Pure-play foundry Powerchip Technology has disclosed plans to construct two new 12-inch wafer fabs in Taiwan with total investment estimated at NT$278 billion (US$9.05 billion).

Located in the Tongluo campus of Hsinchu Science Park (HSP) in Miaoli, northern Taiwan, the new fabs will have a combined installed production capacity of 100,000 wafers monthly, according to Powerchip CEO Frank Huang. The additional new 12-inch fab capacity is to satisfy ever-increasing demand for LCD driver ICs, power management chips and niche-market memory, Huang indicated.

Powerchip's new 12-inch fabs will be built in four phases. Construction of the first phase will kick off in 2020 followed by volume production in 2022, Huang said.

Powerchip's just-announced 12-inch fab investment at the HSP follows previous announcements of 12-inch fab projects in Taiwan by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and Winbond Electronics.

TSMC has plans to build its Fab 18 at the Southern Taiwan Science Park (STSP) for the production of advanced 5nm chips, with total investment set to exceed NT$500 billion. TSMC is scheduled to complete constructing the phase-1 facility of the plant and begin equipment move-in in the first quarter of 2019, followed by volume production in early 2020. TSMC will also build an advanced 3nm fab at the STSP in 2020.

Specialty DRAM and NOR flash chipmaker Winbond expects to start constructing its new 12-inch wafer plant at the Kaohsiung Science Park (KSP), southern Taiwan in the fourth quarter of 2018, with total expenditures estimated at about NT$20.36 billion.