TSMC could make its first 3D chips commercially available before the end of 2011, according to a person close to the situation who requested anonymity.

"In the near term, both companies should benefit by cross-selling their products to largely non-overlapping customer bases," writes Linley Gwennap with The Linley Group. "For the longer term, the acquisition gives Nvidia an opportunity to expand the market for "Tegra" by developing single-chip products that combine the application and baseband processors."

Manosha Karunatilaka, a former account manager at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC), pleaded guilty to charges that he participated in an insider trading scheme tied to Primary Global Research, an expert network firm.

TSMC has said it won't start using three-dimensional transistors to produce semiconductors before the capacity of 2D chips reaches its limit, adding the infrastructure for the next generation of transistors is still "immature."

"Based on a number of inputs, we believe Intel is also vying for Apple's foundry business," said Gus Richard, an analyst with Piper Jaffray & Co., in a new report.

Last fall, industry analysts predicted there would be an oversupply of manufacturing capacity due to a market correction following the strong revenue posted in 2010, but following the earthquake, tsunami, and now nuclear crisis in Japan, the landscape looks different.

The move leaves some to wonder if the silicon foundry giant is gradually moving into the IC-packaging world, thereby competing against Amkor, ASE and other subcontractors. Rick Cassidy, president of TSMC North America, said TSMC remains focused on the foundry market. But "lines are blurring" between some parts of the wafer manufacturing and packaging processes, Cassidy said.

Renesas is in talks to outsource production of auto microcontrollers to Globalfoundries Singapore, and some mobile phone semiconductor production to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), Shino Inokuma, a spokesman for Renesas, said by telephone.

Xilinx has begun shipments of its 7 series FPGA, built with 28nm technology.

Rumors circulated that Apple may have chosen to TSMC as their new fab in response to new competition from Samsung in the handset and tablet space. Based on analysis performed by UBM TechInsights Lab and Process Analysis personnel, we can say that the A5 in our possession is definitely manufactured by Samsung using their 45nm process.

"Recent data points have circulated in the past weeks suggesting OmniVision's BSI (backside illumination) yields have been adversely impacted out of TSMC, which could be backed-up on strong demand for general CMOS image sensors into smartphones and tablets," said analyst Doug Freedman of Gleacher & Co. in a new report.

"Leading-edge capacity excess, driven by Globalfoundries' expansion primarily, means pricing is going to come down," said Intel CEO Paul Otellini. "As leading-edge pricing comes down, so does the trailing-edge [pricing], hollowing out the business. That means real trouble for Globalfoundries and TSMC over the next few years." He conceded that Samsung was a different case with its memory and logic operations.

The recession caused fab tool vendors to de-accelerate their investments and programs in 450mm. As a result, 450mm production has been delayed at least to 2017 or 2018, said Trevor Yancey, an analyst with IC Insights.

"You used to have myriad semiconductor companies building fabs. Now they are expecting a couple of foundries to do it all for them," said Malcolm Penn, founder and principal analyst with Future Horizons.

The company terminated its employment of Manosha Karunatilaka on December 16, the day of his indictment. Karunatilaka was one of three technology company workers arrested in the US yesterday on charges of wire fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud as federal prosecutors expanded a probe of insider trading to companies.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) plans to build one more "mega-fab" at a cost of up to NT$300 billion (US$10 billion). Construction of the fab, codenamed Fab 16, will start in 2014 probably at the Central Taiwan Science Park (CTSP).

Many existing products are built with planar transistors - efficient, low-cost transistors that were invented in 1959. But many chip makers are starting to look at other transistor designs that may be easier to shrink beyond the 20nm size. TSMC appears to be settling on FinFETs because their fish-fin design reduces the size of working transistors.

He pushed the silicon foundry giant into the platform arena. TSMC originally launched the so-called Open Innovation Platform in 2008 as an industry-wide design enablement initiative.

IC Insights' recently updated Strategic Reviews Online database shows that most large memory and foundry companies performed extremely well in 1H10.

Following a third consecutive record-breaking sales quarter reported by Xilinx Wednesday (July 22), at least one Wall Street analyst reiterated his contention that extending lead times by the leading FPGA supplier put it at risk of double ordering.

Now, many or all the famous (Nvidia, Qualcomm, Marvel...) TSMC customers already use ARM designs with TSMC, but this deal might make things easier for smaller ones. In short: expect to see ARM continue to proliferate on the mobile computing market.

Following its recent move to TSMC's high-performance, low-power (HPL) process technology at 28nm, Xilinx is aggressively broadening the reach of programmable logic into the traditional ASSP and ASIC markets with three new FPGA families on its roadmap, the low-cost low-power Artix-7, the Kintex-7, and the high-end Virtex-7 due to be sampling in the first quarter of2011.

An IC foundry has made it into the ranks of the Top 20 MEMS foundries for the first time, as TSMC's roughly US$10 million in MEMS foundry revenues put it into 14th place on Yole Developpement's 2009 listing.

"Advanced technology is not only about cost. At 45nm we have showed that we can go to high volume production very quickly at high yield..."

TSMC, working with ASML and Mapper, have developed a prototype multi-e-beam tool for semiconductor lithography, according to company CTO Jack Sun speaking to the International Electronics Forum 2010 in Dresden.

GlobalFoundries, Samsung and TSMC appear to be engaged in a new capital spending race in an effort to gain share in current and future cycles. They will survive, observers said, adding that UMC and SMIC could hit the wall and/or may get acquired.

Research institute IMEC has appointed Kees Den Otter, former president of TSMC Europe, to the position of vice president of emerging business.

Most believe TSMC will remain a foundry in the IC sector, but not in LEDs. There is little or no business model in the LED foundry sector. Most LED vendors have their own fabs and the startup costs are minor compared to the IC industry. The real value-added in LEDs is technology and the channels.

"We booked one billion euro worth of orders in the first quarter of 2010 and expect a similar level of bookings in the second quarter," said ASML CEO Eric Meurice.

Fujitsu has outsourced production to TSMC and shut three production lines last year to help save 80 billion yen in the two years to March 2011.

"If the NDRC tells me I have to move to China or I'll close the China market to you, then I'll consider that," said TSMC chairman and CEO Morris Chang. NDRC refers to the National Development and Reform Commission, China's powerful economic planning agency.

Representatives from GlobalFoundries and TSMC said their companies are focused on tighter cooperation with EDA and IP vendors. The comments were part of a panel discussion at the Design, Automation and Test in Europe (DATE) conference, held last week in Dresden, Germany.

Technology managers have strong opinions on the merits of the gate-first and gate-last methods of depositing high-k dielectrics and metal gate electrodes. Controlling the PMOS V appears challenging with the gate-first method, while the gate-last approach requires layout engineers to adhere to new restrictive design rules to accommodate planarization requirements.

In a major departure, Samsung Electronics is reportedly exploring an alternative in high-k dielectrics: It is looking at gate-last technology, according to sources.

About this time last year, Intel and TSMC announced a groundbreaking deal. The deal was seen as a response by Intel to the growing popularity of customized ARM chips, but a lack of customer demand has put the partnership on hiatus.

The big news at Xilinx' annual analyst day on February 22: A new partner for foundry services at the 28nm node.

"40nm is constrained around the world," according to representatives from Nvidia. "Supply will be constrained for the first half of this year."

Last summer, TSMC made a surprising decision to use a gate-last deposition method for the high-k/metal gate stack of its 28nm transistors. TSMC'S decision to use a replacement metal gate technique was guided by history, said SY Chiang, in charge of R&D at the foundry.