Silicon foundry revenues will hit $39 billion by 2008, says TSMC's Chang
A service of Semiconductor Business News, CMP Media Inc.
Story posted 9:30 a.m. EST/6:30 a.m., PST, 3/9/99
PHOENIX--The silicon foundry business will increase at a 22% compound annual growth rate during the next 10 years, reaching $39.4 billion in revenues compared to $5.4 billion in 1998, said Morris Chang, chairman of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC).
Speaking before the Semico Summit Conference here, Chang also predicted that the worldwide IC market will reach $370 billion in 2008, which would result in a growth rate of 13% during the next 10 years.
In the early 1990s, Chang helped to pioneer pure-play silicon foundry by launching TSMC, which today is the world's largest dedicated foundry company. In the next 10 years, Chang said higher costs and increased competition in chip markets will cause more semiconductor companies to use third-party foundries for wafer processing.
Those competitive and cost pressures have already caused Motorola Inc. to shift its manufacturing strategy to use foundries. Motorola recently inked a pair of major foundry deals with TSMC in Taiwan and Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Pte. Ltd. in Singapore to help move about half of its chip processing to third-party fabs by 2002 |
