The last three months have seen major investments in new Taiwanese chip fabrication plants, including $14.5bn from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (CI No 3,138) and $18bn from United Microelectronics (CI No 3,186). Now TI-Acer, the Taipei memory chip maker owned 48% by Acer Inc, 33% owned by Texas Instruments Inc with the rest held by other investors, says it will be investing $3.5bn in an eight-inch wafer fabrication plant, due to be ready by 2000. And TI-Acer is promising to build 12-inch wafer fabs after 2000 with total investment far exceeding that for the eight-inch facility. The company says its eight-inch facility will reach a total monthly capacity of over 100,000 pieces. The announcement comes a day after Motorola Inc withdrew from the dynamic RAM market (CI No 3,194).