Earthquake impacts Taiwan
Taiwan's microelectronics manufacturing community was impacted by an earthquake on March 4th that left around a dozen people injured. Manufacturing was halted at a number of key sites in the South of the area and the extent of the damage is still unknown. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp. and Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc. (AMC) all reported disruption at their southern Taiwan factories.
An official release from TSMC stated, ‘Current assessments show that the earthquake had minimal impact on Hsinchu fabs. While Tainan fabs suffered greater impact, they have gradually begun to resume production. Our initial estimate is that the earthquake caused the equivalent of 1.5 days loss of wafer movement for the company in total.'
Meanwhile analyst group iSuppli have suggested the earthquake could have an impact on large sized LCD panel production with a warning that a continued manufacturing disruption could see the global LCD market could face shortages of large-sized panels.
"The Taiwan earthquake could have strong impact globally on large-sized LCD panel supply, depending on how quickly production is resumed at the Tainan facilities," said Sweta Dash, senior director of LCD research at iSuppli. "After a shutdown, it typically takes 12 to 24 hours before production can be restarted at an LCD manufacturing fab. However, if there is damage to the equipment, the shutdown will last for a longer period of time. The results of the damage inspections by CMO and HannStar will be critical to determining whether production will be halted at their facilities for a longer period of time."
The news sent share prices tumbling as investors expressed their concerns with their wallets.
