TSMC to ramp capacity at Fab 14 for Intel Atom opportunity
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has scheduled a ramp up of monthly capacity at its 300mm (12-inch) wafer fab (Fab 14) located in southern Taiwan at the Tainan Science Park to 6,000 wafers by the end of 2009, and to about 35,000 wafers in 2010, according to sources at chip equipment suppliers.
One reason for the ramp of capacity is that TSMC is gearing up to use Fab 14 as its processor production base over the next few years, as it begins leveraging its partnership with Intel on the Atom platform. According to a note from BNP Paribas, TSMC shifted processor production from Fab 12 to Fab 14 earlier in the year and the foundry is now purchasing backend packaging and testing equipment and plans to allocate capacity of 5,000-6,000 wafers for production of Intel Atom-based processors on a 40nm process. Nanya PCB was named as the substrate supplier. In March, Intel and TSMC announced they would collaborate on system-on-chip (SoC) solutions based on the Atom processor. Under the agreement, Intel would port its Atom processor CPU cores to the TSMC technology platform including processes, IP, libraries, and design flows. The idea is that Intel can tap TSMC’s resources to expand Atom SoC availability for a wider range of applications.
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