The 6.4 magnitude earthquake that struck south Taiwan on Saturday, Feb. 6, did not cause any structural damage to large pure-play foundries in the region and will have minimal impact on production. While the earthquake has claimed the lives of many people in the area and has toppled many buildings in Tainan City, foundries in the region report that no personnel were hurt as a result of the quake nor any structural or facility damage took place.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. (TSMC) says that its Fab 14 and Fab 6 manufacturing sites in the Tainan Science Park were unaffected and did not cause equipment to shift position. The company says it is currently assessing damage to the wafers that were in progress but estimates that more than 95 percent of the tools can be fully restored in a few days. TSMC says it does not expect the earthquake to affect first quarter 2016 wafer shipments by more than 1 percent and will notify affected customers regarding lost production when it has the information.
United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC) says that the safety measures in its Fab 12A facility in Tainan did trigger an automatic equipment shutdown that affected work-in-progress wafers. UMC believes wafer shipments will not be affected and normal operations are resuming. UMC’s Hsinchu fabs were not affected and will not have any impact on UMC business.
