Powerchip delisted under NT$120B of DRAM debt, returned as foundry PSMC and relisted 2021

Powerchip, founded in 1994 as a DRAM maker, rode memory upcycles for years but was flattened when DRAM prices collapsed: by 2012 its debts exceeded NT$120 billion and net worth turned negative, forcing delisting. Between 2010 and 2012 the company had renamed itself Powerchip Technology, but the memory crash left it unofficially 'dead' in the Taiwan market — no IPO story, a broken balance sheet, and creditors circling.

Rather than liquidate, Frank Huang's management converted the fab into a pure foundry: instead of betting on its own DRAM product prices, it began making driver ICs, image processors and power-management chips for other designers. The same fabs that made memory could manufacture chips for customers who paid per wafer. Revenue steadied and profits returned, and the company quietly became one of Taiwan's leading specialty foundries.

In late 2021 it came full circle: renamed PSMC (6770), it held a competitive auction with a floor price of NT$43 per share, and listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange on December 6, 2021 at NT$49.88. Huang called the nine-year road back 'a miracle in business history'. The listing priced far above the auction floor, a market endorsement of the foundry pivot.

The turnaround did not require a bailout: creditors were repaid and the company's own cash flow funded the transition, which is why the relisting was treated as a rare voluntary revival of a once-delisted semiconductor firm.

Reborn as foundry PSMC, it relisted on Dec 6 2021 at NT$49.88 per share after an NT$43 auction floor, with revenue at record levels

Moving from owning products to renting capacity removed price risk: foundry revenue depends on customer demand, not on DRAM spot prices

The specialty niches — driver ICs, image sensors, power ICs — had stable margins memory had lost to Korean scale players

Keeping the same fabs avoided stranded assets, so the pivot cost little beyond sales discipline

Nine years of quiet profitability rebuilt equity, making a relisting realistic instead of a rescue

When your product becomes a commodity you cannot cost-lead, sell the same capacity to others and bill by service instead of by chip

PSMC went on to raise capital for new capacity and became a fixture of Taiwan's specialty foundry sector, while memory-adjacent peers that stayed with DRAM continued to struggle. The relisting is cited in Taiwan as the canonical comeback of a semiconductor firm that refused to liquidate.