Marketech International Corp (帆宣), a semiconductor and display panel equipment supplier and distributor, yesterday said it is to launch a subsidiary in Dresden, Germany, as its major customer, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) last month announced it is building its first European fab in the area.

TSMC is constructing a 12-inch wafer fab in Dresden to produce mainly car chips. The world’s largest contract chipmaker plans to build three advanced fabs in Arizona and two in Kumamoto, Japan.

Marketech has set up US and Japan subsidiaries to provide services to TSMC in those countries. It also set up an office in the Czech Republic last year to collect information about the local investment environment.

▲ The Marketech International Corp logo is pictured at the company’s booth at the Semicon Taiwan trade fair in Taipei

Marketech plans to hire about 125 employees in Europe — about half the size of its US subsidiary, company president Scott Lin (林育業) said yesterday.

The US subsidiary remains in the red due to higher labor costs, he said.

The company has slowed down the construction of a new factory in Tainan due to weaker-than-expected demand from display panel customers, he said.

Lin added that the company expects the NT$1.9 billion (US$59.2 million) Tainan factory would become operational in the second quarter of next year.

Marketech’s revenue in the first seven months of the year grew 10.42 percent annually to NT$34.92 billion.

The company expects revenue and net profit to show moderate growth in the second half of the year, Lin said.

However, the company projects more marked growth in revenue and profit next year, given an expected more solid recovery in the semiconductor industry and the contribution of the new product lineup, he said.

Marketech is planning to tap into the advanced packaging industry by supplying chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) equipment, he said.

It is collaborating with a Japanese company to offer CoWoS equipment from next year, he added.


Taipei Time / Lisa Wang