Taiwan chipmaker to move to mainland

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co has been given conditional approval by Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs to build a plant for fabricating 8-inch wafers in mainland China, DigiTimes.com of Taipei reported. The plant will be established in Shanghai's Songjiang Industrial Zone. The company has been given permission to proceed with preparatory work, including laying out the site, setting up an office and hiring personnel. Permission to proceed further by transferring the manufacturing equipment from Taiwan would only be given when the company's new plant to fabricate 12-inch wafers had reached 'mass production levels', which were not specified in the approval agreement. Total investment in the project is estimated at US$898m, with US$371m coming from the company itself, US$418m from bank loans and the remainder covered by anticipated revenues from operations.