© Miaoli County Fire BureauThe fire at the semi-conductor factory featured in the 2nd report below.
A fire engulfed a unit of Taiwan's investigation bureau on Monday (April 24) as the authorities moved swiftly to dismiss concerns of any disruption of the agency's operations.
Flames started to spew out at 8:42 p.m. from the first floor of an edifice at the headquarters of the Investigation Bureau in Xindian District of New Taipei.
The fire was extinguished within 15 minutes, per
CNA.
No injuries were reported and
the source of ignition is still under investigation.
According to
Liberty Times, the fire broke out in an office area
tasked with cybercrime counter-action, in particular efforts to fight disinformation campaigns from external forces and hacking activities.
All the electronic files were backed up and the work of the bureau was not affected by the incident, said Wang Chun-li (王俊力), head of the Investigation Bureau. The building also houses Wang's office.
The computers that store classified documents are not in the affected office and damage from the fire is believed to be limited.
Comment: Given US belligerence towards China and their attempts at provoking them into a war over Taiwan, and Taiwan's role as one of the world's major manufacturers of critical semi-conductor, there's sufficient reason to find these two, as of now unexplained fires, rather suspect.
Focus Taiwan
reports:
A fire broke out at the construction site of a new Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) factory in northern Taiwan on Tuesday night but no injuries were reported.
In a statement, TSMC said the fire started at around 7:30 p.m. at the construction site in Zhunan, Miaoli County, in Taiwan's Hsinchu Science Park, and firefighters put out the fire by around 9:10 p.m.
Nobody was trapped in the fire or injured, it said.
TSMC, the world's largest contract chipmaker, said the county's Fire Bureau and a safety team at the construction site have launched an investigation into the cause of the incident to ensure the safety of the site in the future.
Local media reported Wednesday that the Zhunan facility broke ground last year, and the structure of the main building has been completed.
The reports cited Miaoli County Fire Bureau officials as saying that the fire spanned an area of about 300 square meters and affected some chlorinated polyvinyl chloride (CPVC) piping systems and machines.
According to the reports, TSMC has been building clean room facilities and piping systems at the Zhunan site.
The Zhunan plant will serve as an advanced IC packaging and testing site for TSMC, which has moved aggressively into high-end IC packaging and testing services to provide one-stop shopping services for clients who buy chips and need advanced 3D IC packaging and testing technologies.
TSMC currently operates four advanced IC packaging and testing plants, located in Taoyuan and Hsinchu in northern Taiwan, Taichung in central Taiwan, and Tainan in the south.
Abroad, TSMC runs an IC packaging and testing research and development center in Japan -- the TSMC Japan 3DIC R&D Center -- which is located in the Tsukuba Center of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST).
Despite its dominating status in the global pure play wafer foundry business, in which TSMC has more than a 50 percent share, TSMC has still been hurt by ongoing inventory adjustments due to weakening global demand.
At an investor conference last week, TSMC announced it expected its sales for 2023 to fall 1-6 percent from a year earlier, compared with an earlier forecast in January of a slight increase.
The company also said its capital expenditure will remain unchanged at between US$32 billion and US$36 billion. Analysts said the massive spending could reflect expectations that demand will improve in 2024 from 2023.
Comment: Given US belligerence towards China and their attempts at provoking them into a war over Taiwan, and Taiwan's role as one of the world's major manufacturers of critical semi-conductor, there's sufficient reason to find these two, as of now unexplained fires, rather suspect.
Focus Taiwan reports: