Industry Expert Blogs

This was the 19th annual TSMC Symposium and by far the best I have attended. Finally tired of the misinformation that plagues our industry, TSMC set the record straight with wafer and silicon correlated data. TSMC shipped more than 88 MILLION logic wafers in 2012, more than any other semiconductor company, that gives them significant bragging rights which they rarely exercise. It was standing room only (I counted 1,200+ chairs) not including the 48 ecosystem partner companies manning the booths next door.

The one thing that was not mentioned was the Apple move from Samsung to TSMC starting at 20nm. Considering Apple is responsible for an estimated 70% of Samsung’s foundry business this product shift is devastating. Several ecosystem partners told me that Samsung is cutting budgets for their ecosystem (tools and IP) in preparation for the Apple loss. TSMC on the other hand has 850 people building their ecosystem with an annual shared budget of $1.5B. This ecosystem delivers silicon accurate tools, reference flows, and IP blocks (5k+) for each and every process node.

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