UMC has 12 wafer fabs located throughout Asia, including four advanced 12-inch fabs. Fab 12A in Tainan, Taiwan has been in volume production for customer products since 2002 and is currently manufacturing products down to 14nm. UMC's second 12-inch fab, Fab 12i, is located in Singapore. This facility is the company’s specialty technology center that provides highly specialized processes on 12-inch manufacturing to serve a diverse range of product applications. United Semi, located in Xiamen, China, was established as southern China's first 12-inch foundry fab and began volume production in 2016. United Semi serves China's vast IC market and provides high quality, geographically diversified manufacturing for our foundry customers. Japan-based USJC, fully acquired in October of 2019, is UMC’s fourth 12-inch fab. USJC offers foundry volume production for mature specialty nodes ranging from 90-nanometer to 40-nanometer.
UMC’s geographically diversified 12-inch manufacturing throughout Asia means customers can mitigate their manufacturing risk while still maintaining production within the same region to ensure seamless engineering support from UMC’s Taiwan headquarters.
Wafers are transported automatically in a Front Opening Universal Pod (FOUP) that has a capacity of 25 wafers. In addition, lot movement is executed using Automated Material Handling System (AMHS) for interbay moves, which hand off the FOUPs to Rail Guided Vehicles (RGV) for intrabay moves. This system is typically around 3 to 4 times faster than the standard Automatic Guided Vehicle (AGV) intrabay system common in 8-inch fabs. Our newest 12-inch fabs also feature equipment-to-equipment communication technology to further increase operating efficiency.
Ultimately, UMC’s leadership in 12-inch production results in increased cost-efficiency and faster time to market for our customers. As die size increases with more and more advanced technology features being integrated into today’s system on chip (SOC) designs, these factors become increasingly important for companies to maintain their competitiveness.
UMC responds to the rigorous requirements for manufacturing efficiency, flexibility, and control with state-of-the-art 12-inch fab automation systems featuring Front Opening Universal Pods (FOUPs), Automated Material Handling Systems (AMHs), and overhead Rail Guided Vehicle (RGV).
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