"Am I setting very aggressive targets? Yes," said Ibrahim Ajami, CEO of Advanced Technology Investment Co., Globalfoundries' controlling shareholder. "We need to be a US$5 billion company in the next two to three years."

In 2009, TSMC topped the list of foundries with US$9.0 billion in sales. TSMC's sales were about 3X that of UMC, which in turn had more than the combined foundry sales of Chartered and SMIC in 2009.

"We could have done a lot more business," said AMD CEO Dirk Meyer. "We are seeing progress both in the delivery of wafers and the underlying yields. But we are constrained today."

STMicroelectronics has joined the new industry/research multi-partner program IMAGINE, led by CEA-Leti, which includes TSMC, for mask-less lithography for IC manufacturing.

Xilinx has completed multiple iterations of 28nm test wafers with TSMC, and could disclose the move to TSMC at its analyst day in March.

"We didn't buy immersion from Nikon according the filing. We still buy from ASML...

For years, TSMC has primarily used ASML as its lithography vendor. But in a surprise move, TSMC has procured a new 193nm immersion lithography scanner from Nikon.

In the US, we've seen chipmakers shut down their fabs one-by-one over the years. How can we reverse that trend? One possible solution: Why not tell the Asian silicon foundries (TSMC, UMC, SMIC, etc.) that they must build fabs in the US?

Samsung doesn't get it. The foundry sector is a service business. It has nothing to do with churning out cheap and simple commodities like memories.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) is likely to make CDMA2000 baseband chips which Qualcomm designs for the worldwide-version 3G iPhones, according to industry executives.

Besides adding manufacturing capacity through ATIC's acquisition of Chartered and the construction of a new plant in New York, Globalfoundries is counting on advanced process technologies to help it win customers and compete with rivals like TSMC.

The jury in the two-month-long TSMC vs. SMIC trade secrets trial has ruled in TSMC's favor after several days of deliberation. The jury found that SMIC has been misappropriating TSMC's trade secrets since a 2005 legal settlement was reached between the two foundries.

Cambridge Silicon Radio (CSR) has shipped more than 1.5 billion units and processed more than one million wafers from foundry partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). CSR also announced that it is collaborating with TSMC on a 40nm low power (LP) RF process technology.

SVTC and TSMC will work with developers to bring to market new applications in emerging technologies such as micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS), biochips and other devices incorporating new materials and novel structures.

Hynix, IMEC, Intel, Samsung, Toshiba and possibly TSMC are the initial customers for ASML's "pre-production" extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography tool, according to an analyst.

If the current IC recovery will continue or fall back into a dreaded double dip, specialty foundry vendors also see a new competitive threat on the horizon: TSMC.

The R&D costs for process technology are expected to climb from US$310-to-US$400 million for the 90nm to 65nm nodes, to US$600-to-US$900 million for 45nm to 32nm, to US$1.3 billion for 22nm to 12nm. A fab would run from US$2.5-to-US$3.5 billion for the 90nm to 65nm nodes, to US$3.5-to-US$4 billion for 45nm to 32nm, to US$4.5-to-US$6 billion for 22nm to 12nm.

TSMC and SMIC reached a US$175 million deal in 2005 to settle a claim by TSMC. But the Taiwan-based company now alleges SMIC reneged on the deal, and oral arguments began yesterday in Oakland.

Lead times for immersion lithography tools are being extended from approximately nine months to about 12 or more, thanks to aggressive tool buying by the likes of Samsung and TSMC, according to analysts at Barclays Capital.

Japan's Fujitsu said it would make its microchip unit profitable next year by cutting fixed costs and outsourcing production of next-generation logic chips to TSMC.

When we asked Jensen about Globalfoundries, the big man from Nvidia said that Nvidia likes to work with companies that are customer centric. Since TSMC has 200 customers its kind of hard to be in center of attention, while such a thing might be possible with some alternative fab companies, such as Globalfoundies.

MEMS packaging may take an evolutionary leap forward into wafer-level packaging, driven by large IDMs and foundries, analysts said. "TSMC (Hsinchu, Taiwan) and others are talking about making MEMS parts...and they have the resources to do the package too.

GlobalFoundries spokesperson Jon Carvill responded to Chang's questionable analogy by reiterating GF's "total" commitment to fair competition.

Even if the STMicroelectronics assignment would be large enough to keep the utilization up far enough, it would not suffice to guarantee the company's competitiveness. But, as Buddha said: Every journey begins with the first step.

NEC Electronics will likely outsource more production of semiconductors used in consumer electronics to outside foundries to insure against a sudden plunge in demand following losses last year tied to a rapid drop in orders.

"...key customers who are increasing 40nm tape-outs have already started to evaluate other foundries (UMC) in case yields do not improve soon," said Mehdi Hosseini, an analyst with FBR Capital Markets, in a report.

Synopsys has announced TSMC selected its Galaxy Implementation Platform for their new integrated sign-off Flow. The new flow is now available for 65nm designs with planned extensions into other process technology nodes.

AMD's spun-off manufacturing arm, Globalfoundries, reportedly has convinced Subramani Kengeri to join its team. Kengeri comes from manufacturing giant TSMC and was one of the key people behind the recently announced TSMC/Intel deal.

The pace of Taiwan's economic decline has slowed down, but a much-anticipated rebound is still far way, the chairman of one of Taiwan's biggest companies said Monday.

Fujitsu Microelectronics and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) on April 30 announced that they will collaborate on leading-edge process technology production for the manufacturing of Fujitsu's products. Under an agreement, Fujitsu will expand its 40nm generation logic IC business with production at TSMC's fabs.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has unveiled the foundry industry's first mixed-signal/radio-frequency reference design kit (MS/RF RDK) at its North American Technology Symposium in San Jose. The RDK initially targets 65nm process technology and aims to accelerate analog, mixed-signal, and RF designs and RF SoC verification and integration.

TSMC's board of directors recently approved four candidates for Independent Director, including three current directors Peter Leahy Bonfield, Stan Shih and Carly Fiorina, as well as former Texas Instruments (TI) chairman Thomas J. Engibous. These four candidates for Independent Director will stand for election at TSMC's Annual General Meeting on June 10, 2009.

"There's still a general freeze on hiring, but we're seeing a shortage in our research and development department, and will need hundreds of employees there," said PH Chang, VP for human resources at TSMC.

As per Taiwan labor law, we issued documents on April 3 to over 200 former employees certifying that their employment was terminated due to deteriorating business conditions.

...In the long run, they say, there will be only three viable entities, at least at the leading edge of chipmaking: Samsung in memory chips, Intel in microprocessors and TSMC in foundries. The rest will be "nationalistic" ventures in need of regular government bail-outs.

It seems that more and more power will consolidate into the hands of fewer and fewer players.

For a long time, Intel counted Advanced Micro Devices as its chief rival. These days, it's looking more like Intel and Qualcomm will be going mano-a-mano. While Intel says it retain full control of the process—essentially leaving TSMC as a contract manufacturer—the move clearly is aimed at stealing market share from British chip designer ARM, which licenses it products to Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, Freescale and other companies.