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

To: Proud_Infidel who wrote (43911)	3/19/2001 9:00:50 AM
From: Shoibal Datta	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

Bloomberg TSMC to Cut 2001 Expansion by a Fifth as Demand Wanes (Update2) By Alan Patterson Taipei, March 19 (Bloomberg) -- Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. said it will pare its budget for expansion by almost a fifth as demand slows from customers such as Motorola Inc. and Broadcom Corp. The world's biggest contract chipmaker, which doubled its production capacity last year, plans to cut planned capital spending to $2.2 billion from $2.7 billion, said Chief Financial Officer Harvey Chang. The cut was earlier reported on the CTech Web site, operated by Taiwan's largest newspaper. TSMC, like rival Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd., faces slowing demand as its biggest customers scale back. Motorola said last week it will eliminate 7,000 jobs, bringing planned cuts since December to 12 percent of its workforce, while Broadcom Corp. said recently that first-quarter profit and sales will fail to meet expectations. ``TSMC is not seeing any increase in demand from customers,'' said Bhavin Shah, an analyst at Credit Suisse First Boston, who also expects Chartered to cut its $800 million from $1.2 billion, Shah said. ``They may actually see a decrease.'' TSMC will slow expansion of factories making 8-inch silicon wafers while maintaining its schedule to start production of 12- inch wafers at the company's 12th factory in the fourth quarter of this year. TSMC and its larger rival, United Microelectronics of Taiwan, are starting commercial production of 12-inch wafers, which they expect will save about 40 percent of their production cost. TSMC said two weeks ago that if chip sales continue at the current low levels it may delay moving in equipment at its fourteenth factory, which will also make 12-inch wafers. TSMC shares, up 10 percent so far this year, fell 1.7 percent to NT$87. The key TWSE index is up 20 percent since the end of December.