Foundries News

• TSMC Ships 600,000 0.25-Micron Automotive-Qualified Embedded Flash Wafers (Wednesday Apr. 21, 2010)
  TSMC today announced that it has shipped nearly 600,000 8-inch 0.25-micron AEC-Q100 grade 1 qualified embedded flash (EmbFlash) wafers targeted at a wide variety of automotive applications, accounting for over 720 million microcontrollers (MCUs).
  
  
• TSMC Announces Move to 20nm Process (Tuesday Apr. 13, 2010)
  TSMC announced today at its 2010 Technology Symposium that it will skip the 22nm manufacturing process node and move directly to a 20nm technology. The move is value driven to make advanced technology a more viable alternative for its customers.
  
  
• Winbond Ships One Billionth Serial Flash Memory, Ramps 90nm Production, Increases Market Share (Monday Apr. 12, 2010)
  Winbond Electronics today announced it has reached a significant industry milestone – the company has shipped more than one billion SpiFlash® memories. Additionally, Winbond announced it is quickly ramping production of its 90-nanometer (90nm) SpiFlash memories at the company’s 12-inch-wafer fabrication facility in Taichung, Taiwan.
  
  
• TSMC March 2010 Sales Report (Friday Apr. 09, 2010)
  TSMC today announced its net sales for March 2010: on an unconsolidated basis, net sales were approximately NT$30.82 billion, an increase of 5.6 percent over February 2010 and an increase of 126.3 percent over March 2009.
  
  
• IC shortages seen, but inventories grow (Thursday Apr. 01, 2010)
  The IC industry is recovering, but there are also signs of growing chip inventories in the channels.
  
  
• TSMC applies to take 10% stake in SMIC (Monday Mar. 29, 2010)
  Leading foundry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (Hsinchu, Taiwan) has applied to the Taiwan government for approval to acquire a 10 percent stake in China's Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp., according to reports.
  
  
• TSMC February 2010 Sales Report (Wednesday Mar. 10, 2010)
  TSMC (TWSE: 2330, NYSE: TSM) today announced its net sales for February 2010: on an unconsolidated basis, net sales were approximately NT$29.2 billion, an increase of 0.1 percent from January 2010 and an increase of 153.8 percent over February 2009.
  
  
• TowerJazz Joins IPL Alliance to Achieve Interoperability of Process Design Kits for Analog/Mixed-Signal Designs (Wednesday Mar. 10, 2010)
  TowerJazz today announced it has joined the IPL Alliance, an organization chartered with establishing an interoperable custom design ecosystem. The IPL Alliance, comprised of major EDA and foundry companies, has devised the first open standard for interoperable Process Design Kits (iPDKs) for analog/mixed-signal designs.
  
  
• X-FAB First to Deliver Single-Block Embedded NVRAM as Pure Play Foundry Solution (Thursday Mar. 04, 2010)
  X-FAB Silicon Foundries today became the first and only pure play foundry to offer an embedded non-volatile random-access memory (NVRAM) process feature, leading to a single-chip solution.
  
  
• TowerJazz Rolls Out Full Library of Patented Y-Flash Non-Volatile Memory Blocks (Monday Feb. 22, 2010)
  TowerJazz today announced its full library of Y-Flash Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) building blocks. This patented Y-Flash technology, not available from any other foundry in the industry, is designed to give customers flexibility on memory size, allowing optimization of performance/cost for any given application.
  
  
• GLOBALFOUNDRIES and ARM Define the Standard for Mobile Technology Platform Innovation at MWC 2010 (Monday Feb. 15, 2010)
  GLOBALFOUNDRIES and ARM today unveiled new details on their leading-edge System-on-Chip (SoC) platform technology for powering the next generation of wireless products and applications. The new chip manufacturing platform is projected to enable a 40 percent increase in computing performance, a 30 percent decrease in power consumption, and a 100 percent increase in standby battery life.
  
  
• TSMC January 2010 Sales Report (Wednesday Feb. 10, 2010)
  TSMC today announced its net sales for January 2010: on an unconsolidated basis, net sales were approximately NT$29.16 billion, a decrease of 4.3 percent from December 2009 and an increase of 134.4 percent over January 2009.
  
  
• Veteran chip exec envisions Brazilian mega-fab (Thursday Feb. 04, 2010)
  The modest semiconductor fab that Brazilian startup Ceitec will open later this week is only a stepping stone to a 300-mm mega-fab within about three years, according to the firm's top executive.
  
  
• SMIC and SHHIC in Commercial Production of 0.162um Embedded EEPROM (Tuesday Feb. 02, 2010)
  SHHIC today announced that its design of a high-end contactless smart card IC has successfully entered into commercial production at SMIC using SMIC's 0.162um embedded EEPROM process.
  
  
• TSMC Reports Fourth Quarter EPS of NT$1.26 (Thursday Jan. 28, 2010)
  TSMC today announced consolidated revenue of NT$92.09 billion, net income of NT$32.67 billion, and diluted earnings per share of NT$1.26 (US$0.19 per ADS unit) for the fourth quarter ended December 31, 2009. Year-over-year, fourth quarter revenue increased 42.6% while net income increased 162.5% and diluted EPS increased 162.7%.
  
  
• Qualcomm and TSMC Collaborating on 28nm Process Technology (Friday Jan. 08, 2010)
  Qualcomm today announced that the Company is working closely with foundry partner TSMC on 28 nanometer (nm) process technology.
  
  
• TSMC December 2009 Sales Report (Friday Jan. 08, 2010)
  TSMC today announced its net sales for December 2009: on an unconsolidated basis, net sales were approximately NT$30.47 billion, an increase of 3.8 percent over November 2009 and an increase of 131.5 percent over December 2008.
  
  
• GLOBALFOUNDRIES and Qualcomm Intend to Collaborate on the Development of Leading-Edge Technology and Pursue a High-Volume Manufacturing Engagement (Thursday Jan. 07, 2010)
  Initially, GLOBALFOUNDRIES intends to provide Qualcomm with access to leading-edge 45nm Low Power (LP) and 28nm (LP) technologies with an intended collaboration on future advanced process nodes.
  
  
• TSMC Helps LSI Reduce Leakage 25 Percent on Next Generation Product (Wednesday Jan. 06, 2010)
  TSMC today announced that LSI Corporation achieved over 25% overall leakage reduction in a next-generation product by implementing TSMC’s PowerTrim power optimization technology on the company’s 65nm low power (LP) process.
  
  
• TowerJazz Revises Fourth Quarter Guidance (Monday Dec. 21, 2009)
  
  
  
• ATIC's Acquisitation of Chartered Becomes Effective Today (Friday Dec. 18, 2009)
  Advanced Technology Investment Company LLC (ATIC) of Abu Dhabi and Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd. (Chartered) of Singapore announced that ATIC’s acquisition of Chartered becomes effective today.
  
  
• Chartered Begins Next Phase of Equipment Move-In at Fab 7 in Support of Planned Capacity Expansion for Leading-Edge Processes (Thursday Dec. 17, 2009)
  Chartered today announced it has begun the next phase of expansion, equipment move-in, and installation for its most advanced manufacturing facility, Fab 7 - a 300-millimeter (mm) wafer fab.
  
  
• VT Silicon Selects TowerJazz for World's First Fully Integrated 4G RF Front End IC (Monday Dec. 14, 2009)
  VT Silicon today announced it has selected TowerJazz to be its manufacturing partner for the world’s first silicon 4G RF Front End IC capable of meeting the stringent operating requirements of 4G mobile devices.
  
  
• TSMC November 2009 Sales Report (Friday Dec. 11, 2009)
  TSMC today announced its net sales for November 2009: on an unconsolidated basis, net sales were approximately NT$29.35 billion, an increase of 0.6 percent over October 2009 and an increase of 52.1 percent over November 2008.
  
  
• X-FAB Launches Strategic Third-Party IP and Design Partner Network; Expands In-House Technical Service Support (Tuesday Dec. 08, 2009)
  X-FAB Silicon Foundries today announced new strategic and technical customer support services that speed time-to-market, optimize supply chain organization, provide faster access to technical advice, and offer cost-savings for business unit design managers, project managers and foundry interface managers.
  
  
• TSMC Launches Automotive Process Qualification Specification and Service Package in China Market (Friday Nov. 27, 2009)
  TSMC today announced that it plans to launch the automotive industry’s first process qualification specification and service package for automotive-grade semiconductor manufacturing at the China IC Design Conference being held in Xiamen on December 2.
  
  
• TowerJazz Signs Definitive Agreement with Asian Entity to Provide Know-How, Training, and Turnkey Manufacturing Solutions at a Revenue of US $130 Million (Tuesday Nov. 24, 2009)
  TowerJazz today announced the signing of a definitive agreement with an Asian entity, in furtherance of the company's corporate strategy to penetrate the Asian markets and to leverage its manufacturing know-how and assets to expand its business in this region.
  
  
• TSMC October 2009 Sales Report (Tuesday Nov. 10, 2009)
  TSMC today announced its net sales for October 2009: on an unconsolidated basis, net sales were approximately NT$29.18 billion, an increase of 4.1 percent over September 2009 and an increase of 2.9 percent over October 2008. Revenues for January through October 2009 totaled NT$225.93 billion, a decrease of 21.9 percent compared to the same period in 2008.
  
  
• SMIC Settles All Pending Lawsuits with TSMC: Anticipates No Disruption to Customers (Tuesday Nov. 10, 2009)
  SMIC today announced that it entered into a settlement agreement with TSMC to resolve all pending lawsuits between the parties, including the legal action filed by TSMC in California for which a verdict was returned by the jury against SMIC on 4 November 2009 and the legal action filed by SMIC in Beijing.
  
  
• Analysts: TSMC still faces 40-nm problems (Monday Nov. 09, 2009)
  Silicon foundry giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC) is still having yield issues with its 40-nm process, according to analysts.