Taiwan foundries on the comeback trail
By Faith Hung
EBN
(05/09/02 12:13 p.m. EST)
siliconstrategies.com
TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. is expecting to ride a wave of demand for communications and other products with increasing shipments and profits in the second quarter.
Wafer shipments at TSMC could jump 20% in the three months to June, compared with 599,000 8-inch equivalent wafers delivered in the first quarter, company president Rick Tsai told analysts in a meeting in Taipei today. Profits and sales would improve “steadily” from $1.02 billion and $188.3 million, respectively, over the same period, he added.
The upbeat guidance of TSMC, the world's biggest pure-play foundry, indicates that global IC demand is speeding up its recovery that began early this year. “We've seen a broad-based growth in our customers' demand, which is rising at a stable pace,” Tsai said.
While demand for chips used in PCs should stay flat due to the seasonal factor, demand for consumer electronics and communications products should have robust growth, particularly in the wireless segment such as handsets and WLAN (wireless local area network). “The percentage of our sales coming from wireless is increasing dramatically,” said the president at TSMC, Hsinchu, Taiwan. |
