Posted on Friday, August 15 2014 @ 15:45 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
DigiTimes
heard TSMC's production capacity for the final quarter of this year is almost fully booked. The site notes it's rare for fabless IC suppliers to scramble for wafer production capacity in the fourth quarter of the year, such a scenario hasn't been frequently seen since 2003.
While the supply of wafers at TSMC is tight for the third quarter, the nearly sold-out wafer production for the fourth quarter at TSMC has placed most IC design houses in a dilemma as to whether they should queue up at TSMC for capacity.
Judging from the business cycles of the global foundry industry since 2003-2004, it is rare for fabless IC suppliers to scramble for wafer production capacity in the fourth quarter of each year, although such a scenario was seen frequently prior to 2003.
Sources familiar with TSMC indicated that 8-inch wafer production will be the most tight in the fourth quarter, followed by 12-inch fabs and then 6-inch fabs. Overall, wafer production will remain tight, resulting from a ripple effect due to TSMC landing CPU orders from Apple. Chipset suppliers which are still looking to stabilize their shipments have been advised to line up at TSMC for capacity.
