Malaysia should strive to attract investors to set up at least one medium-size wafer foundry fab to build a complete semiconductor manufacturing supply chain in the country, not just as an IC packaging base in Southeast Asia for international semiconductor players, according to Wong Siew-hai, president of Malaysia Semiconductor Industry Association (MSIA).
Wong said Malaysia has the right ecosystem, infrastructure, engineers, contractors, and architects to support the construction and operation of semiconductor fabs that meet international standards, and should have the opportunity to own a complete supply chain ranging from IC fabrication to packaging and testing.
Intel in 2021 announced it will invest MYR 30.0 billion (US$6.8 billion) to expand its chips packaging facilities in Malaysia within 10 years. In 2022, TF AMD Microelectronics--a joint venture between Chinese OSAT Tongfu Microelectronics and US chipmaker AMD--also disclosed plans to build a new packaging plant in the country at a total cost of MYR2.0 billion; and many other foreign semiconductor players also keep proceeding with packaging capacity expansions there.
Malaysian government statistics showed that the country attracted a total of MYR121.0 billion in foreign direct investments (FDIs) during 2021–2022, and of approved investments in manufacturing operations, the semiconductor sector commanded up to 81%, much higher than the average of 38% in earlier years. The country's semiconductor exports are estimated to top US$270.0 billion by 2030, about double the 2022 level.
MSIA's Wong said the total number of semiconductor plants in Malaysia will grow to 100 in the next five years, as diversification of manufacturing bases continue to gain momentum amid intensifying geopolitical tensions. But he hoples future semiconductor investments can focus more on chips fabrication rather than on packaging only.
Article translated by Willis Ke
