21st Century Business Herald reporter Ni Yuqing reports from Shenzhen
On the morning of April 3, a magnitude 7.3 earthquake occurred in the sea area of Hualien County, Taiwan, China, China, with a focal depth of 12 kilometers, and small aftershocks continued to occur thereafter.
Taiwan is a major hub for the semiconductor industry, especially the Hsinchu Science Park, which gathers multiple wafer foundries such as TSMC, Liandian, and Lishi. According to reports, Hsinchu City and Hsinchu County in the bamboo industry have a maximum seismic intensity of 4, and the industry is also concerned about the impact of earthquakes on chip production capacity.
  Although major wafer foundries TSMC have not yet reported production interruptions, some wafer foundries such as UMC, PSMC, and Vanguard are currently undergoing personnel evacuation.
Brady Wang, Director of Counterpoint Research, told 21st Century Business Herald reporters, "Production is expected to resume in the short term and may be delayed by 6-10 hours."
This morning, TSMC also issued a statement to the public, stating: "The work safety system is normal. In order to ensure personnel safety, relevant preventive measures have been initiated according to the company's internal procedures. Some factory areas have been evacuated, and personnel are now safe and gradually returning to their work positions. The detailed situation is yet to be confirmed. In addition, TSMC's construction site inspection is preliminarily normal, and due to safety considerations, it has been decided to suspend work at various construction sites in Taiwan today. Construction will be carried out after the inspection."
According to the latest data from Counterpoint, the global wafer foundry industry's revenue increased by 10% month on month in the fourth quarter of 2023, thanks to inventory replenishment and strong demand for artificial intelligence. The wafer foundry industry is showing signs of stabilization. Among them, TSMC ranked first in revenue with a market share of 61%.
Overall, there are not many semiconductor manufacturers in the most severely affected Hualien region. In addition to semiconductor manufacturers, panel manufacturers have also been affected by the earthquake.
According to Taiwanese media reports, the Bamboo Science and Technology Administration has pointed out that TSMC and Li Ji Electric's Bamboo South Plant have partially shut down for preventive purposes, while Qunchuang's Bamboo South Plant has partially shut down, while Youda, Liandian, Wanghong, and Li Ji Electric's Bamboo Science and Technology Plant are operating normally.
The panel factory's mass creation team stated that they have confirmed the safety of personnel in the factory area according to standard procedures at the first time, and some factories have carried out personnel evacuation. Currently, personnel are safe; During the system inspection, some machines in the factory area started protective automatic shutdown, which had little impact on the operation of the factory area.
Another panel company, Youda, also pointed out that personnel evacuation has been carried out and an emergency response center has been established to respond. Currently, all personnel are safe, and the livelihood system is operating normally. The actual impact is being evaluated.
The latest analysis report from AVC Revo points out that the panel production lines of panel factories AUO (Youda) and INX (Quchuang) are mostly concentrated in Taichung and Tainan cities, both of which were affected by the earthquake. After the earthquake, the panel factories immediately evacuated personnel and conducted statistics on the impact of factory production. To cope with earthquakes, panel factories originally had shock-absorbing designs and equipment was automatically shut down at level 3. If an earthquake exceeds level 3, the production line equipment will shut down. Therefore, the production lines of panel factories have been affected by this earthquake and have been temporarily suspended. However, the extent of the impact on the panel factory remains to be evaluated.
Youda and Qunchuang are both important global display panel suppliers, accounting for approximately 20% of the global LCD TV panel production capacity and a higher proportion in the global IT product LCD panel supply.
The report also points out that if the equipment is not damaged, the repair time will be very short. The preparation for personnel to resume work and production will start in one day. However, it will take 3-5 days for equipment repair to resume full production. If the production line is not full production, it may have little impact on the overall production capacity. The TV panel production lines of AUO and INX are mainly G6/7/8.5/8.6. Currently, the production lines of AUO and INX panel factories are mostly in a high turnover state. Through capacity calculation and evaluation, the Fab8a+8b production line with a production capacity of 100K for INX has an impact of about 10K, Fab7 with a production capacity of 140K has an impact of about 14K, and Fab6 with a production capacity of 240K has an impact of 24K. Currently, aftershocks are still occurring in Taiwan, which will also affect the repair progress of the factory's production capacity.