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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bob Howarth who wrote (35784)	7/17/2000 1:20:57 AM
From: Gottfried	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

Bob, from this news story. dated July 10th, it looks like it's been put on ice for a few months... >To press their point home, the equipment makers have gone to Capitol Hill. Two weeks ago, they caught a break when Grams, chairman of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee's subcommittee on securities, persuaded the SEC to back off for six to nine months.< mercurycenter.com I'm opposed to "Staff Accounting Bulletin 101". What next? A car isn't sold until the warranty expires? Gottfried

To: Bob Howarth who wrote (35784)	7/17/2000 8:58:34 AM
From: Proud_Infidel	Respond to of 70976

TSMC's IC Production Capacity to be World's Largest in 2001 July 17, 2000 (TOKYO) -- Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. is likely to have the world's largest semiconductor manufacturing capacity in 2001, the company announced in a seminar in Yokohama. The Taiwan-based chip maker specializing in OEM production will boost its production capacity even further, it said. In the seminar, "TSMC Technology Symposium Japan 2000," the company said it will: (1) invest US$4.8 billion to construct plants and expand and improve production facilities in 2000; (2) boost its production capacity of 8-in. wafers from about 1.84 million units in 1999 to about 3.41 million in 2000; (3) start volume production of 12-in. (300mm) wafers in December 2000; and (4) start custom production using the cutting-edge 0.13-micron production technology by the end of the year. To reach these goals, TSMC is building plants in Hsinchu and Tainan. This year, the company plans to invest US$3.79 billion to expand and improve its own plants and production facilities, and it will spend US$1.07 billion to construct plants for joint ventures with other companies. In 2001, TSMC plans to invest a similar amount to boost its production capacity of 8-in. wafers to 4.76 million units. According to TSMC's estimates, production capacity of Toshiba Corp. and Hyundai Electronics Industries Co., Ltd. of Korea in 2001 will be about 4.7 million units each, that of NEC Corp. will be about 4.5 million units, Intel Corp. about 4.2 million units and Hitachi Ltd. about 3.8 million units. TSMC is thus likely to have the largest production capacity in 2001. Even after 2001, TSMC will continue to boost the production capacity to 5.7 million units in 2002, 6.7 million units in 2003 and 7.4 million units in 2004, the company said. The firm's aggressive expansion strategy is based on its outlook that the foundry business will grow 40 percent each year on the average in the near future. The business is expected to expand because: (1) new chip makers that release new products usually compete one another for better design technologies, and do not always have their own production plants, and (2) since the production cycle of semiconductors is short and a heavy investment in production facilities is required, existing chip makers do not always have production technology that meets the current needs of customers. The average annual growth rate of the entire semiconductor industry is 15 percent-20 percent, the company said. Also, TSMC will start volume production of 12-in. wafers in December this year. It has already established a production line for 12-in. wafers at FAB6, its existing plant for 8-in. wafers. By the end of the year, the company should be able to make 4,500 12-in. wafers, the company said. In 2001, it plans to make 24,000 12-in. wafers using the 0.18-micron production technology at Fab6. TSMC is constructing Fab12 in Hsinchu and Fab14 in Tainan as dedicated plants to make 12-in. wafers. A clean room at Fab12 will be completed in December and volume shipment will be launched in December 2001. The new plant will have a monthly production capacity of 12-in. wafers of 25,000 units with a plan to boost the capacity to 79,000 units in 2002. A clean room at Fab14 will be completed in April 2001 and volume shipment will be started in the first quarter of 2002. The plant will have a monthly production capacity of 12-in. wafers of about 30,000 units with a plan to boost the capacity to 67,000 units in 2002. Also, TSMC plans to introduce leading-edge manufacturing technologies, the company added. It has already started custom production using the 0.15-micron production technology. By the end of this year, it will introduce the 0.13-micron technology and start shipping products produced with the 0.13-micron technology in March 2001. The firm will release four transistor circuit families: (1) the standard CL013G, (2) the high-performance CL013LV, (3) the ultra high-speed CL013HS, and (4) the low electricity-consumption CL013LP with an 80n-85nm plotting gate and voltage of 1.0-1.2V. They can have as many as eight wiring layers and all of them will use copper. The delay time per gate will be 20 picoseconds for the CL013G and 10 picoseconds for the CL013HS, both at the industry's top levels of performance, the company said. (Shinichi Jimbo, BizTech News Dept.)