ASE to invest RM300mil in new plant

GEORGE TOWN: ASE Group, one of the world’s largest integrated circuit (IC) test and packaging house, is investing over RM300mil for its new RM50mil plant in Bayan Lepas over the next three to five years.

ASE South-East Asia president Lee Kwai Mun told StarBiz in an interview that the new plant located at the site of the present facility was in the final stages of construction and would be ready end of May.

“It is an eight-storey building, the tallest in the Bayan Lepas’ Free Industrial Zone. We will add another 1,000 workers, comprising 40% engineers, to the headcount which stands currently at 2,700,” he said.

The new facility would boost IC test and packaging capacity by 10%, Lee said adding that the present facility was now running on four shifts on a daily basis.

ASE has a 20% market share on the world’s IC test and packaging business.

“The IC test and packaging industry is going through a consolidating phase. Those smaller IC test and packaging companies without the funds to adopt new technologies are going down under,” Lee said.

As smart devices are packing in more functions and becoming slimmer in form, the ICs used also have to shrink correspondingly in size, according to Lee.

“Thus to compete, IC test and packaging firms have to invest in multi-die, stack-die, and flip-die packaging technologies to meet the needs of smart devices manufacturers,” he said.

According to the latest report from the Connecticut-based Gartner research house, the mobile phone sales around the world will grow to an estimated 1.94 billion in 2015, up 3.5 percent from 2014, while global PC sales are expected to fall due to price increases caused by fluctuating currencies around the world.