SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC) here Tuesday disclosed that the company is already sold out of its worldwide wafer-foundry capacity for both 2000 and 2001, with demand remaining robust at least until 2003. An earlier version of this story carried a headline that erroneously said TSMC was sold out of foundry capacity in 2002.
"Demand is outstripping supply in the foundry business," said Edward Ross, president of TMSC's U.S. subsidiary, TSMC North America, at a panel discussion at the Taiwan Semiconductor Day conference here. The conference is a one-day event sponsored by the Taiwan government and CMP Media, the parent company of SBN. "In the short term, I don't see anything on the horizon that will slow the foundry business down," said Ross, who is based in San Jose.
In fact, business is so good that TSMC is fully booked at least until the end of 2001, Ross said. "The demand for 2001 is greater than our capacity," he said in an interview with SBN. "We've allocated our capacity for 2000. In 2001, our capacity has been allocated. In 2001, we're already sold out."
The company's disclosure comes as no surprise to industry observers and analysts. With the general trend towards outsourcing in the semiconductor industry, foundry vendors have been scrambling to meet huge OEM demand since the beginning of last year.
Other pure-play foundry vendors, including Singapore's Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Pte. Ltd. and Taiwan's United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC), are also reporting robust demand for their respective services.
Foundry companies, in fact, are riding a huge wave. In total, the worldwide demand for 8-inch wafers is expected to jump from 10.267 million units in 2000 to 12.3 million units in 2001, according to estimates from Dataquest Inc. of San Jose.
"The foundry business is one of the fastest growing industries in the electronics market," Ross said in a presentation about Taiwan's foundry industry at the conference. "At this point, we don't see a change in terms of supply and demand. People are saying that that we could see a capacity shortage for the next three years."
To meet demand, TSMC is ramping up its fab capacity at a frenetic pace. The company will boost its total production of 8-inch wafers from 3.4 million units in 2000, to 4.7 million units in 2001.
By 2001, in fact, TSMC claims it will be the world's largest IC company in terms of total wafer capacity, surpassing the likes of Hyundai, Hitachi, Intel, Toshiba, NEC, STMicroelectronics, Samsung, and others.
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