UMC CFO Liu Chitung told the Nikkei that the company is looking at moving into advanced process technologies but would need a partner to share the cost.
A possibility is Intel with which UMC already has a partnership in mature technologies. Another possibility is a collaboration with a private equity company like Intel’s deal with Apollo sharing a fab in Ireland. A third possibility is a collaboration with a government.
It is reported that UMC is concerned with the increasing competition in mature technologies and is looking for new growth opportunities.
UMC may also be concerned by the growing capability in mature foundry processes in China and the China government’s moves to get mainland China foundry customers to source locally which have already resulted in several UMC customers taking their business to China.
China’s largest foundry SMIC has already overtaken UMC in the foundry rankings pushing UMC down to fourth place behind TSMC, Samsung and SMIC.
UMC was Taiwan’s first chip company founded in 1980 as broadline IDM designing and manufacturing memory, standard logic, microprocessors including x86 clones, telecoms chips, custom ICs and consumer devices.
In 1995 UMC decided to drop proprietary products and become a foundry. It maintained a leading edge process capability until the 2011/12 28nm node but after that its technology fell behind the cutting edge while it focussed on mature technologies.
