Formosa Plastics steps up 12-inch wafer push

A RISE IN DEMAND for semiconductors means that giant conglomerate Formosa Plastics is to start making 12-inch wafers.

According to the Economic News in Taiwan, the joint venture between Formosa and Komatsu is already churning out eight inch wafers at its fab in Yunlin.

But it will invest over quarter of a billion dollars to build a 300mm (12-inch) fab bang next to the existing factory.

Formosa supplies wafers mainly to Taiwanese foundries TSMC and UMC. These firms take designs from such suppliers as Nvidia, ATI, and others to churn out chips for the IT market.

The report claims that Formosa Komatsu is churning out a staggering 230,000 eight inch wafers a month, and has no stock, demand is so high.

And Formosa is also apparently expanding production at its Plasma screen division, which is another joint venture, this time with Japanese giant Fujitsu.

It's building a second plasma factory, apparently, which will set it and its partner back half a billion dollars or so and will deliver 50,000 plus panels a month.

Did we mention that TSMC produces chips for Via?

We only mention that because Formosa Plastics is a staggeringly large enterprise and not only owns Via, but also HTC - which makes Smartyphones and the like, memory and PCB company Nanya and many another non IT related firms.

Formosa is also involved in joint semiconductor fab ventures in mainland China. µ