Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said it plans to invest more than NT$500 billion (US$15.88 billion) to build next-generation fabs and reclaim its technological leadership.
TSMC’s announcement came after the Environmental Protection Administration yesterday gave the green light to a land development project by the Central Science Park Administration, which had provided an extensive health risk assessment as requested.
TSMC, which supplies microprocessors for Apple Inc’s iPhone 6 series, plans to build new 16-nanometer (nm) and 10nm capacities at the science park in Taichung over several years beginning this year.
That will make Taichung an important manufacturing site for TSMC to make next-generation chips. The chipmaker is scheduled to ramp up production of 16nm chips in the third quarter, with its 10nm technology slated to start mass production in 2017.
TSMC chairman Morris Chang (張忠謀) has said the company expects to gain a smaller share of the 16nm market this year than its biggest competitor — Samsung Electronics Co — because TSMC had a late start in developing the technology.
Next year, TSMC will have a much larger share of the 16nm market than its competitor, Chang said.
TSMC has set a record budget of US$11.5 billion to US$12 billion on capital spending this year, mostly for advanced technologies.
The company said the new investment would create 5,000 jobs — complementing its current workforce of 3,400 in Taichung — and would contribute NT$1 billion in taxes to the national coffers.
Last year, TSMC’s Taichung plant, code-named Fab 15, generated NT$200 billion in revenue, accounting for 28 percent of the company’s overall revenue.
In other news, DRAM chipmaker Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) yesterday said that its revenue shrank 4.2 percent to NT$3.98 billion last month, compared with NT$4.16 billion in December, as shipments and prices declined.
Shipments slid 2.8 percent from the previous month, while the average selling price dropped 3.1 percent, the chipmaker said.
The New Taiwan dollar’s depreciation versus the greenback helped boost revenue last month by 1.7 percent.
On an annual basis, last month’s revenue slid 4.4 percent from NT$4.17 billion, Nanya Technology said.
Company spokesman Lee Pei-ing (李培瑛) said that sales this quarter would be affected by a seasonal slowdown.
Inotera Memories Inc (華亞科技), a DRAM joint venture between Nanya Technology and US memory chipmaker Micron Technology Inc, yesterday said that revenue contracted 2.5 percent to NT$6.74 billion last month from NT$6.92 billion in the previous month.
The figure represented an annual drop of 6.65 percent from NT$7.22 billion.
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