Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), the world’s largest foundry, said that an earthquake on the southern tip of the island had no material impact on its operations.

The Taiwan Central Weather Bureau reported a magnitude 5.6 quake shortly after 1 am on Feb. 11th on local time that was located 12.2 kilometers (7.6 miles) southwest of the city of Tainan. Three aftershocks ranging from magnitude 3.9 to 4.2 followed within three hours after the initial quake.

Tainan is the location of the Southern Taiwan Science Park, where TSMC has Fab 14 and Fab 6. TSMC said it measured quakes ranging from magnitude 5 to 4 at its fabs in the science park, according to TSMC Director of Corporate Communications Elizabeth Sun. The company is continuing to evaluate whether there was any impact to operations from the quake, she said.

“Our tools will be able to fully recover within one day,” Sun said. “The impact to our wafer moves should be about one day, which we can easily make up, so there will be no impact to our first quarter shipments.”

On February 6 last year, a 6.4 magnitude quake about 48 kilometers east-southeast of Tainan resulted in delays of wafer deliveries for the company.

Taiwan makes nearly a third of the world’s semiconductors. An earthquake exceeding 7.3 magnitude in Taiwan on September 21, 1999 caused widespread power outages and curtailment of chip production for nearly a week. Taiwan lies in an earthquake-prone region on the rim of the Pacific Ocean, known as the Ring of Fire.

By: DocMemory
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