Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) had the second-biggest wafer capacity in the world last year, US-based market advisory firm IC Insights said in a report last week.
TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, had monthly production capacity of about 2.5 million 8-inch equivalent wafers, up 3 percent from a year earlier, accounting for 12.8 percent of the global market, IC Insights said.
TSMC’s monthly wafer production capacity included its share in two major subsidiaries: Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp (世界先進) and Systems on Silicon Manufacturing Co, a Singapore-based joint venture with the Netherland’s NXP Semiconductors NV, the report said.
TSMC is adding a new facility at its Fab 15 complex in Taichung and a new fab near its Fab 14 compound in Tainan, which are expected to boost production capacity further, IC Insights said.
Samsung Electronics Co took the top spot in worldwide wafer production capacity by rolling out 2.94 million 8-inch equivalent wafers a month, little changed from a year earlier, the report said.
The South Korean company has 15 percent of the world market, the report added.
Unlike TSMC, Samsung uses about two-thirds of its wafers to produce DRAM and NAND flash memory chips.
The firm has major construction projects under way, including large new fabs in Hwaseong and Pyeongtaek in South Korea, and Xian, China, IC Insights said.
Micron Technology Inc came in third with production capacity of 1.84 million 8-inch equivalent wafers a month, up 9 percent annually and accounting for 9.4 percent of the world total, the report said.
The US DRAM supplier received a boost from a new wafer plant in Singapore last year, it added.
SK Hynix Inc was fourth with capacity of 1.74 million 8-inch equivalent wafers a month, up 7 percent year-on-year, with 8.9 percent of the global market, the report said.
The South Korean firm assigned more than 80 percent of its wafers for DRAM production, it added.
Kioxia Holdings Corp, whose predecessor is Toshiba Memory of Japan, was fifth with monthly wafer production capacity of 1.41 million 8-inch equivalent wafers, up 3 percent from a year earlier and making up 7.2 percent of the global total, the report said.
The top five firms accounted for 53 percent of total global production capacity, IC Insights said.
TSMC, GlobalFoundries Inc, United Microelectronics Corp (聯電), Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (中芯國際) and Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (力積電) were the world’s top five contract chipmakers last year, IC Insights said.
They had a combined monthly capacity of 4.8 million 8-inch equivalent wafers, representing about 24 percent of the global total, it added.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to remain Apple Inc’s primary chip manufacturing partner despite reports that Apple could shift some orders to Intel Corp, industry experts said yesterday. The comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Apple and Intel had reached a preliminary agreement following more than a year of negotiations for Intel to manufacture some chips for Apple devices. Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) economist Arisa Liu (劉佩真) said TSMC’s advanced packaging technologies, including integrated fan-out and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, remain critical to the performance of Apple’s A-series and M-series chips. She said Intel and Samsung
POWER BUILDUP: Powered by Nvidia’s B200 Blackwell chips, the data center would support MediaTek’s computing power demand and business growth, the company said Smartphone chip designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday launched a new artificial intelligence (AI) data center with a maximum capacity of 45 megawatts to meet its rising demand for computing power required to develop new advanced chips for AI applications. The company has completed the first-phase computing power buildup at the data center in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼), providing 15 megawatts of capacity to support its research and development (R&D) capabilities, despite an industrywide shortage of key components, MediaTek said. Supply constraints have plagued a wide range of key components, including memory chips, solid-state drives, power supply units and central
TRANSITION: With the closure, the company would reorganize its Taiwanese unit to a sales and service-focused model, Bridgestone said Bridgestone Corp yesterday announced it would cease manufacturing operations at its tire plant in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), affecting more than 500 workers. Bridgestone Taiwan Co (台灣普利司通) said in a statement that the decision was based on the Tokyo-based tire maker’s adjustments to its global operational strategy and long-term market development considerations. The Taiwanese unit would be reorganized as part of the closure, effective yesterday, and all related production activities would be concluded, the statement said. Under the plan, Bridgestone would continue to deepen its presence in the Taiwanese market, while transitioning to a sales and service-focused business model, it added. The Hsinchu
RSS