SINGAPORE – 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.
Deputy Prime Minister and Trade and Industry Minister Gan Kim Yong said at the opening ceremony of the new fab: “Semiconductors will be essential to support the drive towards greater connectivity, data processing and electrification.
The new fab, which spans 111,800 sq m and is located adjacent to UMC’s existing fab in Pasir Ris Wafer Fab Park, will help create about 700 jobs locally over the next few years, in roles such as process and equipment engineers and research and development engineers. The Singapore site will have a combined area of 197,800 sq m.
UMC has over 1,800 employees in Singapore, with local staff comprising the majority.
The Singapore fab manufactures 14 per cent of UMC’s global output, the firm said, while the majority of its output comes from Taiwan (62 per cent) and the rest from China (15 per cent) and Japan (9 per cent).
An Economic Development Board (EDB) spokesperson said Singapore is a critical node in the semiconductor supply chain, accounting for one in 10 chips and one-fifth of global semiconductor equipment production.
In the past two years, Singapore has been successful in attracting over $18 billion of R&D and manufacturing investments into the country’s semiconductor ecosystem. These investments will generate good businesses and job opportunities for Singapore, EDB said.
Other semiconductor and semiconductor-related giants have also announced expansions in the city state in recent years.
US chip giant Micron Technology in January 2025 said it has broken ground for a $9.5 billion high-bandwidth memory packaging facility in Woodlands. Operations are scheduled to start in 2026, with the expansion of packaging capacity beginning in 2027.
In June 2024, German wafer manufacturer Siltronic opened a $2.9 billion advanced manufacturing facility in Tampines – its third production plant in Singapore.
Source: The Starts Times
