Global Wafers Holdings (GlobalWafers), the world's third largest silicon wafer manufacturer, announced on June 27 that it will build a wafer fab in Sherman County, Texas, USA, and expects to start production in 2025.

According to the announcement, the 300 mm (12-inch) fab is also the first new U.S. plant of its kind in nearly 20 years, with an initial investment of $2 billion. Texas Governor Greg Abbott expects that, counting the chip industry subsidies being negotiated in Congress, this new fab will generate an investment of $5 billion over several years.

Global Wafer expects that the current U.S. domestic wafer capacity, by 2025, will probably only meet 20% of demand. As TSMC, Samsung and Intel are currently planning new fabs with higher wafer requirements, the tight supply situation will further worsen. However, along with the new Texas fab capacity eventually reached 1.2 million wafers per month, all the planned chip factories in production do not need to worry about the local wafer supply.

Global Wafer Chairman and CEO Hsu Hsiu-lan said in a media interview that the company has placed an order for the machinery and equipment needed for the Texas plant, but the waiting period for chip manufacturing equipment is still long due to a shortage of parts.

For the impact of the decline in demand for consumer electronics, Xu Xiulan disclosed that all of the company's long-term customers have increased the price of wafer supply contracts. Earlier Sumco also confirmed that orders for this year's renewal will face a 30% price increase, mainly due to the rise in raw material prices.