Malaysia is targeting at least 500 billion ringgit (US$107 billion) in investment for its semiconductor industry, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said yesterday, as the Southeast Asian country looks to position itself as a global manufacturing hub.
Malaysia is a major player in the semiconductor industry, accounting for 13 percent of global testing and packaging. It has attracted multibillion-dollar investments from leading firms in recent years, including Intel Corp and Infineon Technologies AG.
Anwar said the investment being sought would be for integrated circuit design, advanced packaging and manufacturing equipment for semiconductor chips.
Photo:Karim Jaafar, AFP
Malaysia also wants to establish at least 10 local companies in design and advanced packaging for semiconductor chips, with revenues between US$210 million to US$1 billion, Anwar said in a speech at an industry event.
The Southeast Asian country will allocate US$5.3 billion in fiscal support to meet these targets, he added, saying further details would be announced later.
“We have a strong capacity to diversify and move higher in the value chain ... to move towards even more high-end manufacturing, semiconductor design and advanced packaging,” Anwar said.
He did not specify a timeline for the targets to be met.
On April 22, Anwar said Malaysia planned to build Southeast Asia’s largest integrated circuit design park and would offer incentives including tax breaks, subsidies and visa exemption fees to attract global tech companies and investors.
He said the proposed integrated circuit design park was part of Malaysia’s efforts to move beyond backend chip assembly and testing and into high-value, front-end design work.
Malaysia is seen as well placed to grab further business in the semiconductor sector, as Chinese chip firms diversify outside of China for assembling needs.
China’s xFusion Digital Technologies Co (超聚變), a former Huawei Technologies Co (華為) unit, said in September last year that it would partner with Malaysia’s NationGate Holdings Bhd to manufacture GPU servers — servers designed for data centers and which are used in artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing.
Shanghai-based StarFive Technology Co (賽昉) is also building a design center in Malaysia’s Penang state, while chip packaging and testing firm TongFu Microelectronics Co (通富微電) said in 2022 it would expand its Malaysia facility — a venture with US chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices Inc.
Germany’s Infineon said in August last year it would invest 5 billion euros (US$5.4 billion) to expand its power chip plant in Malaysia, while US chipmaker Intel announced in 2021 it would build a US$7 billion advanced chip packaging plant in the country.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday obtained the government’s approval to inject an additional US$10.26 billion to finance the construction of its second fab in Kumamoto, Japan, and a second fab in Arizona, using advanced process technologies. The Department of Investment Review approved TSMC’s investment applications on the basis that Taiwan remains a major technology and manufacturing hub for the chipmaker, which makes its most advanced chips at home, the company operates its research-and-development center here and the majority of its capacity remains in Taiwan. The latest capital injections — US$5.26 billion for its Japanese venture Japan Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing
DIVERSIFYING: Following customers’ demand to improve supply chain resilience, ASE is looking for sites in the US, Japan and Mexico, a company executive said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it plans to launch a new high-end chip testing fab in the US next month to better serve its key customers based in North America, particularly California-based artificial intelligence (AI) customers. The new US testing facility would be operated by the firm’s subsidiary ISE Labs Inc, it said. ASE’s major customers, and high-ranking US officials and representatives from American Institute in Taiwan are to attend the fab’s opening ceremony on July 12, it said. ISE Labs last year acquired a 5,942m2 facility in San
Local companies believe that nearly a third of all job opportunities will vanish in 10 years due to the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), according to a survey released by online job bank yes123 on Tuesday. In the survey of 1,016 companies on the labor market’s third quarter outlook, the job bank focused in part on AI’s impact on workers and asked companies what percentage of jobs they felt would be lost to AI’s round-the-clock productivity and high-speed computing prowess. Respondents felt on average that 29.2 percent of job opportunities would be lost to AI over the next 10 years, but there
Taiwanese workers earned an average of NT$47,000 per month this year, but 40 percent are struggling financially and 18 percent plan to switch jobs within 12 months, two separate surveys showed yesterday. The amount equals a 5.4 percent increase from a year earlier to a decade high, 104 Job Bank (104人力銀行) said. The government is due to review the nation’s minimum wages. Employees at computer and consumer electronics manufacturers reported the highest average monthly wage of NT$60,000 a month, followed by semiconductor firms at NT$59,000, and vendors of shoe and textile products, along with software and Internet businesses at NT$55,000, 104 Job