Pure-play foundry United Microelectronics (UMC) has announced plans to invest a total of NT$100 billion (US$3.58 billion) in the expansion of its 12-inch factory site in southern Taiwan.
UMC plans to expand capacity at the phase-6 (P6) facility of its 12-inch fab dubbed Fab 12A in the Southern Taiwan Science Park (STSP) "through a collaboration model with several of its leading global customers," the Taiwan-based foundry indicated. The customers have signed multi-year agreements with UMC under which they make deposits to ensure UMC's chip supply at the P6, according to the foundry.
The parties also agreed the supply will be based on pre-determined pricing, UMC continued.
The expanded P6 facility will be ready for production in the second quarter of 2023, said UMC, adding that the facility expansion project will bring in an additional output of 27,500 wafers monthly.
"P6 will be equipped with 28nm tools that have the flexibility to produce smaller nodes down to 14nm, creating a straightforward migration path to accommodate customers' future development roadmaps," UMC co-president SC Chien noted.
UMC is capable of processing about 90,000 12-inch wafers per month at its Fab 12A, where equipment move-in at the phase-5 facility has also kicked off. The P5 facility will generate an additional output of 10,000 wafers per month this year, the company said.
Equipping the P5 facility of UMC Fab 12A adjacent to the P6 utilizes the bulk of the foundry's 2021 capex estimated at US$1.5 billion, the company added.
"Within these mature 12- and 8-inch nodes lies many critical components that play a vital role in the IC supply chain; the combination of these conditions lead us to believe that our role and position as a foundry service are experiencing a structural change that requires an innovative win-win collaboration model in order to help alleviate the industry wide chip shortage," said UMC chairman Stan Hung. "This P6 program is the result of our collaboration."
"The P6 program is supported by a multi-year product alignment between UMC and the involved customers with a loading protection mechanism to ensure that capacity maintains at healthy utilization rates," Chien noted. "We look forward to leveraging our No. 1 worldwide foundry market position in multiple areas such as 28nm OLED driver IC production."
UMC expects its total investment in its STSP site to reach approximately NT$150 billion over the next three years. The foundry also plans to hire an additional 1,000 employees at the site.
