TrendForce Consulting: Tracking the latest situation of wafer foundry and memory production capacity after the earthquake
2024-04-05
TrendForce Consulting provides updates on the dynamics of semiconductor factories after the 403 earthquake. Due to the fact that most of the wafer foundries in this earthquake are located in areas with a seismic intensity of four, coupled with the fact that semiconductor factories in Taiwan are mostly built with high specifications, the internal shock absorption measures are at the world's top level, and most of them can reduce vibrations by one to two levels. Based on the seismic intensity of this incident, almost all of them were quickly resumed after shutdown inspection. Even if there were damages to the furnace tubes due to emergency shutdown or earthquakes, resulting in online wafer fragmentation or scrapping, due to the average production capacity utilization rate of mature process plants currently being 50-80%, the significant loss can be quickly replenished after resumption of work, and the impact of production capacity loss is considered minor.
In terms of DRAM, Nanya Fab3A located in New Taipei and Micron Linkou plant have been greatly affected by the earthquake. Nanya plant is mainly responsible for products with a 20/30nm process, and the latest process, 1Bnm, is under development; Meiguang Linkou Factory and Taichung Factory are important production bases for DRAM, and their internal systems have merged the two factories into one. Currently, the latest 1 beta nm process has been put into production, and HBM will also be produced in Taiwan in the future. It will take several days to fully resume operation, and most of the other factories will resume work after shutdown and inspection. PSMC and Winbond are all safe.
In terms of wafer foundry, TSMC includes multiple six inch and eight inch factories such as Fab2/3/5/8, R&D headquarters Fab12, and the latest Fab20 Baoshan factory, all located in Hsinchu with a seismic intensity of 4. Among them, only Fab12 experienced water ingress in some machines due to water pipe rupture, mainly affecting the 2nm process that has not yet been mass-produced. Therefore, it is evaluated that short-term operations will not be affected. However, it may be necessary to purchase new machines due to machine dampness, resulting in a slight increase in capital expenditure. The rest of the factory areas have resumed work gradually after the shutdown inspection, and there have been no major damages at the moment. However, some personnel have been evacuated or shutdown inspections have been carried out in other factories, and they have all resumed operation gradually.
At present, TSMC's 5/4/3nm advanced process plant, which has a high capacity utilization rate, has not undergone personnel evacuation. Shutdown inspections have resumed over 90% of operations within 6-8 hours after the earthquake, and the impact is still within a controllable range. In terms of the CoWoS plant area, the main operations are currently the Longtan AP3 and Zhunan AP6. Upon the incident, personnel were immediately evacuated, and after shutdown inspection, it was found that there was a water damage problem with the factory's ice water host. However, the factory's system has many backup facilities, which have been evaluated as not affecting operation, and work has gradually resumed.
In addition, UMC has one six inch factory and six eight inch factories located in Hsinchu, while another twelve inch factory is located in Tainan, mainly producing 90-22nm; Power Semiconductor Manufacturing (PSMC) includes twelve inch DRAM and eight inch and twelve inch Foundries located in the Miaoli area of Hsinchu, with DRAM mainly focusing on 25/21nm process niche products; Vanguard has three eight inch factories located in Hsinchu and one in Taoyuan. Most of the above-mentioned factories have resumed operation gradually after personnel evacuation and brief shutdown inspections.
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