Semiconductor firm UMC opens new facility in Singapore

Plant will focus on more advanced chips and is expected to create about 700 jobs

- Sheila Chiang

United Microelectronics Corp (UMC), a major chipmaker, on April 1 opened a new facility in Singapore that is expected to create about 700 jobs over the next few years.

The Taiwanese global semiconductor foundry said the advanced fabrication facility, or fab, in Pasir Ris will be injected with up to US$5 billion (S$6.7 billion) to bring the first of two planned phases of its development to the full capacity of 30,000 wafers a month.

Large-scale production under the first phase is expected to begin in 2026, which will bring UMC's total production capacity in Singapore to over one million wafers annually. Foundries like UMC are contract manufacturers that produce chips for other companies.

UMC Singapore's senior fab director Thomas Tey told The Straits Times that the new fab will focus on more advanced chips than its existing fab, as competition heats up to meet the growing demand for semiconductor chips found in everything from smartphones to cars to data centres.

"The existing fab runs on 40-nanometre technology, which is quite a mature technology. We also face a lot of competition from other countries, like China, so we have to keep moving forward. So for this new expansion, we extend our technology down to 22-nanometre," Mr Tey said.

The new facility, the plans of which were announced in February 2022, will produce 22- and 28-nanometre chips for a wide range of uses such as in communications, Internet of Things (IoT) and automotive, UMC said. Such chips include premium smartphone display chips, power-efficient memory chips for IoT devices, and next-generation connectivity chips.