ISE Labs has invested $29.5 million to acquire two office and research buildings located at 1140 and 1150 Ringwood Court in North San Jose, expanding the semiconductor testing company’s local footprint to over 143,000 square feet across three nearby properties. The board of parent company ASE Technology Holding Co. formally approved the purchase on August 20, with the price recorded at $29,526,817.14 paid to Exeter 1140-1150 Ringwood LLC. An independent appraisal by Colliers had valued the 80,472-square-foot property at approximately $30.5 million or $366.92 per square foot allowing ISE Labs to secure the asset slightly below market value. The transaction comprises a 28,000-square-foot building at 1150 Ringwood Court and a 52,400-square-foot structure at 1140 Ringwood Court.
These new facilities sit less than a mile from ISE Labs’ 2201 Qume Drive facility, which was acquired in late 2023 for $24 million and opened in 2024. That earlier acquisition doubled the company’s R&D and operational space to 150,000 square feet across its Fremont and San Jose locations.
Infrastructure and Strategic Investment:
Built between 1984 and 1985 on a 5.41-acre parcel, the Ringwood Court campus features heavy electrical infrastructure, offering 2,000 amps of power at 277/480 volts per building, dedicated dock and grade-level loading bays, and heavy HVAC systems tailored for R&D and cleanroom operations. This power capacity is essential for semiconductor failure-analysis and testing, which relies on specialized hardware rather than standard office layouts.
The buildings were previously part of a $58 million portfolio sale in February 2022 by chipmaker Synaptics to South Bay Development. ISE Labs President Jui Ko previously noted that the firm has invested roughly $500 million in U.S. laboratories and anticipates investing up to $200 million more into its San Jose footprint to meet surging demand for artificial intelligence and high-performance computing chip testing. ASE Chairman Tien Wu also reaffirmed the company’s long-term commitment to Silicon Valley. Furthermore, ISE’s existing Qume Drive site holds Foreign-Trade Zone status under Subzone 00P of FTZ Zone 018, which helps reduce import duties associated with testing and assembly.
Silicon Valley Real Estate Trends and Major Transactions:
The acquisition highlights a broader market trend where semiconductor and tech firms increasingly purchase specialized flex space rather than lease it. While Silicon Valley’s overall direct office vacancy rate stood at 16 percent in the second quarter with San Jose at 19.3 percent specialized R&D properties experienced a much lower vacancy rate of 11.7 percent, and industrial vacancy tightened to 4.4 percent.
Major transactions dominated the local market during the same period, including:
Great America Commons: PGIM offloaded the 635,000-square-foot development to Ellis Partners and the Baupost Group for $310 million, marking the priciest office sale of the second quarter.
West Maude Avenue Facility: Apple purchased the 684,000-square-foot building at 684 West Maude Avenue from Union Investment and Metzler Real Estate for $162.2 million in the quarter’s second-largest deal.
These blockbuster sales, alongside moves from other regional chipmakers and corporate real estate shifts, underscore the stark contrast between traditional office towers and power-hungry manufacturing and lab spaces being locked down for long-term operational control.
