Taiwan Semiconductor Manu-facturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) said its growth in market share during the first half may stall for the rest of the year as demand wanes.
TSMC's share of the global business grew to 59 percent in the first six months of the year at the expense of rivals, Vice President Genda Hu (
``It's hard to say whether our market share will continue to grow,'' Hu said.
The company earlier this month said it will expand production of 12-inch wafers more slowly than originally planned, targeting output of 5,000 wafers a month by December, instead of 10,000. Its current production is based at another plant, Fab 12.
Taiwan Semiconductor is among four companies in Taiwan and two overseas that have invested in multibillion-dollar plants to make the larger wafers. The 12-inch disks can be cut into more than twice as many chips as standard 8-inch wafers, allowing production costs to be reduced by as much as a third.
TSMC yesterday also denied a local Chinese-language newspaper report that it has decided to delay production of 12-inch silicon wafers at a new plant in Tainan, southern Taiwan.
"We currently don't have any new plan," said Tzeng Jinnhaw (
The newspaper reported the chipmaker was delaying installing production equipment at Fab 14, its newest and most advanced chip-fabrication plant, because of sluggish global demand for semiconductors.
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