Energy Science City, a new AI industry base and cybersecurity hub in southern Taiwan US chip designer Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) yesterday launched an office in Tainan’s Gueiren District (歸仁), marking a significant milestone in the development of southern Taiwan’s artificial intelligence (AI) industry, the Tainan City Government said in a statement. AMD Taiwan general manager Vincent Chern (陳民皓) presided over the opening ceremony for the company’s new office at the Shalun Smart Green Energy Science City (沙崙智慧綠能科學城), a new AI industry base and cybersecurity hub in southern Taiwan. Facilities in the new office include an information processing center, and a research and development (R&D) center, the Tainan Economic Development Bureau said. The Ministry
State-run CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) yesterday signed a letter of intent with Alaska Gasline Development Corp (AGDC), expressing an interest to buy liquefied natural gas (LNG) and invest in the latter’s Alaska LNG project, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a statement. Under the agreement, CPC is to participate in the project’s upstream gas investment to secure stable energy resources for Taiwan, the ministry said. The Alaska LNG project is jointly promoted by AGDC and major developer Glenfarne Group LLC, as Alaska plans to export up to 20 million tonnes of LNG annually from 2031. It involves constructing an 1,290km