Micron Technology Inc has signed a letter of intent to buy a fabrication site in Taiwan from Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電) for US$1.8 billion to expand its production of memory chips.
Micron would take control of the P5 site in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼) and plans to ramp up DRAM production in phases after the transaction closes in the second quarter, the company said in a statement on Saturday.
The acquisition includes an existing 12 inch fab cleanroom of 27,871m2 and would further position Micron to address growing global demand for memory solutions, the company said.
Photo: AFP
Micron expects the transaction to contribute to meaningful DRAM wafer output in the second half of next year, it said.
The companies would also partner on Micron’s post-wafer assembly processing and to support Powerchip in its legacy DRAM portfolio, it added.
“This strategic acquisition of an existing cleanroom complements our current Taiwan operations and will enable Micron to increase production and better serve our customers in a market where demand continues to outpace supply,” Micron executive vice president for global operations Manish Bhatia said in the statement. “The Tongluo fab’s close proximity to Micron’s Taichung site will enable synergies across our Taiwan operations.”
The deal would see the two companies establish a long-term foundry relationship for advanced DRAM packaging, Powerchip said in a separate statement.
Micron would also assist Powerchip in enhancing its existing specialty DRAM process technologies at the P3 site in Hsinchu County, it said.
Through the deal, Powerchip aims to strengthen its financial structure, it added.
“Amid the global recovery of the memory market, the company plans to integrate advanced packaging technologies and materials — such as 3D wafer-on-wafer and interposers — to pivot into a key player within the AI supply chain,” Powerchip said.
The investment is part of Micron’s global expansion as it seeks to meet continued demand for memory chips. The Boise, Idaho-based company, which makes most of its chips at facilities in Asia, on Friday held a groundbreaking ceremony for a new plant outside Syracuse, New York, having promised last year to invest as much as US$200 billion in the US.
Micron competes with South Korea-based Samsung Electronics Co and SK Hynix Inc in the market for high-bandwidth memory chips — a crucial component in the data center processors powering the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. Demand for the components has skyrocketed due to AI data center needs, and the three companies have warned in the past few months of limited supply.
Additional reporting by staff writer
SECOND-RATE: Models distilled from US products do not perform the same as the original and undo measures that ensure the systems are neutral, the US’ cable said The US Department of State has ordered a global push to bring attention to what it said are widespread efforts by Chinese companies, including artificial intelligence (AI) start-up DeepSeek (深度求索), to steal intellectual property from US AI labs, according to a diplomatic cable. The cable, dated Friday and sent to diplomatic and consular posts around the world, instructs diplomatic staff to speak to their foreign counterparts about “concerns over adversaries’ extraction and distillation of US AI models.” Distillation is the process of training smaller AI models using output from larger, more expensive ones to lower the costs of training a powerful new
Shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) have repeatedly hit new highs, but an equity analyst said the stock’s valuation remains within a reasonable range and any pullback would likely be technical. The contract chipmaker’s historical price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio has ranged between 20 and 30, Cathay Futures Consultant Co (國泰證期) analyst Tsai Ming-han (蔡明翰) told Central News Agency. With market consensus projecting that TSMC would post earnings per share of about NT$100 (US$3.17) this year, supported by strong global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications, and the stock currently trading at a P/E ratio of below 25, Tsai said the valuation
The artificial intelligence (AI) boom has triggered a seismic reshuffling of global equity markets, with Taiwan and South Korea muscling past European nations one by one. With its stock market now valued at nearly US$4.3 trillion, Taiwan surpassed the UK, Europe’s biggest market, earlier this month, data compiled by Bloomberg showed. South Korea is about US$140 billion away from doing the same. The tech-heavy Asian markets have shot past Germany and France in the past seven months. The shift is largely down to massive gains in shares of three companies that provide essential hardware for AI: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電),
The US Department of Commerce last week ordered multiple chip equipment companies to halt shipments of certain tools to China’s second-largest chipmaker, Hua Hong Semiconductor Ltd (華虹半導體), its latest action to slow the country’s development of advanced chips, two people familiar with the matter said. The department sent letters to at least a handful of companies informing them of restrictions on tools and other materials destined for two Hua Hong facilities US officials believe make China’s most sophisticated chips, the people said. Top US chip equipment companies Lam Research Corp, Applied Materials Inc and KLA Corp, each of which has significant
RSS