Good News
While power outtages in the semiconductor space are rarely good news, the power outage seen across Taiwan yesterday seems to have been one that caused little damage. The rolling blackout that occurred on Thursday evening affected between 4m and 6m homes out of almost 9m did reach some fabs operated by Taiwan Semi (TSM), United Micro (UMC), Powerchip (6770.TT) and Vanguard International (5347.TT), but officials have said the impact was negligible or minor, while AU Optronics (AUOTY) and Innolux (3481.TT) reported normal operations at their plants on the island. Semiconductor test and assembly provider ASE Technology Group (3711.TT) however reported that it was ‘slightly affected’, and ChipMos (IMOS) indicated that some of its IC driver lines were ‘more or less’ impacted. Taiwan foundries account for ~56% of 12” wafer production, ~40% of 8”, ~21% of FRAM production and 1% of NAND.
The outage was caused by a sub-station fault at Taipower’s (state) Hsinta Power Plant, a coal and gas fired plant in southern Taiwan, which caused the grid to have insufficient power for the entire island at which point officials shut down the plant and instituted rotating blackouts, allowing full power for groups of ~ 2m citizens each to allow for people to get off elevators and other electrical conveyances. Taiwan is also going through both a heat wave and a serious drought, which has reduced power availability from hydroelectric generation by ~16% y/y.
The outage was caused by a sub-station fault at Taipower’s (state) Hsinta Power Plant, a coal and gas fired plant in southern Taiwan, which caused the grid to have insufficient power for the entire island at which point officials shut down the plant and instituted rotating blackouts, allowing full power for groups of ~ 2m citizens each to allow for people to get off elevators and other electrical conveyances. Taiwan is also going through both a heat wave and a serious drought, which has reduced power availability from hydroelectric generation by ~16% y/y.
Hsinta Power Plant - Source: Eric Deng - Creative Commons
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