Powerchip Semiconductor Starts Construction in Taiwan

Taiwan DRAM maker Powerchip Semiconductor Corp. has broken ground on two more 300-mm fabs on the island. The construction of the fabs in the Hsinchu Science Park will entail a total investment of about $8.23 billion. The two new 300-mm fabs--each with a 60,000 wafer per month capacity--are planned to utilize sub-50-nm process technology to produce DRAM and NAND flash products. No timetable was given for the fabs.

Powerchip already has three 300-mm fabs located in Hsinchu. In total, they have a monthly capacity of 130,000 wafers. The company also has a separate joint DRAM venture with Elpida Memory Inc., dubbed Rexchip.

OSRAM Opens New Plant in Germany

OSRAM Opto Semiconductors opened the last section of the company's new semiconductor plant in Regensburg, Germany. "Since the start of construction seven years ago we have invested hundreds of millions of Euros. In this period the number of employees has increased by approximately 500 to 1500," said Rüdiger Müller. This growth has boosted capacity by almost 50%, necessitating the expansion of OSRAM Opto Semiconductors facility in Regensburg to its current-day size of nearly 600,000 square feet.

Reliance Plans Wafer Plant in India

Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) has approached the Government with plans to set up a semiconductor wafer fabrication plant and solar PV module unit, at a total outlay of over Rs 30,000 crore.

With this, the Government has now received a cumulative investment commitment of almost Rs 63,000 crore from six companies, under the scheme to promote semiconductor fabs and other micro and nanotechnology units.

Reliance Industries’ proposal for establishment of a semiconductor wafer fab with Assembly, Test, Mark and Packaging (ATMP) facility would involve an investment of Rs 18,521 crore spread over a period of 10 years. The company plans to locate the proposed facility – with a fab capacity of 70,000 wafers per month and ATMP capacity of 10 million packages per week – at either an SEZ in Navi Mumbai, Hyderabad, Mysore or Haryana. This first-of-its-kind fab in the private sector would focus on areas such as advanced logic, memories and embedded system on chips.

Reliance also plans to manufacture polysilicon, solar-grade wafers and SPV modules with capacity of 1 Giga Watt, at an investment of Rs 11,631 crore over a 10-year period. While the solar project located at SEZ in Jamnagar (Gujarat) is expected to create over 11,000 jobs, the semiconductor wafer fab and ATMP units would employ another 4,000 people. RIL has sought a subsidy of Rs 3,394.5 crore for the semiconductor fab and Rs 2,326.2 crore for the solar project.

Other companies that have applied to the Government under the scheme are Videocon Industries (Rs 8,000 crore investment), Moser Baer PV Technologies (Rs 6,000 crore), Titan Energy System (Rs 5,880 crore), KSK Energy Ventures (Rs 3,211 crore), and Signet Solar (Rs 9,672 crore). Proposals received are for manufacture of items such as Polysilicon, wafers, solar cells, solar photovoltaic modules (SPV) liquid crystal display (LCD), integrated circuits-advanced logic, memory and embedded system on chip, including ATMP facility for semiconductor devices.

Under the special incentive package scheme, the Government would provide incentive of 20 per cent capital expenditure during the first 10 years for the units in SEZs and 25 per cent of the capital expenditure in non-SEZ units.

Apart from Reliance, Videocon and Moser Baer are also setting up facilities under the new semiconductor policy. The government expects that once all the proposals are cleared, the total investment could amount to almost Rs 63,000 crore.

Interestingly, SemIndia - one the first players to make a proposal to set up a semiconductor fabrication unit in the country - hasn't sent in a formal proposal to the government yet under the new conductor policy. However, government officials say that companies like SemIndia can apply till 2010 to enjoy tax discounts.

Texas’ Oak Hill Facility Still Manufacturing

Oak Hill wafer fabrication facility — or fab, as it's called — is 17 years old and was completed in 1991 for $650 million, which is small change by today's standards. Its manufacturing processes are several generations behind the cutting edge, and much of the equipment in the clean room was installed shortly after the factory was built, which means it is close to ancient.

But for all its age and wrinkles, the Oak Hill plant is humming with activity. It will turn out more new products, using a greater variety of manufacturing processes, than at any time in its history. It runs leaner and more efficiently than ever.

The fate of older chip factories has more importance than preserving the jobs of the hundreds of people who work in the clean rooms. Each factory supports a chain of supplier and support companies that provide it with materials, services, equipment and contract workers.

And each pays healthy property taxes.

Six of the seven chip factories in the Austin area are 10 years or older, giving the region a big stake in extending their life spans.

At least one older factory, Spansion Inc.'s Fab 25, has had extensive retooling changes that have enabled it to make new products with advanced manufacturing processes. It now makes very advanced flash memory chips used in cell phones and other devices. The retooling of Fab 25 over the years has cost hundreds of millions of dollars for new equipment.

By contrast, the Oak Hill fab has kept much of the equipment that was first installed when it was built. The factory's challenge has been to use its old equipment in new ways to make new kinds of products.

Samsung turns out the industry's most advanced flash memory chips at its newest Austin factory, a $3.5 billion facility that opened last year.

Freescale's Oak Hill fab makes radio transceivers and power management devices for cell phones and soon will start making microelectromechanical systems used in cars to deploy air bags.

The Oak Hill fab employs about 670 people, which is about two-thirds of the peak level that it had in the late 1990s, but it handles more kinds of products than it ever did before.

Oak Hill highlights:

When full production started in 1991, the plant was the first to make chips using 200 mm silicon wafers, cutting-edge technology at the time.

The plant has 100,000 square feet of cleanroom space that is 100 times cleaner than a hospital operating room. That's crucial in chip production, where even specks of dust can cause trouble with super precise chip circuits.

It operates 24 hours a day, 364 days a year.

It has enough air conditioning to cool 2,800 homes, part of an elaborate air-cooling and filtration system that uses superfine filters.

It has more than 17 miles of stainless steel piping and more than 50 miles of wiring.

Hudson Valley Community College Opens Cleanroom

A Hudson Valley Community College workforce training building at the Saratoga Technology and Energy Park could be ready for occupancy in late 2009 or early 2010. The college’s TEC-SMART initiative will train students to work in the clean energy field, and also at computer semiconductor manufacturers like Advanced Micro Devices.

AMD is in the process of planning for a $3.2 billion computer chip factory in the Luther Forest Technology Campus, next door to the STEP park. The factory would employ up to 1,465 people, AMD officials have said, and a spokesman has called local workforce training crucial.

Plans for a semiconductor technician training center run by Hudson Valley have been known since last fall, when state Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno, R-Brunswick, announced the award of $13.5 million in state funding.

The STEP park, owned by the state Energy Research and Development Authority, is a 280-acre site for development of clean-fuel and alternative energy technologies. The HVCC building is the third announced project for the park.

Currently, Sarubbi said the state Dormitory Authority, which will provide the financing, is soliciting interest from architects willing to design the building, which would have classrooms and laboratories.

2009-early 2010 is the goal for opening the building. The building would be between 30,000 and 40,000 square feet, and include a clean room for training semiconductor manufacturing technicians.

TEC-SMART’s facilities will expand a small semiconductor technician training program established at the Troy-based college three years ago.

CMO Approves Sale-Leaseback Plan for Fab 1 and 2

Chi Mei Optoelectronics (CMO) has announced a sale-leaseback plan aimed at raising NT$12.9 billion (US$430 million) to finance company operations by selling facilities and equipment at its Fab 1 and Fab 2.

The facilities and equipment of the 3.5G Fab 1 and 4G Fab 2 will be sold to Chisheng and then leased back from the company, CMO said, adding the plan was approved by the company's board of directors. The lease contract will last five years, with CMO paying Chisheng a certain sum for rent each year.

CMO has allocated NT$100 billion for its 2008 capital expenditure (capex), with NT$35-40 billion for a new 8.5G line and additional expansion of its LCM plant in China.

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