Recently, media reports have shown that the new Singapore plant of Liandian will be completed in mid-2024 and is expected to start mass production in early 2025.

Liandian stated that in response to the demand for capacity construction, the board of directors has approved a capital budget execution plan of $39.8 million. The monthly production capacity plan for the first phase of the new factory mentioned above is 30000 wafers, and it will provide a 22/28nm process with a total investment of 5 billion US dollars.

Wafer foundry targeting Singapore

Affected by complex international situations and other factors, the global semiconductor supply chain is undergoing migration, with high expectations placed on the Southeast Asian region represented by Singapore.

The wafer manufacturing process, including IDM companies such as Micron, Infineon, NXP, STMicroelectronics, as well as wafer foundry companies such as Gexin, Liandian, and World Advanced, have all invested in building factories in Singapore.

Gexin acquired Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing in Singapore in 2010 and took over its wafer factory. In September 2023, Gexin announced the official opening of its $4 billion expansion manufacturing plant in Singapore, further expanding global production capacity. The expanded wafer factory will produce an additional 450000 300mm wafers per year, increasing the total production capacity of Grid Singapore to approximately 1.5 million 300mm wafers per year.

Liandian has been operating a 12 inch wafer manufacturing plant in Singapore for over 20 years. In February 2022, Liandian announced that its board of directors had approved plans to expand a brand new advanced wafer factory in the Fab12i plant area in Singapore. At that time, Liandian expected the new factory to start mass production by the end of 2024. The latest information shows that the new factory is expected to start mass production in early 2025.

World Advanced has an 8-inch wafer factory in Singapore. In October 2023, media reported that World Advanced will go to Singapore to build its first 12 inch wafer factory. The factory is mainly to meet the demand for automotive chips, with an investment of at least 2 billion US dollars. It will produce 28nm chips and may be completed as early as 2026.

Wafer foundry and continuous expansion of production

Although the demand in the consumer electronics market is sluggish and has not fully recovered, this does not affect the expansion pace of wafer foundries.

Recently, the International Semiconductor Industry Association (SEMI) announced that 11 and 42 wafer fabs will be put into operation in 2023 and 2024, respectively, covering production lines for 4-inch to 12 inch wafers.

Among them, Chinese Mainland's capacity will grow rapidly, ranking first, Taiwan, China will maintain its capacity ranking second, followed by South Korea, Japan, the Americas, Europe, Southeast Asia and other regions.

Previously, according to incomplete statistics of Global Semiconductor Watch, the number of wafer foundries in Chinese Mainland has reached 44, and will increase to 32 in the future. In terms of processing, it will focus on mature processes.

The industry believes that applications such as AI and high-performance computing (HPC), as well as the gradual recovery of terminal demand, are driving the development of wafer foundry capacity and will help expand the semiconductor industry.

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