Vanguard International Semiconductor Corporation (VIS) is a leading specialty IC foundry service provider. Since its founding in December 1994 in Hsinchu Science Park, Taiwan, VIS has been achieving continuous success in its technology development and production efficiency improvement. VIS has also been consistently offering its customers cost-effective solutions and high value-added services. VIS currently has two 8-inch fabs which has a monthly output of approximately 110,000 wafers.

VIS is a spin-off of the Sub-Micron Project, sponsored by the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI). Original investors include Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (TSMC) and 13 other institutional investors. VIS was founded with the primary focuses on the production and development of DRAM and other memory IC. In March 1998, VIS became a listed company on the Taiwan Over-The-Counter Stock Exchange (OTC).  Its main shareholders include Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (TSMC) , National Development Fund and other institutional investors.

In 1999, VIS started to work as a subcontractor for TSMC for the manufacturing of logic and mixed signal products. In 2000, VIS officially announced its plan to transform from a DRAM manufacturer into a foundry service provider. In February 2004, VIS completely terminated its DRAM production and became a pure-play foundry company. Also, in order to improve our overall financial structure and to strengthen our operational capabilities, we completed our capital restructuring process by October 2004 and decreased our paid-in capital by 48% -- from NT$28.2 billion to NT$14.6 billion.  In 2007, VIS has acquired the eight-inch fab of Winbond Electronics Corp. With this acquisition, VIS can further expand its capacity to meet customers’ production and technology demand, and provide more product services to increase their competitiveness.

VIS has continued its investment in the product development and process technology for the market needs. VIS offers a wide range of process technologies, including High Voltage, Ultra High Voltage, Bipolar CMOS DMOS (BCD), Discrete, Logic, Mixed-Signal, Analog, High Precision Analog, and Embedded Memory to further help increase its foundry customers’ global competitiveness.
In order to enhance its IP service capability, VIS has continued its IP development by strengthening strategic relationship with its IP provision partners. The service including Standard cell library¡B SRAM¡B One-time Programmable ¡B Multiple-time Programmable¡B Electrical Fuse¡B Power Phantom Cell..Through these efforts, VIS expects to offer IP to its specialty IC foundry customers.

VIS has about 3,230 employees. We are committed to adhere to our customer-oriented business philosophy to provide our customers with continuously improved and enhanced specialty IC foundry services. To better serve its worldwide customers, VIS has established sales offices in Taiwan and sales representatives in worldwide main IC clusters.

Facing challenging economic times and industry competition, VIS has already started a reengineering project to improve our corporate process, and undertaken reorganization while focusing on enhancing our fabrication service capabilities and various cost control programs to extend our competence in the foundry business. VIS will continue to strengthen partnerships with customers based on the advantages of delivering speed, quality and credibility to secure our position in specialty IC foundry services.