Blue Sky speculation on the $500 million
Ok, if we take advantage of the links that Milo so kindly tracked down, we see that UMC has a bunch of fabs.
umc.com
Note fab UMCi in Singapore. It is a 12" fab with 300mm capability and the equipment is slated for move in for Q302. Now this one would be perfect for a joint venture. UMC had a bad year in 2001, as did many, and probably could use some help in outfitting the fab. AMD could use the money from the shelf offering to help outfit the fab for, oh say a 20% share. Now most of UMC's fabs are in the 35k-40k wafers per month, so that works out to be 8k-9k wafers starts per week. Now 20% of that gives AMD an additional 1.6k to 1.8k wafers per week, or about a 35% increase in wafer starts. Now if the supply of 300mm SOI wafers is stable by then, those wafers might be 300mm and not 200mm. 300mm. wafers would mean those wafer starts would be equivalent of 4k to 4.5k of 200mm. wafers. If the equipment is moved in Q302, then you would expect seeing production in Q103 or so. In other words, about 1 quarter after AMD is projected to have shifted solely to 0.13 micron and SOI. So 20% of a UMC fab could effectively double Fab30's output, starting the ramp roughly 1 quarter after Fab30 is maxed out. I am positing SOI production even though UMC doesn't plan on SOI for that fab because I suspect that the equipment to run the wafers is more or less the same as for non-SOI processes. The design is different and some of the procedures are very likely different, but the equipment should be the same.
Hmm, I like it. It very likely isn't what is going to happen, but it is possible... |
