Taiwan-based pure-play foundries continue to see orders for automotive semiconductors ramp up while stepping up their capacity expansion pace, according to industry sources.

The world's major automotive IC IDMs, namely Infineon, NXP, Renesas, STMicroelectronics and Texas Instruments (TI), have already seen their fab capacities fall short of demand. Car vendors and automotive parts suppliers, such as Denso, have approached Taiwan-based foundries seeking additional capacity support to satisfy their demand.

United Microelectronics (UMC) has just announced that its Japan-based subsidiary, United Semiconductor Japan (USJC), will be teaming up with Denso to set up an IGBT line at USJC's 12-inch fab for automotive power semiconductors. USJC was formerly Mie Fujitsu Semiconductor, which was acquired by UMC in October 2019.

Earlier in 2022, UMC unveiled plans to set up a new advanced manufacturing facility adjacent to its Fab12i in Singapore for additional 22nm and 28nm process capacity to fulfill the ever-growing demand for automotive, 5G and IoT related chips, according to the pure-play foundry.

TSMC broke ground recently for a new 12-inch wafer fab in Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan. The fab is being built through Japan Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing (JASM), a joint venture between TSMC, Sony Semiconductor Solutions Corporation (SSS) and Denso. The fab will offer TSMC's 22/28nm and 12/16nm process manufacturing, with production targeted to begin by the end of 2024, according to the company.

TSMC is also expanding its fab site in Nanjing, China by building new 28nm process fabrication lines to meet growing demand for automotive ICs. TSMC expects to start providing 28nm fabrication services at its Nanjing fab in the second half of 2022.

Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing (PSMC) is looking to grow revenue generated from the automotive sector as a proportion of company revenue to 12-15% by 2025, up from the current 6-7%, the company was quoted as saying in previous reports. PSMC has already struck long-term supply deals for MOSFETs, IGBTs and power management chips.

Besides, PSMC said it is stepping up the construction of its new 12-inch plant at the Tongluo campus of Taiwan's Hsinchu Science Park (HSP), with the first phase of the plant scheduled to kick off volume production in the second half of 2023.

Vanguard International Semiconductor (VIS), which runs only 8-inch fabs, is also stepping up its deployments in the automotive electronics sector through enhancing its offerings for related sensing components, fingerprint recognition chips, high-power power management ICs and embedded memory devices.

By DIGITIMES