March 15, 2007 – Chipmakers applying for building 300mm wafer fabs on the Hsinchu Science Park (HSP) were notified last month by the park administration to hold a joint groundbreaking ceremony in May to mark the beginning of the construction, according to CENS, the Taiwan Economic News.

Taiwanese chipmakers, including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) and PowerChip Semiconductor Corp. (PSC), have applied to the park administration for approval on their plan to construct 300mm wafer fabs at the park, and have begun speeding up their plans after the weeklong Chinese New Year holidays.

TSMC will spend NT$8.48 billion (US$256 million at US$1:NT$33) on land appropriation for its new fab. The company says it will attend the joint construction-starting ceremony and kick off the construction quickly after the park completes the appropriation for it. United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC) has also built a 300mm wafer fab at the park.

The administration will appropriate a total 31 hectares (76.6 acres) of land for the applicants and set aside an 8.5-hectare (21 acres) of land for TSMC’s use.

PSC, currently Taiwan’s No.1 DRAM (dynamic random access memory) chipmaker by revenue, according to CENS, will build two 300mm fabs on 7-8 hectares (17.3- 19.8 acres) of land in the park to put out a combined 120,000 wafers of flash-memory chips a month. The company plans to start the construction late this year or early next year.

According to CENS, Vanguard Semiconductor International Corp. (VSIC), a second-tier silicon foundry around 27% owned by TSMC, will send executives to the May opening ceremony, but the company said the attendance does not mean it will kick off construction immediately. The company is assessing the plan to expand capacity by building new factory of by acquiring running factory.