The semiconductor world is abuzz with companies promising to be first to create chips using tiny, 90 nanometer (nm) manufacturing technology, but officials from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufac-turing Co (TSMC, 台積電) say that even though their production lines will be ready by the fourth quarter, customers are scarce.
"Currently, we haven't seen any real products [designed for 90nm production], not just for TSMC, but in the world," TSMC spokesman Tseng Jin-hao (
The company still plans to be ready with the technology in the fourth quarter, but customer demand will dictate how fast the company moves forward with the process, he said.
Buyers are turning to next generation chips to boost processing speed and performance, while lowering the cost of their products.
Intel Corp said it used 90nm production techniques to make a memory chip capable of storing 52 million individual bits of information on an area measuring the size of a fingernail. It packed 330 million transistors on the chip.
By the second half of next year, the world's largest chipmaker expects to mass produce its next generation Pentium4 microprocessor, code-named Prescott, using the 90nm process on dinner plate-sized silicon wafers.
"This combination will allow Intel to make better products and reduce manufacturing costs," said Chou Sun-lin, senior vice president and general manager of Intel's Technology and Manufacturing Group.
TSMC has charted a different course. The company teamed with, Royal Philips Electronics NV, STMicroelectronics NV, NEC Corp and Motorola to share R&D expenses on developing the chipmaking technique. Tseng said some of these firms will begin developing the new chips later this year, but mass production may still be sometime off.
TSMC Chairman Morris Chang (
During the company's second-quarter investor's conference, Chang said there has been less of an appetite for the latest chipmaking processes as the utilization rate for older technology remains high.
More advanced chip manufacturing processes generally command higher prices.
Mainstream chips are 180nm, 150nm and 130nm, Tseng said. Around 60 percent of the chips TSMC makes is at these levels, he said.
"Normally, two-years after a technology has been introduced, it will become mainstream," he said.
Despite the long wait for a return on its investments in 90nm technology, the company intends to continue developing leading-edge technology.
"For TSMC customers, the trend is to move to new technologies ... despite the soft spot we see in 130nm manufacturing during the third quarter," Tseng said.
TSMC's 130nm products account for only 5 percent of its total production.
The Market Intelligence Center said sales by domestic chip foundries will grow by 30 percent this year to US$7.98 billion, after dropping by over a third to US$6.13 billion last year.
Intel Corp chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) is expected to meet with Taiwanese suppliers next month in conjunction with the opening of the Computex Taipei trade show, supply chain sources said on Monday. The visit, the first for Tan to Taiwan since assuming his new post last month, would be aimed at enhancing Intel’s ties with suppliers in Taiwan as he attempts to help turn around the struggling US chipmaker, the sources said. Tan is to hold a banquet to celebrate Intel’s 40-year presence in Taiwan before Computex opens on May 20 and invite dozens of Taiwanese suppliers to exchange views
Application-specific integrated circuit designer Faraday Technology Corp (智原) yesterday said that although revenue this quarter would decline 30 percent from last quarter, it retained its full-year forecast of revenue growth of 100 percent. The company attributed the quarterly drop to a slowdown in customers’ production of chips using Faraday’s advanced packaging technology. The company is still confident about its revenue growth this year, given its strong “design-win” — or the projects it won to help customers design their chips, Faraday president Steve Wang (王國雍) told an online earnings conference. “The design-win this year is better than we expected. We believe we will win
Chizuko Kimura has become the first female sushi chef in the world to win a Michelin star, fulfilling a promise she made to her dying husband to continue his legacy. The 54-year-old Japanese chef regained the Michelin star her late husband, Shunei Kimura, won three years ago for their Sushi Shunei restaurant in Paris. For Shunei Kimura, the star was a dream come true. However, the joy was short-lived. He died from cancer just three months later in June 2022. He was 65. The following year, the restaurant in the heart of Montmartre lost its star rating. Chizuko Kimura insisted that the new star is still down
While China’s leaders use their economic and political might to fight US President Donald Trump’s trade war “to the end,” its army of social media soldiers are embarking on a more humorous campaign online. Trump’s tariff blitz has seen Washington and Beijing impose eye-watering duties on imports from the other, fanning a standoff between the economic superpowers that has sparked global recession fears and sent markets into a tailspin. Trump says his policy is a response to years of being “ripped off” by other countries and aims to bring manufacturing to the US, forcing companies to employ US workers. However, China’s online warriors
RSS