Posted on Friday, September 25 2009 @ 16:14 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
DigiTimes
reports TSMC is ramping up production capacity at its 300mm Fab 14 to prepare for the production of Intel Atom SoC solutions:
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has scheduled a ramp up of monthly capacity at its 300mm (12-inch) wafer fab (Fab 14) located in southern Taiwan at the Tainan Science Park to 6,000 wafers by the end of 2009, and to about 35,000 wafers in 2010, according to sources at chip equipment suppliers.
TSMC declined to comment on the report, citing customer confidentiality.
One reason for the ramp of capacity is that TSMC is gearing up to use Fab 14 as its processor production base over the next few years, as it begins leveraging its partnership with Intel on the Atom platform. According to a note from BNP Paribas, TSMC shifted processor production from Fab 12 to Fab 14 earlier in the year and the foundry is now purchasing backend packaging and testing equipment and plans to allocate capacity of 5,000-6,000 wafers for production of Intel Atom-based processors on a 40nm process. Nanya PCB was named as the substrate supplier.
