Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, expects to ship 1.5 million 28-nanometer (nm) wafers by the end of this year, riding on strong demand for mobile devices, a company executive said yesterday.
TSMC has cornered more than 90 percent of the worldwide advanced 28nm-chip market. In April, the company said that revenue generated from its 28nm chips for this year would be triple that of last year, driven by strong demand for smartphones and tablets.
Speaking at a Computex summit forum, Been-Jon Woo (金平中), director of TSMC’s business development unit, said the company had created a “unique” business model, dubbed “Grand Alliance,” to grow along with its customers, and the success of this strategy is evidenced by its robust 28nm chip business.
TSMC’s 28nm chip customers include US mobile phone chip designer Qualcomm Inc and Taiwan’s MediaTek Inc (聯發科). The company’s equipment for such advanced chips is likely to continue to be fully utilized as was the case last year, the company said earlier.
“This year, TSMC is forecast to ship 1.5 million 12-inch wafers on advanced 28nm process technology,” Woo said.
“Twenty-eight-nanometer [chips] will contribute greatly to the company’s revenue,” she said, adding that “mobile [device demand] is the driver.”
TSMC chairman Morris Chang (張忠謀) yesterday also voiced optimism for growth in cloud-based mobile products, as cloud technology has become one of the key areas of development for the mobile industry and has helped TSMC grow rapidly over recent years.
The company expects 28nm chips to make up at least 30 percent of its total revenue this year. Last quarter, TSMC made 24 percent of its NT$132.76 billion (US$4.44 billion) revenue from selling 28nm chips.
That gives the firm a significant edge, as local rival United Microelectronics Corp (聯電) said last month that it would not see a meaningful revenue contribution from 28nm chips before the end of the year.
Responding to questions on how to cope with growing competition from South Korean firms, Samsung Electronics Co in particular, Woo said TSMC is different from its competitors in that the company does not compete with its customers but concentrates on providing them with the most cost-effective products.
Separately, PC vendor Asustek Computer Inc (華碩) chief executive officer Jerry Shen (沈振來) yesterday said on the sidelines of the forum that the company plans to launch new tablets this fall, using Quaclomm’s latest processors for tablets, supporting 4G long-term evolution technology.
Shen also showcased the company’s new “Padfone Infinity,” equipped with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 600 processor. The product is the third-generation of “phablet” devices developed by Asustek, which combine the function of a mobile phone with those of a tablet.
The forum was attended by a number of other technology heavyweights, including Steve Mollenkopf, president and chief operating officer of Qualcomm, and Ian Drew, chief marketing officer and executive vice president of business development at UK chip designer ARM Holdings PLC.
Additional reporting by CNA
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day