Taiwan Semiconductor Manufac-turing Co (
Local media reports yesterday said that the two Taiwanese companies plan to work together to produce chips for Transmeta. TSMC, the nation's largest semiconductor manufacturer, plans to make the chips, while ASE plans to test and package them.
Reports also cited analysts as saying orders could be as big as five to six million CPUs.
According to TSMC public relations manager J.H. Tzeng, although TSMC ran a pilot production project to test its new 0.15 micron chip-making process with Transmeta's chip design, the company has not yet received an order. He said TSMC expects orders in the future but there is no time frame as of yet.
Despite being unsubstantiated, news of the Transmeta deal sent TSMC shares rocketing yesterday, adding NT$100 billion to the market value of the company. TSMC closed at NT$149.5 yesterday, up NT$8.5, or 6 percent.
EnTrust Securities (
"Transmeta's chip design is very different from Intel and AMD," he said. "This order with TSMC puts pressure on those companies in the short term because it proves demand for Transmeta chips is increasing."
Increasing demand for the chips, Wang said, means more orders for TSMC. He explained that unlike Intel or AMD, Transmeta does not manufacture its own chips. After developing its first chip for commercial use, Transmeta originally turned to IBM for production support. According to Wang, Transmeta began working with TSMC because the Taiwan chipmaker can produce semiconductors at a much lower price than IBM.
Transmeta created its chips around software designed to decrease the number of transistors needed to operate at high speeds. With less transistors, the chips use less energy and operate at much "cooler" levels than chips of the same caliber designed by Intel or AMD, according to Transmeta officials.
The company says that these factors make their chips ideal for Internet devices, as the chips consume less battery power.
In related semiconductor news, Taiwan's second largest semiconductor manufacturer, United Microelectronics Corporation (
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