Samsung Electronics is planning to sell around 400 units of fab equipment to UMC to be used in the latter’s factory in Taiwan, according Taiwan Economic Daily.
The pair has recently signed a contract for UMC to manufacture Samsung’s image sensors.
The equipment will be used in UMC’s P6 plant at Nanke. The Taiwanese chip company is aiming to secure a production capacity of 27,000 wafers per month at the plant, which will begin mass production in 2023.
The plant will produce mostly 28-nanometer chips, such as image sensors and display driver ICs.
The Taiwan Economic Daily said the plant will mostly produce chips for Samsung.
Earlier, UMC has said it plans to spend US$1.5 billion in facilities this year. This likely doesn’t take the 400 equipment into account.
Samsung is currently seeing high demand for its image sensors, but it has suffering from a shortage in production capacity in meeting these.
According to TrendForce, TSMC held a 54.1% market share in the foundry sector in the first quarter this year. This was followed by Samsung’s 15.9%, GlobalFoundries’ 7.7%, UMC’s 7.4% and SMIC’s 4.5%.
