UMC’s 200mm foundry suffers power outage 

Two factories of UMC in Taiwan had suffered a power outage lasting five to six hours, according to state-owned Taiwan’s Central News Agency on Sunday.

The company said the outage may negatively effect 8-inch wafer production and operations. 

UMC is the fourth largest foundry in the world. 

The outage seemed to have been caused by a problem in the power system of the factory, local news media said. The electric power shortage caused diesel power generators to activate which caused smoke, turning on the fire alarm, they said.

UMC’s 200mm, or 8-inch, foundry produces various analogue semiconductors from image sensors, power management IC, display driver IC to microcontroller units.

The fire will likely cause production delays for various industries that use chips. The automobile industry is already seeing trouble in production due to shortage of chips. Foundry companies will likely see their price rise further.

DB HiTek has already increased the price for its 200mm foundry, while Samsung Electronics is getting orders for premium products for its 200mm foundry.

Automobile giants such as Volkswagen has seen production halts due to shortage of chips while Nissan, Honda and Toyota are reducing the number of car they produce from the impact.

8-inch foundries across the world are operating at 100% capacity and the latest UMC power outage will likely cause prices to rise further, a person familiar with the matter said.