Not that many years ago TSMC and UMC played
a real game of constant one-upmanship. Not anymore—if last weeks chalk and
cheese financial results have anything to do with it!
A stark difference in both leading
foundries going forward can be seen in the two companies ramp rates for 300mm
wafer starts per month (wspm). Only two years ago UMC held a slight lead in
300mm wspm, thanks primarily to Xilinx, UMC's largest customer.
But things have changed steadily in that
time with TSMC finishing 2004 with a slight lead over UMC in the 300mm wafer
capacity stakes of only about 4,000wspm. However, current forecasts from both
companies for wspm by the end of the year are drastically different.
Part of reason is the contrast in capital
expenditures for 2005. UMC has drawn in its spending to that of $ 1 billion US
dollars, while TSMC plans to spend $ 2.5 billion US dollars this year.
Interestingly both foundries currently have two 300mm fabs in operation. Some of
the capex difference could be explained away by the fact that TSMC has more
fabs than UMC overall and is also aggressively ramping its new 200mm fab in
China. But, according to both companies financial data for the last quarter the
vast majority of the planned capex is earmarked for 300mm fab expansion.
Based on the ramp rate projections from
both foundries TSMC will be significantly ahead of UMC by the year-end. TSMC's
Fab12 had a capacity of 25,000wspm, however by 3Q05 will be handling
40,000wspm! No not a mistake, just the fact that TSMC has forgotten to tell
everyone that it has been tool installing in "Phase II" of Fab12 most of this
year. Fab 14 its second 300mm fab started ramping in the 3Q04 and should reach
just over 15,000wspm in the 3Q05. TSMC would have just shy of 56,000 300mm wspm
in operation.
In contrast UMC has not been ramping as
aggressively. Both its Fab12a and Fab 12i (Formerly UMCi, Singapore) will only
increase wafer starts by about 2,000wspm throughout 2005. That means that after
3Q05, UMC does not expect any increase in wafer starts for the remaining
quarter in the year. Fab12a will have reached 22,666wspm by 3Q05 and Fab12i
will be at 14,000wspm.
The difference really sticks out when you
add up the totals. Going into the 4Q05 TSMC will be achieving 56,000wspm while
UMC will have settled for the rest of the year on 36,500wspm, nearly a
20,000wspm difference.
The only saving grace for UMC right now is
that Chartered has just started 300mm shipments from Fab 7, while SMIC is struggling
to qualify its 300mm fab in China for both Infineon and Elpida. But both 300mm
fab newbies, will be looking long and hard over the next 12 months at UMC's
position. As for TSMC, it looks like they are long gone.
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