According to Digitimes,  Bitcoin mining company outfit BitFury is set to be the first customer with UMC  shipping the 14nm chips to BitFury in small volume in the second quarter of 2017.

This will be pretty small compared to that from mobile chip vendors such as Qualcomm and MediaTek, but the idea is that it will enable UMC to quickly move its most advanced process technology to volume production and pave the way for its new Xiamen fab to foray into 28nm process.

UMC is looking to have its Xiamen fab make 28nm chips to satisfy just in time demand coming from China's local IC design sector. At the moment Taiwan's foundries are forbidden to run production using their most advanced process technologies at their China fabs. By starting production on 14nm means 28nm will no longer be UMC's most advanced process and they can ship it across the pond..

UMC's Xiamen fab dubbed 12X will enter volume production for 40/55nm chips later in the fourth quarter of 2016, the company said at a recent investor meeting. The foundry also disclosed its 28nm process technology accounted for 21 percent  of total wafer sales in the third quarter.