TSMC and United Microelectronics have  broken ground on expansion projects in South Taiwan Science Park.

Reports from Taiwan have confirmed that the fifth-phase project of TSMC’s 14th plant will break ground on April 9, while the fifth-phase project of UMC’s 12th plant will break ground on April 11. The moves mean that IC contract manufacturing will replace optoelectronics as the park’s largest industry.

The expansion projects of the two companies will create 2,000 job vacancies each and a 12-inch wafer fab will generate NT$40-50 billion of production value annually. Both TSMC and UMC have expressed plans to further construct new fabs in the park in the long term.

What it means is that both outfits are fairly optimistic that they will make piles of cash from IC contract manufacturing next year.