In January 2001, Vanguard International Semiconductor (VIS) was reported to be considering a 300 mm (12-inch) wafer fab in Hsinchu Science Park, Taiwan, for flash and other memory chips. The proposal was described as a prospective joint venture of $2 billion or more, but its partners were not confirmed. The report does not establish that the fab was built.
What Vanguard proposed in 2001
EE Times reported on January 9, 2001, that VIS was looking at a 300 mm fab in Hsinchu Science Park. The report attributed the plan details to Robert Hsieh, then the company’s finance vice president. It described a facility intended to manufacture flash and other memory chips, amid the semiconductor industry’s shift toward larger wafers and VIS’s transition away from DRAM manufacturing toward foundry work.
Hsieh told EE Times, “Upgrading to the 12-in. technology is one of the best ways to ensure we’ll keep growing.” The statement expressed the company’s rationale at the time; it was not evidence that the proposed plant had been completed.
What was known about the proposed joint venture
The January 2001 report put the prospective joint venture at $2 billion or more. That was a proposed investment reported at the time, not a verified amount spent. The report said the partners had not yet been identified.
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It mentioned Silicon Storage Technology and Altera as possible participants, citing another newspaper and industry sources. Those names were speculation in the contemporaneous account, not confirmed partners. The report also quoted analyst Alfred Yin of BNP Paribas Peregrine Securities, who said the benefits for Vanguard could include technology licensing, shared risk, and guaranteed orders. That was an analyst’s assessment, not a confirmed deal term.
Did the Hsinchu flash fab get built?
The available accounts cited here do not resolve what happened to this particular 2001 proposal: they do not establish whether it proceeded, was canceled, or changed into another project. A later VIS fab announcement cannot be treated as proof of the Hsinchu flash fab’s outcome.
How this differs from the later Singapore fab
VIS and NXP announced a different 300 mm project in 2024: a joint venture called VSMC to build a fab in Tampines, Singapore. Its named partners were VIS and NXP, and its announced focus was 40–130 nm mixed-signal, power-management, and analog products for automotive, industrial, consumer, and mobile markets—not the 2001 proposal’s flash and other memory chips. The 2024 announcement planned initial customer production for 2027. NXP’s announcement sets out those plans.
In September 2026, VSMC said the Tampines fab had opened and forecast that capacity would reach 44,000 300 mm wafers per month by 2029. That figure is a company forecast for the Singapore project, not achieved capacity and not evidence about the Taiwan proposal. VSMC’s opening announcement reports the development.
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| Project | Location | Partners | Intended output | Status in the cited announcements |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| VIS proposal reported in 2001 | Hsinchu Science Park, Taiwan | Prospective joint venture; partners not identified. Silicon Storage Technology and Altera were only reported as possibilities. | 300 mm wafers for flash and other memory chips | Reported as a plan by EE Times on January 9, 2001; outcome not established by the accounts cited here. |
| VIS–NXP VSMC project | Tampines, Singapore | VIS and NXP | 300 mm wafers; 40–130 nm mixed-signal, power-management, and analog products | Announced in 2024 with initial customer production planned for 2027; VSMC said the fab opened in September 2026 and forecast 44,000 wafers per month by 2029. |
Other Hsinchu proposal that should not be conflated
An earlier EE Times report, published May 21, 1999, described a separate TSMC–Vanguard joint-venture plan for a 300 mm plant in Hsinchu. It reported a proposed $2 billion cost and a 2002 volume-production target. Those details belong to the 1999 proposal, not the 2001 flash-fab plan. EE Times’ 1999 report covers that earlier project.
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