Taiwan’s Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc (ASE) is rapidly catching up with Korea’s Anam Electronic Co Ltd, the international market leader for IC packaging and testing. ASE, its ASE Test subsidiary and the two plants acquired from Motorola are projected to achieve revenue of more than $1bn this year.
According to a report in the Commercial Times ASE, which recently purchased two IC plants from Motorola – one in Taiwan and one in Korea – is itself being caught up by two other Taiwanese companies, Orient Semiconductor Electronics Co and Siliconware Precision Industries Co.
Orient Semiconductor Electronics says it has recently seen a sharp increase in orders placed by integrated device manufacturers and it will under an aggressive expansion in production capacity at its plants in Taiwan and the Philippines to double its output by the end of the year.
Siliconware Precision Industries (SPI) chairman Lin Wen-po says his company also will increase output this year by at least 20% with production lines now operating at between 70% and 80% capacity. He says if ASE’s two overseas plants are excluded from the equation, SPI will shortly overtake it as the largest IC packaging firm in Taiwan.
