TSMC’s Advanced Fabrication Processes More Popular than UMC’s
 

t is a well known fact that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. is the largest contract semiconductor manufacturer in the world. But it appears that the company has more advantages: apparently, clients seeking to make chips using the most advanced fabrication processes turn to TSMC, not its arch-rival United Microelectronics Corp.

Taiwan Economic News reports that TSMC projects that 2% of its revenue will come from its 45nm and 40nm processes by mid-2009, UMC will only start pilot production at that time. Back in Q4 2008 about 27% of TSMC’s earnings came from 65nm generation process technologies, meanwhile, UMC’s 65nm revenues accounted for just 8%. While 23% of Chartered Semiconductor’s shipments were also made using 65nm fabrication process, its revenues are about six times lower compared to TSMC, hence, the actual volume of 65nm products made by Chartered is also low.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/other/d...C__Report.html