A massive earthquake of 7.8 magnitudes yesterday (12th) struck Wenchuan County in Sichuan Province, China. SMIC and Intel may be influenced in some degree.

SMIC announced yesterday that Chengdu Cension Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp., its joint venture with Sichuan Chengdu government was only 300 miles from the earthquake centre, but the company had taken measures to start up the earthquakeproof mechanism and to evacuate workers. The factory had resumed operation last night.

According to sources, many simulate IC companies, LCD driving and IC design companies in Taiwan which had orders in Cension fab might be influenced, and the orders had a possibility to flow back to TSMC and UMC.

Although Shanghai located semiconductor fabs were not influenced by the earthquake, SMIC and Intel’s Sichuan fabs were struck, and semiconductor and PC providing chain may be injured.

The 8-inch wafer fab of ProMOS in Chongqing hadn’t been influenced by the disaster, president of ProMOS indicated yesterday.

The chip output of Intel Chengdu packaging and testing factory however will be affected, thus will possibly influenced the global PC chain. Industry makers indicated that as Intel Chengdu fab mainly provides chips for Asian and Pacific PC host computer board manufacturers, in a few months’ time, chipsets and processors shortage will be seen in the industry, disadvantageous to PC shipment in Q3.

Under this situation, Taiwan processor manufacturers and chipset companies as well as wafer foundries TSMC and UMC may on the contrary be benefited.