Tokyo Electron Ltd, Asia’s biggest semiconductor equipment supplier, yesterday launched a NT$2 billion (US$61.5 million) operations center in Tainan as it aims to expand capacity and meet growing demand.
Its new Taiwan Operations Center is expected to help customers release their products faster, boost production efficiency and shorten equipment repair time in a cost-effective way, the company said.
The center is about a five-minute drive from the factories of its major customers such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) advanced 3-nanometer and 2-nanometer fabs.
Photo: Grace Hung, Taipei Times
The operations center would have about 1,000 employees when it is fully utilized, the company said.
TSMC vice president T.S. Chang (張宗生), who oversees advanced technology and mask engineering, attended the center’s opening ceremony, along with United Microelectronics Co (聯電) and Winbond Electronics Corp (華邦電) representatives.
“With the opening of this operations center, we aim to reach two goals: First, we aim to expand our scale to cope with the ongoing growth of the Taiwanese market. Second, we hope to shorten the product repairing time cycle and to broaden the supply chain,” Tokyo Electron Taiwan Ltd chairman Hikaru Ito said at the ceremony.
The six-floor facility is comprised of a repair center and a testing lab to provide customers with one-stop services, as Taiwan plays a key role in the global artificial intelligence (AI) industry, Tokyo Electron Taiwan president Roger Chang (張天豪) said.
For the first time, the company can help fix vacuum transpiration robotic arms used in semiconductor equipment for customers in Taiwan, it said.
In the past, it took about seven months to complete the whole repair process in Japan, compared with one to two months now, it said.
The new repair center would also help customers fix damaged ovens used in lithography equipment, it said.
The company is mulling to build a more resilient supply chain in Taiwan through sourcing key parts locally, it said, adding that it has a shortlist of potential suppliers.
Taiwan has become the fourth-biggest market for the company, accounting for 13.3 percent of its total revenue in the second quarter, a spike from 9.3 percent a year earlier, a company financial statement showed.
The new operations center demonstrates the close partnership between Taiwan and Japan in the semiconductor field, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said at the opening ceremony.
‘DECENT RESULTS’: The company said it is confident thanks to an improving world economy and uptakes in new wireless and AI technologies, despite US uncertainty Pegatron Corp (和碩) yesterday said it plans to build a new server manufacturing factory in the US this year to address US President Donald Trump’s new tariff policy. That would be the second server production base for Pegatron in addition to the existing facilities in Taoyuan, the iPhone assembler said. Servers are one of the new businesses Pegatron has explored in recent years to develop a more balanced product lineup. “We aim to provide our services from a location in the vicinity of our customers,” Pegatron president and chief executive officer Gary Cheng (鄭光治) told an online earnings conference yesterday. “We
It was late morning and steam was rising from water tanks atop the colorful, but opaque-windowed, “soapland” sex parlors in a historic Tokyo red-light district. Walking through the narrow streets, camera in hand, was Beniko — a former sex worker who is trying to capture the spirit of the area once known as Yoshiwara through photography. “People often talk about this neighborhood having a ‘bad history,’” said Beniko, who goes by her nickname. “But the truth is that through the years people have lived here, made a life here, sometimes struggled to survive. I want to share that reality.” In its mid-17th to
‘MAKE OR BREAK’: Nvidia shares remain down more than 9 percent, but investors are hoping CEO Jensen Huang’s speech can stave off fears that the sales boom is peaking Shares in Nvidia Corp’s Taiwanese suppliers mostly closed higher yesterday on hopes that the US artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer would showcase next-generation technologies at its annual AI conference slated to open later in the day. The GPU Technology Conference (GTC) in California is to feature developers, engineers, researchers, inventors and information technology professionals, and would focus on AI, computer graphics, data science, machine learning and autonomous machines. The event comes at a make-or-break moment for the firm, as it heads into the next few quarters, with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s (黃仁勳) keynote speech today seen as having the ability to
The battle for artificial intelligence supremacy hinges on microchips, but the semiconductor sector that produces them has a dirty secret: It is a major source of chemicals linked to cancer and other health problems. Global chip sales surged more than 19 percent to about US$628 billion last year, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association, which forecasts double-digit growth again this year. That is adding urgency to reducing the effects of “forever chemicals” — which are also used to make firefighting foam, nonstick pans, raincoats and other everyday items — as are regulators in the US and Europe who are beginning to
RSS