September 5, 2006 – Siliconware Precision Industry Co., Taiwan’s No. 2 chip test and packaging house, apparently plans to plop down a factory in Taiwan’s largest agricultural county, surprising industry watchers, according to the Taiwan Economic News.

Construction for the facility, to be built on a $25 million 468,000 sq. ft parcel of land in Chunghwa County, is scheduled for next year. The site has surprised industry insiders, who note that the land is not on a chip industry cluster, though it borders chip-industry-friendly Taichung. Investment in the site will be part of the company’s capital expenditure of roughly $312.5 million budgeted for this year.

Over the past three years, Siliconware has invested a total of $50 million in transistor packaging and test factories and memory-module factories in the mainland, considered a preemptive move for investment in chip packaging and test houses there, according to the report. Siliconware, however, denied that the move is an alternative plan to build such a site in mainland China, after the Ministry of Economic Affairs denied the company’s proposal for mainland expansion.