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PV-Geek
The question of "is it too much" should be asked of the customers using them. Is ...
Barry Liu
True. That is why TSMC could not afford to forgo the joint venture among ...
Taiwan now the world's leading chip maker
Peter Clarke
1/13/2012 10:28 AM EST
LONDON – As of July 2011 Taiwan held 21 percent of the world's installed wafer fabrication capacity, surpassing Japan and Korea and taking the top spot for the first time, according to market research firm IC Insights.
Japan held 19.7 percent and Korea 16.8 percent, the Americas region has 14.7 percent of the IC manufacturing capacity and China, with 8.9 percent now accounts for more wafer capacity than Europe.
These figures include local manufacturing capacity regardless of the headquarters location of the companies that own the fabs. So Samsung manufacturing in Austin, Texas contributes to the Americas percentage.
Worldwide semiconductor manufacturing capacity by region as of July 2011 (installed monthly production capacity in 200-mm wafer equivalents x 1,000)
The ROW "region" consists primarily of Singapore, Israel, Malaysia, but also includes countries such as Russia, Belarus, India, South Africa, and Australia.
IC Insights indicated as Taiwan holds 25.4 percent of manufacturing on 300-mm diameter wafers, 18.7 percent of 200-mm wafer capacity, and 11.4 percent of 150-mm wafer capacity. In 2011, 300mm wafers represented 64.6% of the country's installed capacity, 200mm wafers, 29.2%; and 150mm wafers accounted for 6.1%.
Taiwan also holds the industry's largest share of capacity dedicated to "not so leading-edge" 40- to 60-nm process geometries.
Related links and articles:
www.icinsights.com
News articles:
Foundry sales tumbled in December
Globalfoundries' N.Y. fab kick starts production with IBM deal
Samsung's Chinese wafer fab gets OK
Report: TSMC mulls New York investment
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Barry Liu
1/13/2012 1:41 PM EST
An industry with 10.3 billion dollars annual output, according to official report 《2011 Industrial Development in Taiwan, R.O.C.》,contributes to Taiwan GDP by merely 2.39%. It is one of larger than life industrial sectors that enjoy spot light without due performance.
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KB3001
1/17/2012 8:54 AM EST
Yes, but it's a "strategic" sector, which gives Taiwan influence. Size does not always matter ;-)
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Barry Liu
1/17/2012 10:07 AM EST
True. That is why TSMC could not afford to forgo the joint venture among IBM/Intel/SUNY/Global Foundries/Samsung for advance nanotechnology research on an atomic scale. However,TSMC chose not to foster its own home-grown technology in IC equipment development. It shall result in the errosion of its profit margin. By contrast, Samsung had committed massive resources in this sector. It's going to come back to bite TSMC big time.
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Patk0317
1/13/2012 7:58 PM EST
It would be interesting to see a histogram strating back when most of the capacity was in the USA in the early 70's and see how it migrated to this point
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exeiji_
1/14/2012 9:03 AM EST
Great achievement, and does this mean the newly elected government should consider diversification in terms of investment? Plus, given the inherent stress on the environment in the process, sustainability should also be a key focus for future development.
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agk
1/16/2012 8:07 AM EST
Taiwan's chip history: 1973-1974 -ITRI was formed this is a non profit research institute,then ERSO formed , 1980 UMC a private firm was formed and the whole technology from ITRI was transferred to UMC by ERSO. A VLSI program was taken up by ERSO between 1983-1988 and in the year 1987 TSMC started the first dedicated merchant foundary. Now after 25 years of history Taiwan holds the number one position. The efforts by the Taiwan's government engineers are to be praised at this time for their countries progress in the field of IC fabrication. History avilable at www.iamot.org/conference/index.php/ocs/10/paper/view/.../793
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pixies
1/16/2012 5:57 PM EST
What is the ranking in terms of revenue and profits?
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PV-Geek
2/11/2012 5:24 PM EST
The question of "is it too much" should be asked of the customers using them. Is having all your wafer production in one geographic and political location what you want?
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