A fire broke out yesterday afternoon at a building of Advanced Semiconductor Engineering (ASE) Inc's factory in Chungli, Taoyuan County, and was extinguished approximately five hours later. No deaths were reported.
The damage and losses at the world's largest chip packager are still "under assessment," ASE's controller Freddie Liu (
The fire started at 1:47pm at boilers of the factory's Building A and was mostly brought under control by firefighters at about 7pm, the Central News Agency reported.
The Chungli plant, which ASE bought from Motorola Inc along with two South Korean fabs in 1999 for a total price of US$367 million, currently offers integrated circuit packaging, testing and substrate manufacturing with output of 12 million chips a month, the company said on its Web site.
ASE cuts silicon wafers from chipmakers such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co into chips, attaches conductive wiring to the semiconductors and packages them in insulating plastic covers.
The 1-million-square-foot plant reportedly creates NT$5 billion in sales, accounting for over 6 percent of the projected NT$80 billion revenue this year. The company has another factory in Kaohsiung and overseas factories in Korea, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia and the US.
ASE on Thursday reported an unexpected net loss of NT$128 million in the first quarter of this year, down from a profit of NT$1.6 billion a year earlier, owing to falling demand for semiconductors used in personal computers and mobile phones.
ASE's chief financial officer Joseph Tung (董宏思) told investors at the time that the company will cut spending this year to between US$200 million and US$250 million to limit capacity in order to support falling average selling prices.
The fire, however, may change the company's capital expenditure plans and is expected to impact its second-quarter sales, which ASE originally expected to record minimal growth of between 1 percent and 3 percent.
NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT: An official said that Guan Guan’s comments had gone beyond the threshold of free speech, as she advocated for the destruction of the ROC China-born media influencer Guan Guan’s (關關) residency permit has been revoked for repeatedly posting pro-China content that threatens national security, the National Immigration Agency said yesterday. Guan Guan has said many controversial things in her videos posted to Douyin (抖音), including “the red flag will soon be painted all over Taiwan” and “Taiwan is an inseparable part of China,” while expressing hope for expedited “reunification.” The agency received multiple reports alleging that Guan Guan had advocated for armed reunification last year. After investigating, the agency last month issued a notice requiring her to appear and account for her actions. Guan Guan appeared as required,
Japan and the Philippines yesterday signed a defense pact that would allow the tax-free provision of ammunition, fuel, food and other necessities when their forces stage joint training to boost deterrence against China’s growing aggression in the region and to bolster their preparation for natural disasters. Japan has faced increasing political, trade and security tensions with China, which was angered by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s remark that a Chinese attack on Taiwan would be a survival-threatening situation for Japan, triggering a military response. Japan and the Philippines have also had separate territorial conflicts with Beijing in the East and South China
A strong cold air mass is expected to arrive tonight, bringing a change in weather and a drop in temperature, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The coldest time would be early on Thursday morning, with temperatures in some areas dipping as low as 8°C, it said. Daytime highs yesterday were 22°C to 24°C in northern and eastern Taiwan, and about 25°C to 28°C in the central and southern regions, it said. However, nighttime lows would dip to about 15°C to 16°C in central and northern Taiwan as well as the northeast, and 17°C to 19°C elsewhere, it said. Tropical Storm Nokaen, currently
PAPERS, PLEASE: The gang exploited the high value of the passports, selling them at inflated prices to Chinese buyers, who would treat them as ‘invisibility cloaks’ The Yilan District Court has handed four members of a syndicate prison terms ranging from one year and two months to two years and two months for their involvement in a scheme to purchase Taiwanese passports and resell them abroad at a massive markup. A Chinese human smuggling syndicate purchased Taiwanese passports through local criminal networks, exploiting the passports’ visa-free travel privileges to turn a profit of more than 20 times the original price, the court said. Such criminal organizations enable people to impersonate Taiwanese when entering and exiting Taiwan and other countries, undermining social order and the credibility of the nation’s
RSS