UMC New Wafer Fab Facility Project

In July 2022, CUMIC supplied a total of over 1,110 MT of S355J0 Hot Rolled Section Steel (H-Beam) from MAANSHAN IRON & STEEL COMPANY LTD to the world's fourth largest chipmaker, Taiwan's United Microelectronics Corp. United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC) Singapore branch. All H-Beam will be used in the construction of structures for the manufacturing facility in the UMC's new 22nm Wafer Fab Project.

As a world-leading semiconductor foundry, UMC provides high-quality integrated circuit (IC) fabrication services, focusing on logic and various specialty technologies to serve all major sectors of the electronics industry.

UMC announced in February 2022 that they had approved a plan to build a new advanced manufacturing facility next to its 300mm wafer fab in Singapore, which will be one of the most advanced semiconductor foundries in the country, producing UMC’s 22/28nm processes. The planned investment will reach $5 billion. Driven by the robust demand for a 5G network, IoT, and automotive mega-trends in the next future, the company expects the new fab to play a critical role in satisfying growing demand in these emerging sectors, while helping to alleviate the structural shortage of foundry capacity, especially on 22/28nm processes. The 1,110 tons of H-Beam supplied by CUMIC will be used in this future pointed facility.

As the most popular material on construction sites worldwide, H-Beam is used to support large buildings due to their high strength and durability properties, and the batch of S355J0 H-Beam is especially suitable for this project, thanks to the following characteristics:

• Good impact resistance to support the building structure

• With excellent weldability & cutability, no special process measures are required during welding & cutting, thereby meeting the specific needs of the  customers

• H beams can be used for spans up to 100 meters, which means it's suitable to be used in a large structure like this facility

The new wafer fab facility will have a monthly capacity of 30,000 wafers, with production expected to commence in late 2024, enabling UMC to further expand its manufacturing footprint while meeting global semiconductor demand. At the same time, the new Fab is likely to attract more high-tech talent and deepen Singapore's role in the global semiconductor supply chain.