Powerchip's Huang Chong-Ren: Explosive Growth Expected by 2026
Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (PSMC) is making significant strides at its Tongluo plant, introducing Interposer and 3D wafer stacking capabilities to meet the demands of large-scale customers. With a monthly capacity of 40,000 12-inch wafers at the new facility, PSMC is positioning itself as a key player in the 3D AI foundry sector, helping international clients seize opportunities in the booming AI market.
Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (PSMC) is making significant strides at its Tongluo plant, introducing Interposer and 3D wafer stacking capabilities to meet the demands of large-scale customers. With a monthly capacity of 40,000 12-inch wafers at the new facility, PSMC is positioning itself as a key player in the 3D AI foundry sector, helping international clients seize opportunities in the booming AI market.
Shifting Strategies Amid Industry Challenges
The oversupply of mature-process wafer foundry capacity has intensified market competition. In response, PSMC Chairman Huang Chong-Ren emphasized the need for wafer foundry companies focused on mature nodes to explore new strategic directions.
Huang highlighted that the Tongluo facility has shifted its operational focus to Interposer and 3D wafer stacking technologies. Following extensive collaboration with potential clients, PSMC has successfully developed high-capacity interposers, which have now been certified and are in small-scale production. The facility, leveraging coordination with the Hsinchu plant's mature process lines, has already achieved a monthly capacity of several thousand interposer wafers.
3D Wafer Stacking: Collaboration and Innovation
In the realm of 3D wafer stacking, PSMC is collaborating with top-tier logic foundries and major clients like AMD. At the Tongluo plant, DRAM wafers produced at the Hsinchu site are stacked into four-layer DRAM wafer-on-wafer (WoW) modules, which are then sent to logic foundry partners for further processing and validation. This setup is designed to meet the product schedules of downstream clients in the second half of next year.
Building a Cost-Effective 3D AI Foundry Platform
Huang emphasized that both interposer and 3D wafer stacking technologies are central to PSMC’s strategy of integrating mature logic and memory process expertise with advanced production capabilities at the Tongluo plant. These high-value, customized solutions provide a competitive edge by offering lower production costs compared to traditional mature-process lines.
The company has already deployed thousands of wafers in initial production and plans to scale capacity quickly based on customer demand. This flexibility positions PSMC to help clients capture opportunities in the expanding AI market.
Growth in Sight: New Ventures on Track
PSMC’s collaboration with India’s Tata Group on a 12-inch wafer fab project is progressing smoothly. According to Huang, the company’s FAB IP and 3D AI foundry initiatives are both on track, with benefits expected to materialize in the second half of 2025. By 2026, PSMC anticipates explosive growth, positioning itself as a transformative leader in the semiconductor industry, successfully breaking free from the constraints of mature-process manufacturing.
