DECADE OF DEMAND: The fab would be the first in the world to commercially use FOPLP technology, which integrates different ICs more efficiently and economically
Taipei Times
Date: Sep 26, 2018
By: Lisa Wang / Staff reporter, in Hsinchu
Memorychip tester and packager Powertech Technology Inc (力成科技)
Powertech Technology Inc chairman D.K. Tsai, fourth left, and guests yesterday attend a groundbreaking ceremony for its third plant at the Hsinchu Science Park. Photo: CNA
yesterday said it plans to invest NT$50 billion (US$1.63 billion) in the next five years to build an advanced fab for next-generation packaging technology, catering to growing demand for smaller and energy-saving chips for artificial intelligence, Internet of Things and autonomous vehicle applications.
Fab 3 in Hsinchu Science Park is to be the world’s first fab that commercially uses fan-out panel-level packaging (FOPLP) technology when it starts operations in the second half of 2020, Powertech said.
The announcement comes after Powertech’s major breakthroughs in commercializing the technology since it began secretly investing in it two years ago.
“It is becoming increasingly difficult and expensive to shrink transistor [geometry] even smaller … to keep Moore’s law going,” Powertech chairman D.K. Tsai (蔡篤恭) told a media briefing, referring to an observation that processing power doubles every two years, while costs reduce by half. [FULL STORY]
