00:00Tell us a little more about what you're seeing, right?
00:02You're having discussions with customers for even 27 contracts now.
00:08This willingness to engage in some of these longer-term contracts,
00:12what does it tell you about the confidence that the industry still has
00:16on this whole demand recovery now?
00:22Yes, we are seeing recovering.
00:27So also we are seeing more and more customers asking us
00:31about long-term commitment for the supply,
00:35and they care a lot about not only the capability and quality,
00:38but also the assurance for supply resilience.
00:47So we are having a lot of discussion with many customers for LTA right now,
00:54long-term agreement, yes.
00:57And we have already have quite some LTAs from previous.
01:03Right, what is your visibility now into the next cycle, Doris?
01:10I think we are seeing the recovery.
01:12So the next cycle is just about at the corner right now.
01:16We see more and more customers asking for more rush orders
01:19and more demand for commitment for next year.
01:24So we think that the recovery, the new cycle is coming now.
01:33Doris, this is David, I'm joining you as well from Hong Kong.
01:38Just given the demand outlook, and you just outlined, of course,
01:42the conversations that you're having with your clients and the contracts
01:46well into next year.
01:47How are you looking at capacity?
01:49Do you have enough capacity?
01:50Are you looking to increase capacity moving forward?
01:55Yes.
01:57For now, all of our established capacity is fully loaded,
02:03but we do have some newly expanded brownfield or greenfield fab,
02:08for example, the one in Texas and in Missouri, in Italy.
02:13We do have new capacities available.
02:16Now it's in the rainbow mode.
02:17So I think we will have enough capacity for next year.
02:22But when we talk with our customers,
02:26based on customers' demand for the following few years,
02:29we definitely need more capacity.
02:30So our current capacity, including the newly expanded capacity,
02:36together I think we'll be okay for next year's supply.
02:39But we need to build more based on our customers' forecast to us.
02:46Yeah, I mean, Global Wafers, along with a lot of Taiwanese companies,
02:50are expanding into the U.S.
02:51We just talked about this big announcement from NVIDIA
02:54investing into MediaTek in Taiwan as well.
02:59Tell us a bit more about, do you expect to see more of these sort of
03:02chip investment deals between the U.S. and Taiwan?
03:05And do you see that as a positive for the Taiwan supply chain?
03:14Yes, it's positive for Taiwan's supply chain because a lot of new demand,
03:22new partner, and also global cooperation, including long-term agreement
03:27and also some financial support, specific financial support.
03:31So we do see the whole ecosystem for semiconductor in Taiwan
03:35is getting healthier than before.
03:41Can you tell us more about what expansion plans you do have in the U.S.?
03:44Obviously, TSMC has an expansion plan there.
03:48Tesla, Oswalia, Musk setting up a tariff fab in Texas.
03:52Any sort of updates you can give us there?
03:56Yes, we have operation, we have an expansion.
04:00We have three fabs in the U.S., one in Missouri, which is SOI fab,
04:05and two in Texas, GWA, which is our flagship fab in the U.S., in Texas.
04:13That one, the whole space is good for six phases,
04:17and we are working on phase one only.
04:20So we still have enough space for further expansion if our customers do have the demand
04:26and give us commitment, then we can make further expansion
04:29for our potential new customer, new big project in the U.S. especially.
04:36Our goal, I think we're quite positive for the future growth of the demand
04:41in semiconductor industry in the U.S.,
04:44so we will make further expansion to meet our customers' demand in the U.S.
04:49So we're at phase one only, and it's still in the ramp-up mode right now.
04:54By end of next year, I think we will be able to make our phase one fully loaded,
04:59and before we fully load our phase one, we definitely have to kick off our phase two expansion.
05:04And in addition to the U.S. expansion, also,
05:07we have quite a lot of brownfield expansion in Asia and Europe as well.
05:15Okay, so you said it's only phase one out of six, and you were talking about more.
05:20I'm just wondering, in the midst of this ramp-up mode, how are you going to fund these plans?
05:25What sort of funding plans is needed?
05:30Yes, for our phase one ramp-up mode, actually, we spent quite a lot of capital expenditure,
05:39our capital in the past two years for our phase one.
05:42But now the capital is reducing.
05:45It's much smaller than last year, and we start seeing revenue from now on.
05:50And also, we are expecting to receive AMIC, AMEC from the U.S. government,
05:59some for advanced manufacturing investment credit.
06:04So that is part of the support for our ramp-up as well.
06:08But what's more important for us is really turnaround from the utilization increase.
06:15We are expecting to have more revenue and more turnover, so that will be helpful for our ramp-up mode.
06:21But when we move to phase two further expansion, then we need more support from our customer,
06:27like long-term agreement or some special financial support.
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