TSMC Accelerates Customer Competitiveness with Technology Platforms

Technology Platform Strategy Focuses on Services for Markets and Applications

San Jose, CA, April 13, 2004 – Acknowledging that the key to success in the semiconductor industry is time to volume, TSMC today unveiled a technology platform strategy that combines process technology with features and services that provide designers with the tools required to attain market- and applications-focused leadership.

The strategy realigns TSMC processs technologies as Advanced Technology Platforms or Mainstream Technology Platforms, and associates them with features and services designed to enable fast time to volume.

“TSMC’s Technology Platform Strategy recognizes that collaborations at the leading edge of semiconductor technology with early adopters and third-party vendors are fundamentally different than collaborations that take place at the mainstream,” said Dr. Kenneth Kin, vice president of sales and marketing at TSMC. “The Technology Platform Strategy redefines the way in which we deploy feature technologies and services to maximize their value to customers who want to accelerate their leadership in certain markets and applications.”

TSMC’s Advanced Technology Platform, which currently includes 0.13-micron, 90nm and 65nm nodes, responds to the semiconductor industry’s performance needs. It includes advanced CMOS logic and mixed-signal/RF processes that are at the leading edge of the ITRS roadmap. Services in support of the Advanced Technology Platform include intensive design for manufacturability (DFM) collaboration and design support from TSMC’s design services division; scheduled CyberShuttle and back-end services; and access to TSMC’s industry-leading mask production shop. The Advanced Technology Platform is ideal for applications such as advanced processors or cellular base station products.

TSMC’s Mainstream Technology Platform consists of a collection of product-proven process technologies ranging from 0.5um node to 0.15um node, which is expected to continue to grow in production volume. In addition to many of the services available in the Advanced Technology Platform, the Mainstream Technology Platform has a robust feature set, including embedded and non-volatile memories, mixed-signal and RF options, high voltage devices, SiGe BiCMOS and CMOS image sensor technologies. The Mainstream Technology Platform is best suited for image sensor, LCD driver and PC peripherals markets, among others.

Together, TSMC’s Advanced Technology and Mainstream Technology platforms meet the industry’s broadest range of IC design requirements in the widest possible vista of applications. TSMC’s goal is to provide the optimum, most complete and easiest-to-use set of process technologies and ready-to-use services for the fastest time to market, time to volume and time to revenue.