Taiwanese market research firm noted that United Microelectronics Corporation(UMC) is the big winner of 8-inch wafer foundry. Due to its lower production costs, while the price is cheaper than TSMC. Under the increased demand of IoT applications, which have led the production capacity in short supply.

With the increasing of orders, UMC is likely to raise the price of the 8-inch wafer manufacturing.

In addition, UMC is also accelerating the construction schedule of Xiamen 12-inch fab. Following held the groundbreaking ceremony last month, UMC scheduled to station in Xiamen in May this year and start construction at rush mode, 24-hour a day. It scheduled to install facilities in April next year, advanced the trial production phase to the third quarter of next year, and into 28nm process in 2017.

In the initial stage, UMC Xiamen 12-inch fab will be based on 55nm and 40nm process, but the procurement of equipment will be upgraded to 28nm manufacturing process.

Recently, UMC’s 28nm technology has a major breakthrough, its yield rete of 28nm Poly-Sion process has improved to 80%; 28nm HKMG technology also been adopted by MediaTek and Qualcomm.