Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing said it would cut 600 jobs, about 8% of its global work force, as it swung to a fourth-quarter net loss amid a drop-off in demand and delayed deliveries.

Cymer. which makes lasers used in semiconductor manufacturing, is cutting 10% of its work force and slashing pay and benefits as sharply lower demand cuts into revenue, the company said late Thursday.

Chartered Semiconductor exemplifies the problems facing Singapore's ailing electronics sector after warning that it will suffer its biggest loss in nearly four years when it reports its results for the last quarter of 2008.

A spokesperson from TSMC says that from December 2008, employees who work in TSMC's manufacturing departments will take as many as five unpaid days each month and those who work in other departments will take one unpaid day each week staring from January 2009. At the same time, the transport allowance that was previously paid to the company's managing staff will also be canceled.

Wafer shipments at the world's top two foundries, TSMC and UMC, are set to plunge further than anticipated in 4Q, but the picture for 1Q is even uglier with "historic lows" looming for utilizations, according to an analyst report.

Fab capacity utilisation in Q3 was high for advanced processes and 300mm fabs but overall showed a decline, according to the latest Semiconductor Industry Capacity Statistics (SICAS) report, with the foundry industry experiencing sharp declines in capacity, actual wafer starts and capacity utilisation.

The world's top two contract chip makers, TSMC and UMC, are preparing to cut costs by up to 20 percent as their industry heads into a sharp downturn, industry sources said on Friday. Taking about a two-thirds share of the global foundry market together, the two Taiwan firms are facing a global economic slowdown that has forced consumers to cut spending on new PCs, cellphones and flat-screen TVs that require microchips.

AMD's manufacturing arm which is heading for a spin-off to form a foundry services provider, regards the current downturn as a good anti-cyclical investment opportunity. Nevertheless, the company is aware of the challenges they are approaching, said two top managers of the company. While the Foundry Company will maintain and expand its production capacity in Dresden and later plans to build a new fab in upstate New York, the headquarters will be placed in the Silicon Valley.

The symbolism was hard to miss when the award was handed to Chang by Hector Ruiz, a longtime friend and the chairman of Advanced Micro Devices. AMD just became the latest U.S. company to make plans to divest its factories–to a new foundry venture that will compete with TSMC. “I never look at any competition lightly,” Chang said, but predicts problems for the new foundry because suppliers and customers will be far from its main locations.

IC Insights' recent research uncovered a big shakeup in the 1H08 top 20 semiconductor supplier ranking. There are eight US companies in the top 20 (including three fabless semiconductor suppliers), six Japanese, three European, two South Korean, and one Taiwanese company (IC foundry supplier TSMC) in the ranking. As shown, it required at least US$2.1 billion in 1H08 sales to make the top 20 ranking. Although the top four ranked companies remained the same, there were a number of "movers and shakers" up and down the remainder of the ranking.

...two major USA compound semi houses, TriQuint Semiconductor and Cree have announced they're opening their doors to GaN electronic foundry customers (v.s. GaN-based LEDs). The world has embraced GaN for LED applications rather nicely. Without GaN you simply wouldn't have blue spectrum LEDs. But for those of us who have been championing GaN for electronic applications for what seems to be decades, that foundry doors are finally opening is great news, as long as there are enough customers out there to make the efforts worthwhile.