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

To: StanX Long who wrote (58888)	1/16/2002 1:34:28 AM
From: StanX Long	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

TSMC says its capacity usage is up SEMICONDUCTORS: A leading maker of silicon wafers said that its factory utilization rate could reach 80 percent as it works on consolidating operations taipeitimes.com By Dan Nystedt STAFF REPORTER A Taiwan Semiconductor Manu-facturing Co (TSMC, ¥x¿n¹q) spoke-sman yesterday confirmed a report in the local media that the company's utilization rate could hit 80 percent by the end of the year. That report quoted TSMC chairman Morris Chang (±i©¾¿Ñ) -- speaking at a seminar in Singapore on Monday -- as saying its utilization rate, which measures the number of production lines in use, reached 50 percent during the fourth business quarter and will rise to between 70 and 80 percent by the end of the year. "A 70 percent utilization rate is very high. Morris Chang must have a very positive outlook for next year." Henry Wang, an analyst at Entrust Securities Six months ago, plummeting orders for its microchip production services prompted TSMC to mothball over half of its production lines. Sales had plummeted by 98 percent compared to the previous year and the firm barely skirted a second quarter loss by cashing in on a government tax rebate. But after computer sales surged ahead of the holiday season, TSMC started up more of its unused chip lines, operating half of its lines by the end of the fourth quarter. Now, the company believes the good times will continue, and expects nearly three-quarters of all its manufacturing lines to be back in operation by the end of the year -- including new ones currently under construction.