Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, plans to start mass production using the advanced 5-nanometer manufacturing process late next year or in early 2020, CEO and vice chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said yesterday.
The company is to spend NT$750 billion (US$24.75 billion) to build a plant in the Southern Taiwan Science Park (南部科學工業園) in Tainan, construction of which started earlier this year, Wei said at a TSMC technology forum in Hsinchu.
The plant’s annual production is expected to surpass 1 million 12-inch silicon wafers, he said.
TSMC has over the years continued to invest in personnel and research and development, Wei said.
As of the end of last year, it employed 6,145 researchers, a nearly three-fold increase from a decade earlier, with research funding last year totaling US$2.652 billion, he said.
TSMC is one of the only two companies in the world that is capable of making a fresh investment in the area, he added.
The firm earlier this year began mass production on the 7-nanometer process, products of which are to be mainly used in artificial intelligence applications, graphics processing units, 5G telecommunications equipment and application processors, TSMC chief technology officer Jack Sun (孫元成) said.
The company’s total output for this year is forecast to reach 12 million 12-inch equivalent wafers, with products on the 7-nanometer and 10-nanometer processes to double from last year, he said.
TSMC shares yesterday rose 0.22 percent to end at NT$226.5 in Taipei trading. For this week, TSMC has dropped 1.95 percent from its closing price of NT$231 on Friday last week.
FALLING BEHIND: Samsung shares have declined more than 20 percent this year, as the world’s largest chipmaker struggles in key markets and plays catch-up to rival SK Hynix Samsung Electronics Co is laying off workers in Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand as part of a plan to reduce its global headcount by thousands of jobs, sources familiar with the situation said. The layoffs could affect about 10 percent of its workforces in those markets, although the numbers for each subsidiary might vary, said one of the sources, who asked not to be named because the matter is private. Job cuts are planned for other overseas subsidiaries and could reach 10 percent in certain markets, the source said. The South Korean company has about 147,000 in staff overseas, more than half
TECH PARTNERSHIP: The deal with Arizona-based Amkor would provide TSMC with advanced packing and test capacities, a requirement to serve US customers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is collaborating with Amkor Technology Inc to provide local advanced packaging and test capacities in Arizona to address customer requirements for geographical flexibility in chip manufacturing. As part of the agreement, TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, would contract turnkey advanced packaging and test services from Amkor at their planned facility in Peoria, Arizona, a joint statement released yesterday said. TSMC would leverage these services to support its customers, particularly those using TSMC’s advanced wafer fabrication facilities in Phoenix, Arizona, it said. The companies would jointly define the specific packaging technologies, such as TSMC’s Integrated
An Indian factory producing iPhone components resumed work yesterday after a fire that halted production — the third blaze to disrupt Apple Inc’s local supply chain since the start of last year. Local industrial behemoth Tata Group’s plant in Tamil Nadu, which was shut down by the unexplained fire on Saturday, is a key linchpin of Apple’s nascent supply chain in the country. A spokesperson for subsidiary Tata Electronics Pvt yesterday said that the company would restart work in “many areas of the facility today.” “We’ve been working diligently since Saturday to support our team and to identify the cause of the fire,”
Sales RecORD: Hon Hai’s consolidated sales rose by about 20 percent last quarter, while Largan, another Apple supplier, saw quarterly sales increase by 17 percent IPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) on Saturday reported its highest-ever quarterly sales for the third quarter on the back of solid global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) globally, said it posted NT$1.85 trillion (US$57.93 billion) in consolidated sales in the July-to-September quarter, up 19.46 percent from the previous quarter and up 20.15 percent from a year earlier. The figure beat the previous third-quarter high of NT$1.74 trillion recorded in 2022, company data showed. Due to rising demand for AI, Hon Hai said its cloud and networking division enjoyed strong sales
RSS