December 27, 2004 – The board of directors of PowerChip Semiconductor Corp. (PSC) have approved a plan to open a 200mm wafer fab in mainland China and have decided to put 20% of the firm’s net worth of NT$69.3 billion (US$2.1 billion) into the investment, said the Financial Times.

The company will submit the investment application to the Ministry of Economic Affairs for approval. Taiwan government permits the island’s chipmakers to open a total number of three 200mm wafer fabs in the mainland by 2005 in response to the chipmakers’ urges that the government should allow them to move obsolete facilities to the mainland to make the best of their remaining values.

So far, the government has approved Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) and ProMos Technologies Inc. to open facilities in the mainland. The company’s executives said the company would submit the application by the end of this year and might begin to construct the planned fab in 2006.

PSC chairman Frank Huang pointed out that his company might open the facility in cooperation with a Japanese partner and the major products in the facility would be microprocessors for cars and telecommunications chips. Instead of moving his company’s 200mm tools to the factory, the company would buy used equipment from Japanese chipmakers, he stressed