Re: Manufacturing capacity.
Here's my post from TMF on this subject.
Remember, there's a lot involved in starting up a production line. You don't just walk into a fab with a negative of your masks and say, "Hey, I'd like 300,000 of these next week." For one quarter of above expected sales it isn't feasible to bring a new vendor on line. This includes starting another line at TSMC. If you kill your margins by incurring the costs of bringing up another production line just to capture the last 10% of sales you might be accused of being incompetent. Remember, just because there isn't a Banshee in stock today doesn't mean the consumer will by a TnT. Most will wait a week or so and buy Banshee when it's available. Supplies are steadily coming in on them (and immediately heading out.)
Also, TSMC wasn't chosen only for their production capacity. They were also selected based on quality, turn around, current and future technology, and price. TSMC is very highly regarded in the fab business (I've spoken to one of the competitive analysts at HP and he was very aware of TSMC and their abilities, down to the names of the fabs, capacities, and technologies.) His opinion was TDFX made a good decision to use them.
Addendum: TSMC has lots of .25 capacity. Why ramp up .35 production when it will be unneeded in 2 months? It's a waste of money. |
