UMC to take Singapore fab to 40-nm manufacturing

LONDON — Leading foundry United Microelectronics Corp. (Hsinchu, Taiwan) has said that its Fab 12i in Singapore has begun an expansion project to increase capacity and enable the 300-mm fab to use 45-nm and 40-nm manufacturing processes.

Construction of Fab 12i, Singapore's first wafer fab able to process 300-mm diameter wafers, was completed in April 2002 with pilot production beginning in 2003. Fab 12i has a current capacity of 31,000 wafers per month and currently is in volume production for customer products down to 55-nm.

The company described the expansion plan as "aggressive" but did not state how much money would be spend on the expansion, how quickly the expansion would be completed, or what wafer capacity Fab 12i would have at the end of the expansion.

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