TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — United Microelectronics Corp. will expand its manufacturing footprint in Taiwan and Singapore to support future AI and high-performance computing business opportunities.
The company will increase cleanroom capacity at its fourth-phase facility in Singapore, its largest production base outside Taiwan, according to CTEE. It will also build a new wafer fab in Tainan Science Park.
To support the projects, UMC raised its 2026 capital expenditure budget to NT$64.8 billion (US$2 billion). The facilities are expected to be completed between 2028 and 2029, strengthening the company’s ability to serve industries including AI and high-performance computing.
In Singapore, UMC will add cleanroom facilities and install production equipment, with a focus on advanced technologies such as silicon photonics. Because the building structure has already been completed, the company expects the additional production lines to begin operating within a relatively short time.
In Taiwan, UMC will build a new wafer fab in Tainan Science Park that will serve as the future site for its seventh-phase and eighth-phase facilities. The company will initially focus on completing the fab structure before gradually installing equipment according to market conditions and customer requirements.
Advanced packaging will be a key element of the strategy. UMC said future AI chips are expected to increasingly adopt architectures such as chiplets, heterogeneous integration, and logic-memory stacking.
Customers will therefore need more than wafer fabrication services and are likely to seek integrated solutions covering wafer production, silicon interposers, and packaging.
