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Technology Stocks : Taiwan Semiconductor (NYSE: TSM) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Allen champ who wrote (496)	5/22/1999 9:12:00 PM
From: Allen champ	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 684

TSMC, Vanguard form 300-mm fab venture in Taiwan A service of Semiconductor Business News, CMP Media Inc. Story posted 1:45 p.m. EST/10:45 a.m., PST, 5/21/99 By Sandy Chen HSINCHU, Taiwan -- Silicon foundry giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC) and Taiwanese DRAM maker Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp. have formed a joint venture to build the island's first 300-mm wafer fab at a cost of about $2 billion. The two companies here expects to begin construction of the 300-mm plant next spring with volume production slated for 2002, according to Y.C. Huang, a vice president at TSMC. The 300-mm fab will be located in Hsinchu and equipped to process 0.13-micron ICs, he said. The move to set up a joint venture for 300-mm wafer processing comes as other major semiconductor companies worldwide are adjusting their plans for IC fabrication using larger-diameter substrates. The industry's transition from 200-mm to 300-mm wafers has been hampered by high costs, three years of sluggish market growth, and accelerating device shrinks, which have postponed the need for larger substrates. Most industry analysts believe Intel Corp. will be the first to begin investments in a 300-mm volume fab, located in Hillsboro, Ore. A year ago, the microprocessor giant decided to put the 300-mm plant on hold while it waited for production-worthy tools to become available and an improvement in chip demand. Infineon Technologies AG (formerly Siemens Semiconductors) and Motorola Inc. are already processing 300-mm wafer in a pilot/development facility located in Dresden, Germany. Several other chip companies are also expected to be in the first wave of manufacturers using 300-mm wafers in the next couple of years, including Texas Instruments Inc. in Dallas and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. in Korea. Taiwan's TSMC has also promised to be among the early 300-mm fab operators. TSMC, which owns a 26% stake in Vanguard, said each company will have access to 50% of the joint-venture's 300-mm output. The fab will be build on a site originally planned for Vanguard's second 8-inch (200-mm) wafer fab in Hsinchu. Vanguard is operating an 8-inch wafer fab in Hsinchu.