GlobalFoundries Inc, the world’s No. 3 contract chipmaker, yesterday said it has as many as 35 customers designing chips using its cutting-edge 28-nanometer (nm) process technology, paving the way for an early shipment in the first quarter of next year.
GlobalFoundries, created out of the chip manufacturing operations of Advanced Micro Devices Inc and Singapore-based Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd (特許), said most of its customers are expected to ship their products made on 28nm technology next year.
This means Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) will maintain its leadership in the intensifying race to offer advanced technologies to make small and low-power-consumption chips suitable for mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablet devices, as the Hsinchu-based company said 89 of its customers were in the final stage of the current chip design cycle before they begin manufacturing using 28nm technology.
TSMC is expected to start small volume production on 28nm technology in the final quarter of this year, during which the advanced technology would account for 1 percent of its total revenues. The massive production was rescheduled for the first quarter of next year, slightly behind the originally scheduled second half of this year, as customer demand dropped amid global economic weakness.
“Demand for leading-edge [technologies] is still high. We don’t see change there. We saw some softness in mainstream [technologies] like our competitors have said,” GlobalFoundries chief executive Ajit Manocha said.
Manocha said the company has shipped tens of thousand chips using gate-first 32nm technology from its factory in Dresden, Germany, since last year, which made up a significant portion of its revenues.
The Silicon Valley-based GlobalFoundries, which is owned by an investment arm of the Abu Dhabi government, said it would keep its capital spending unchanged at US$5.4 billion, mostly to expand its capacities in the Dresden factory and for a new plant in New York.
The utilization rate on mainstream, or less advanced technologies such as 65nm technology, are expected to drop by 10 to 15 percent in the second half of this year from the first half, the chipmaker said.
GlobalFoundries is a new player, targeting the world’s two biggest contract chipmakers TSMC and United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電) to expand market share.
Last year, GlobalFoundries won 12.4 percent of the market share, just behind UMC, which had a 13.5 percent, while TSMC had 47.1 percent, according to market researcher Gartner Inc’s statistics.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last