Single-customer fabs have meaning, says TSMC

Published:2012/7/26 1:25:00 Author:Ecco From:SeekIC

According to Morris Chang, the chairman and CEO of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd., the company is considering operating single-customer wafer fabs. Anyway, TSMC is the world's leading foundry chip maker.

The company's second quarter financial results show that the market gradually produces fewer higher volume customers and some are so large they need their own dedicated fabs. Although in fact, as a foundry, TSMC has risen on its ability to serve many customers from a single line.

Qualcomm is one such very large customer. It has had problems in recent months getting as much supply of 28-nm CMOS from TSMC as it would like. Chang said TSMC would retain the ability to serve many customers but the presence of large customers that are getting bigger means "it makes sense that we dedicate a whole fab or even more than a whole fab to just one customer."

Chang did not mention Qualcomm explicitly but said that Taichung, where TSMC has its Fab 15, will be the source of the majority of TSMC’s 28-nm CMOS whereas Tainan, home to Fab 14. They will be the source of the majority of 20-nm planar CMOS and 16-nm FinFET CMOS.

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