TSMC's Chang Tips Hiking 2012 Capital Expenditure
Apr 20, 2012
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Morris Chang yesterday announced that his company would hike capital expenditure for this year to more than US$7.29 billion from previously set US$6 billion.
Chang made the statement on April 17 at technology forum
held in San Francisco of the U.S. The spending hike would boost the company's 28nm process capacity, which is being strained by strong contracts. He stressed that TSMC, now the world's No.1 pure foundry player, needs to urgently boost its 28nm process capacity because the darkest days for the industry has gone.
TSMC is the only contract supplier providing commercialized 28nm process capacity. Its customers of the leading-edge process include Qualcomm, Nvidia and AMD. Industry executives estimated fresh spending will boost the company's total capacity of 28nm process to 400,000 300mm equivalent of wafers by the end of this year, around three to four times the amount Samsung would offer.
Last year, TSMC's capital expenditure hit a record high of US$72.9 billion. Industry executives estimated the company's 2012 spending at US$7.3-7.5 billion. They noted that TSMC began two years ago raising the competition bar in the silicon foundry industry by increasing R&D spending.
Based on Chang's statement, industry executives estimated the company's revised spending figure would be higher than that of Samsung's LSI unit, which plans to spend US$7.3 billion this year on expansion. The Samsung's planned expansion budget represents a 75% increase from last year. Bright market outlook for mobile computing devices is thought to be the major reason behind the hefty capital spending plan of Samsung's LSI.
Industry executives felt that Samsung's LSI will mostly spend the planned capital to boost capacity at its factory in Austin, Texas, which now has maximum capacity of 30,000-40,000 wafers of contract chips a month. The factory is the company's foremost facility for making Apple processors.
source & copyright: CENS
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