Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc (ASE, 日月光半導體) has brushed off concerns of a potential rivalry with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) amid reports the Taiwanese chipmaker has put together a large team to make further inroads into ASE’s main market.
A senior executive with ASE, the world’s largest integrated circuit packaging and testing vendor, told the Central News Agency on Tuesday that the company hopes to have a “symbiotic” relationship with TSMC and that it would also expand into the flip-chip and wire-bonding sectors.
The executive, who requested anonymity because of not being authorized to speak publicly on the issue, said ASE would also increase its capital expenditure and investment in research and development to strengthen its market competitiveness.
Local media reported earlier this month that TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, had recently recruited engineers — many reportedly from ASE and Siliconware Precision Industries Co (矽品精密) — to establish its own 400-person packaging and testing team.
TSMC has been involved in the sector through investments in other companies, but this would be the chipmaker’s most aggressive foray into packaging to date, raising questions about whether it might eventually challenge ASE and Siliconware, which is the second-biggest company in the field.
Though the executive did not define how the symbiotic relationship between ASE and TSMC might evolve, he said he expected TSMC would invest more in testing and packaging over the next 10 years because capital expenditure in the core chipmaking industry is likely to fall.
The global average capital expenditure in chip making is about US$25 billion annually, while average capital expenditure in integrated circuit packaging and testing is about US$5 billion, the executive said.
Separately, Apple Inc and Qualcomm Inc were rebuffed in separate attempts to invest cash with TSMC in a bid to secure exclusive access to smartphone chips, people with knowledge of the matter said.
Both proposals included investments, each of more than US$1 billion, for TSMC to set aside production dedicated to making chips exclusively for them, said the people, who declined to be identified because the details are not public.
While TSMC is Qualcomm’s biggest supplier, the Taiwanese firm has been successful because it has worked with multiple customers. Dedicating one facility to a single product or customer creates the risk of a fabrication plant becoming a burden if the product, client or technology changes, TSMC chief financial officer Lora Ho (何麗梅) said in an interview on July 19.
“You have to be careful. Once that product migrates, what are you going to do with that dedicated fab?” Ho asked. “We would like to keep the flexibility.”
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said that its investment plan in Arizona is going according to schedule, following a local media report claiming that the company is planning to break ground on its third wafer fab in the US in June. In a statement, TSMC said it does not comment on market speculation, but that its investments in Arizona are proceeding well. TSMC is investing more than US$65 billion in Arizona to build three advanced wafer fabs. The first one has started production using the 4-nanometer (nm) process, while the second one would start mass production using the
A TAIWAN DEAL: TSMC is in early talks to fully operate Intel’s US semiconductor factories in a deal first raised by Trump officials, but Intel’s interest is uncertain Broadcom Inc has had informal talks with its advisers about making a bid for Intel Corp’s chip-design and marketing business, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Nothing has been submitted to Intel and Broadcom could decide not to pursue a deal, according to the Journal. Bloomberg News earlier reported that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is in early talks for a controlling stake in Intel’s factories at the request of officials at US President Donald Trump’s administration, as the president looks to boost US manufacturing and maintain the country’s leadership in critical technologies. Trump officials raised the
‘SILVER LINING’: Although the news caused TSMC to fall on the local market, an analyst said that as tariffs are not set to go into effect until April, there is still time for negotiations US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that he would likely impose tariffs on semiconductor, automobile and pharmaceutical imports of about 25 percent, with an announcement coming as soon as April 2 in a move that would represent a dramatic widening of the US leader’s trade war. “I probably will tell you that on April 2, but it’ll be in the neighborhood of 25 percent,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago club when asked about his plan for auto tariffs. Asked about similar levies on pharmaceutical drugs and semiconductors, the president said that “it’ll be 25 percent and higher, and it’ll
CHIP BOOM: Revenue for the semiconductor industry is set to reach US$1 trillion by 2032, opening up opportunities for the chip pacakging and testing company, it said ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光投控), the world’s largest provider of outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) services, yesterday launched a new advanced manufacturing facility in Penang, Malaysia, aiming to meet growing demand for emerging technologies such as generative artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The US$300 million facility is a critical step in expanding ASE’s global footprint, offering an alternative for customers from the US, Europe, Japan, South Korea and China to assemble and test chips outside of Taiwan amid efforts to diversify supply chains. The plant, the company’s fifth in Malaysia, is part of a strategic expansion plan that would more than triple
RSS