A Taiwan Semiconductor Manu-facturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) spoke-sman yesterday confirmed a report in the local media that the company's utilization rate could hit 80 percent by the end of the year.
That report quoted TSMC chairman Morris Chang (
Six months ago, plummeting orders for its microchip production services prompted TSMC to mothball over half of its production lines. Sales had plummeted by 98 percent compared to the previous year and the firm barely skirted a second quarter loss by cashing in on a government tax rebate.
But after computer sales surged ahead of the holiday season, TSMC started up more of its unused chip lines, operating half of its lines by the end of the fourth quarter. Now, the company believes the good times will continue, and expects nearly three-quarters of all its manufacturing lines to be back in operation by the end of the year -- including new ones currently under construction.
"A 70 percent utilization rate is very high. Morris Chang must have a very positive outlook for next year," said Henry Wang, an electronics industry analyst at Entrust Securities Co (
Some of the utilization-rate increase will come from plant closures and consolidation, Wang said. He said TSMC may soon merge two manufacturing facilities as well as close operations at Fab 1, which is located at the Industrial Technology Research Institute (
Last year, the company spent US$2.2 billion to increase its output potential by over 1 million silicon wafers, the raw material upon which semiconductors are etched. At the end of last year TSMC had enough production lines to produce 4.4 million wafers a year.
TSMC's net sales in December reached NT$11.8 billion (US$337 million), a 6.1 percent rise over November and the sixth straight monthly sales increase. The downturn took its toll on TSMC, however, as total sales for last year came in at NT$125.9 billion, down 24.3 percent compared to the previous year.
This year, TSMC expects sales to increase by 20 percent, according to statements made by Chang last September.
According to a report from Dataquest, the fourth quarter last year marked a turnaround for the chip foundry industry. Rising orders should push the utilization rate of firms like TSMC and rival United Microelectronics Corp (聯電) above 65 percent -- and as high as 80 percent -- in the fourth quarter, similar to Chang's prediction.
Taiwanese firms have increased investment in the Philippines in recent years as Manila’s ties with Washington deepen and global supply chains continue to shift away from China, an expert at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The Philippines had not been among Taiwanese investors’ top choices in Southeast Asia, CIER Taiwan ASEAN Studies Center director Kristy Hsu (徐遵慈) said at a seminar in Taipei. However, Taiwan’s investment in the country has grown significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching US $257 million last year, a high in recent years, she said. Although Taiwan’s total investment in the Philippines still lags
Intel Corp regards Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) as a longstanding partner, as the US chipmaker would continue outsourcing production of advanced chips to TSMC, Intel chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) said yesterday. “I don’t look at people as competitors. I look at the collaboration... Nvidia is also, you know, a good friend,” Tan told a news conference following his keynote speech at the Computex trade show in Taipei. “It’s a very trusted partnership for us... We are a big, top customer for them, and we’re going to continue doing that,” he said, referring to TSMC, the world’s largest foundry
Artificial intelligence (AI) agents would supplant smartphones as the center of people’s digital lives, fundamentally reshaping personal devices and driving a major computing upgrade cycle, Qualcomm Inc CEO Cristiano Amon said yesterday. In his keynote speech for this year’s Computex trade show in Taipei, Amon said that the rise of "agentic AI" — AI systems capable of reasoning, planning and carrying out tasks autonomously — would transform how people interact with technology across phones, PCs, vehicles and wearable devices. Describing the technology as the next major evolution in computing, Amon said that "2026 is the year of agents.” For decades, smartphones have sat
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday said it would work with US chipmaker Intel Corp to jointly develop and deploy next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure and intelligent computing platforms in a move to capture booming demand for AI computing systems. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康), said in a statement that the partnership would combine its global manufacturing scale, system integration expertise and AI data center deployment capabilities with Intel’s strengths in processor architecture, silicon technologies and software ecosystem. The companies said they plan to work on equipment used in AI data centers, including server racks powered by
RSS