Taiwan Semiconductor Manufac-turing Co (
The company will make about 40 products that shrink the space between transistors on chips to 90 nanometers from as much as 130 nanometers, TSMC president Rick Tsai (
TSMC said it will offer new software tools and design guidelines to customers by next month to speed the production process.
"We want to lower the hurdle," Tsai said.
"It is difficult to make chips with 90 nanometer technology," he said.
The first customers to use the technology are in the mobile-phone business, which need the chips to pack in new handset functions such as taking photographs and sending them wirelessly, the company said.
TSMC counts Texas Instruments Inc, whose chips powered more than half the cellphones sold last year, among its customers.
TSMC be among fewer than five companies worldwide to make chips with the technology this year. Manufacturers aim to lower production costs by making chips smaller and fitting more on a single silicon wafer.
The increased number of transistors help semiconductors to process more information.
Still, chip designers lack the knowledge of TSMC's manufacturing capabilities, which can delay production, the company said.
"If you don't have a good design, it may take three to four iterations before you can get a chip that works," Ping Yang (
"Each iteration can take from three to six months to complete," Ping said.
Intel, the world's biggest chipmaker, last month said it delayed the first-quarter introduction of its initial notebook computer processor made with 90 nanometer technology because of design problems.
The company said the so-called Dothan chip will start selling this week.
TSMC's revenue last month soared 35 percent to NT$20.63 billion (US$620.17 million), a new all-time high, from the year-earlier NT$15.26 billion, the company reported on Friday.
In the first four months of the year, revenues rose 43.1 percent year-on-year to NT$78.14 billion, the company said.
The company's previous record was in last October, when revenue hit NT$20.30 billion.
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