SilTerra working out financing for RM8.5b expansion 

The Edge Daily
URL: http://www.theedgedaily.com/cms/content.jsp?id=com.tms.cms.article.Article_f3f6d8e3-cb73c03a-17ebe660-3e132717
Thursday, November 1, 2007

PETALING JAYA: Wafer foundry SilTerra Malaysia Sdn Bhd is in the midst of working out a financing plan for its US$2.5 billion (RM8.5 billion) capacity expansion plan involving three phases, its chief executive officer Eg Kah Yee said. 

He said the company would fund the expansion via several channels including loan financing, internally generated funds, as well as raising funds from both existing investors and external parties. 

The first phase of the expansion drive is scheduled for completion by the first quarter of next year while the remaining two phases will be carried out over the next two to three years. 

“We will go stage by stage (on its financing plan). When we execute stage two, we will work on the financing plan and so forth,” he told reporters yesterday after the ceremony marking the sponsorship of research programmes between a leading US university and the consortium of seven leading public universities in Malaysia. 

The programmes, sponsored by SilTerra at US$3 million with 15 planned projects over three years, involve technological collaboration between the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) and the local universities. 

Eg said the capacity expansion plan would enable the company to increase both leading-edge technology and wafer production capacity, in order to compete globally with other wafer foundries from Taiwan, China and Singapore. 

He said the outlook for semiconductor wafer industry in 2008 is good due to more investments by other foundries to increase capacity as there was not much investments last year and this year, resulting the tightening supply besides the growing demand. 

He added that the second phase of the expansion involved the acquisition of a fabrication plant overseas for between US$150 million and US$500 million, which is expected to raise production capacity up to 80,000 wafers a month. 

The third phase would entail the construction of a US$2 billion 12-inch wafer plant, which is targeted to start production by end-2009 or early 2010, that would further boost capacity to 130,000 wafers per month. 

On the first phase, he said SilTerra spent US$100 million to raise capacity to 35,000 wafers per month from the current 30,000 units. 


About Silterra Malaysia Sdn. Bhd.:

Market demand driven, SilTerra Malaysia Sdn Bhd is a semiconductor wafer foundry offering major foundry compatible CMOS logic, high-voltage and mixed-signal/RF technologies down to 0.13-micron feature size. This includes complete, competitive contract manufacturing for fabless and IDM customers’ designs. SilTerra’s wafer fab has a design capacity of 40,000 eight-inch wafers per month.
Environmentally vigilant, SilTerra delivers award winning, world-class performance to its customers seeking flexible capacity, competitive advantages and around the clock customer support. SilTerra is ISO 9001:2000 and ISO 14001 certified. Founded in 1995, the company’s headquarters and factory are located in Malaysia’s Kulim High-Tech Park, and SilTerra has sales and marketing offices in San Jose (California) and Hsinchu (Taiwan). For additional information on SilTerra or its services, please visit www.silterra.com.