Press Room

Kaohsiung, October 23, 2015 – Advanced Semiconductor Engineering, Inc. (TSE: 2311, NYSE: ASX) today announced that its water recycling plant at its Kaohsiung flagship facility has reached a significant milestone. The water recycling plant completed a pilot run from January 15, 2015 to April 15, 2015, and began full fledged operations by the end of April 2015. On October 23, 2015, at 9.30am Taiwan time, the water recycling plant recorded an accumulative output volume of 1 million metric tons of recycled water. This volume of recycled water is capable of filling up approximately 400 Olympic sized swimming pools.

This year, Taiwan experienced a critical lack of rainfall which had vastly reduced water levels at reservoirs and created a serious water shortage. To combat such challenges, semiconductor companies such as ASE, have developed methods to save, reuse and recycle water. ‘In our efforts towards a more sustainable enterprise, greater focus on water recycling and usage has been the emphasis at ASE, ’ says KC Chou, Senior VP, ASE Kaohsiung. ‘We are also planning to open up the water recycling facility for educational visits and promote industry water conservation efforts to the public, ’ he added.

ASE invested about $25 million to complete Phase 1 of the recycling facility, which can process up to 20, 000 metric tons of wastewater and recycle up to 10, 000 metric tons per day. Since the operation of the water recycling facility, ASE’s various manufacturing plants at the Kaohsiung Nantze Processing Zone have diverted their wastewater to this centralized facility for processing. The facility employs a multi-stage water treatment system to remove suspended solids, COD (chemical oxygen demand) and other pollutants so that the effluents discharged meet prescribed Environment Protection Bureau (EPB) standards. The treated water go es through Ultra-filtration (UF) and Reverse Osmosis (RO). RO has been most commonly used to desalinate sea water in many countries to create potable water.