In response to record third-quarter profits and sales, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is ramping up 300 mm, .13 micron production. TSMC's flagship Fab 12 is now producing essentially 100% .13 micron parts on 300 mm wafers in order to meet robust demand. TSMC's fab utilization is now about 98%, although it may dip to 95% in the next couple of months. Currently most of TSMC's sales come from .18 micron and .13 micron chips, but TSMC claims that 90 nm ICs will not be important during the next year. This might possibly indicate that the company's “Nexsys” 90 nanometer process may be experiencing technical difficulties. More likely, the delayed adoption of 90 nm technology indicates that TSMC doesn't anticipate a large demand for 90 nm products for several years. TSMC's main competitor, UMC, is also ramping 300 mm capacity, as well as sampling 90 nm chips. In contrast to TSMC's and UMC's delayed adoption of 90 nm parts, microprocessor companies like Intel, AMD, and IBM are trying to ramp 90 nm production as quickly as possible.

90nm not important for low volume chips(2:09pm EST Tue Oct 28 2003)My company orders chips from TSMC, 0.25u low volume. The reticle costs are low, and saving die area isn't critical for us. Their comments are true from that perspective.

The high utilization is bad for us because it means that cycle times will be longer (we are low priority, which saves money).