As competitors of TSMC offer lower prices to lure customers, the foundry's dominance in the 28nm market will be affected with second-quarter revenues likely to be a disappointment, the sources noted. Market watchers, however, still believe that TSMC's sales for the second quarter of 2013 will enjoy at least single-digit sequential growth.
In addition, TSMC has received requests from its customers to slow their technology migration plans to the 20nm process, the sources said. In fact, many of TSMC's clients have expressed concern about the limited room the foundry's 20nm node can reduce in their chip power consumption and costs, the sources indicated. In other words, the transition to 20nm process technology from 28nm is not as cost-effective as that from 40nm to 28nm.
TSMC facing increased competition at 28nm
Posted on Thursday, March 21 2013 @ 12:58 CET by Thomas De Maesschalck