Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is promoting the utilization of its 40nm and 45nm through expansion at its 12-inch facility. The pure-play foundry is expected to see the proportion of total revenues for the two processes reach 8-10% by the end of 2009, and climb further to 15-20% in the second quarter of 2010, according to market observers.
TSMC has seen rising proportion of sales from its 40/45nm, thanks to increased orders for FPGA chips, PC graphics processors and handset baseband solutions from major clients Altera, Nvidia and Qualcomm, said the observers.
The world's top contract chipmaker recently spent several billion Taiwan dollars on new equipment to be added to its 12-inch fabs.
TSMC said revenues from 40/45nm reached 1% of its total wafer sales in the first quarter of 2009, whereas those from 90nm and 60nm accounted for 48% in total. The foundry said about 60 customers will tape out 100 chips at 40/45nm by the end of this year, but it did not elaborate.
The observers predicted that TSMC may see sales of NT$20 billion (US$609 million) generated from its 40/45nm nodes for 2009. Its overall revenues for this year are estimated to be around NT$200 billion.
Source: Company, compiled by Digitimes, May 2009
Article translated by Jessie Shen
