Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it has started volume production of 16-nanometer (nm) chips, amid speculation that it has lost orders for Apple Inc’s new iPhone.
The statement, in a rare move by the world’s largest contract chipmaker to quell speculation, follows a report by the Chinese-language Economic Daily News that Apple has cut its orders to TSMC for A9 processors, and placed bigger orders with Samsung Electronics Co and GlobalFoundries Inc, citing a report released by KGI Securities Co (凱基證券).
TSMC’s share price tumbled 3.01 percent to close at a nine-month low of NT$129 in Taipei trading yesterday, albeit off the day’s low of NT$125.50.
KGI’s report runs counter to CIMB analyst Eric Lin’s (林育名) forecast that TSMC would boost its 16nm capacity to gain more market share from Apple’s A9, A9x and S2 chips used in iPhones, tablets and wearable devices.
TSMC said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange that its “16nm [chips] smoothly entered volume production as expected.”
TSMC last month said that it was scheduled to ramp up production of an enhanced version of 16nm chips, or 16 FinFet+ chips, in the third quarter and that production would reach a high volume in the same quarter.
The Hsinchu-based chipmaker yesterday reported a 35 percent jump in revenue for last month of NT$80.95 billion (US$2.55 billion), compared with NT$59.96 billion in June. That represented an annual growth of 28.3 percent from NT$64.93 billion.
Last month, TSMC predicted that revenue this quarter would grow between 0.76 percent and 2.22 percent sequentially to between NT$207 billion and NT$210 billion, falling short of CIMB’s forecast of a 5 percent quarterly growth.
Local rival United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電) yesterday said that its revenue rose 5.31 percent to NT$12.71 billion last month from NT$12.06 billion the previous month.
UMC last month said that weak end product demand would cause a 5 percent sequential decline in shipments, while average selling prices would slide 3 percent.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by