Qualcomm chooses sides, said to shift from UMC to TSMC, IBM
Compiled from outside sources; Jane Wang, DigiTimes.com [Monday 24 February 2003]
digitimes.com
Qualcomm, the global IC design leader, plans to shift orders from United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC) to rival Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and IBM, the Chinese-language Economic Daily News cited IC design house sources as saying.
The move follows UMC chairman Robert Tsao’s announcement last month that the foundry would move toward deeper partnerships with a few customers rather than risk valuable capacity on a broad range of fleeting customers.
In the move to focus on a few key customers, UMC has reportedly asked companies to choose to do business with either TSMC or UMC, but not both.
According to the report, Qualcomm had placed orders at UMC starting at 0.18-micron processes late last year, while also outsourcing a portion of its 0.13-micron production to TSMC. Now that UMC is demanding companies to choose sides, however, the US-based IC design house has reportedly decided to pull orders out from UMC and concentrate them on its primary contract manufacturers thus far – IBM and TSMC.
UMC said it could not comment on the matter, and Qualcomm was unavailable for comment at the time of the report.
Industry sources, however, doubted the report. They questioned whether UMC could afford to reject business from its larger customers. The foundry’s new strategy is designed to push second-tier Taiwanese IC design houses to choose sides – not to risk losing business from first-tier IC design houses, they say.
Qualcomm, too, would likely not benefit from cutting off its path to UMC in light of tight capacity at TSMC in the coming months, they added.
In any case, UMC does not appear lonely in its new strategy. Last week it had reportedly ironed out a new list of customers that included major players Xilinx, Mediatek, Novatek Microelectronics and Elan Microelectronics. |
