Taipei, July 30, 2008 (CENS)--Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) will put its 40-nanometer process into volume production next year, leading its rivals by at least half a year, according to the company`s chief executive officer, Rick Tsai.

Tsai said his company would tool the fourth-stage portion of its 300-mm wafer factory at the Hsinchu Science Park at the end of this year as scheduled and the third-stage portion of its 300-mm wafer factory at the Southern Taiwan Science Park will enter into volume production some time this quarter as planned, giving him the background for his estimate on the 40-nm volume production.

Tsai stressed his company, which is currently the world`s No.1 pure silicon foundry, would not slow down pace in 300-mm fab expansion although prospect for chip-making industry would remain lukewarm into the normally booming second half.

Seeing oversupplies at 300-mm wafer fabs worldwide, TSMC will cut capital expenditure for this year to US$1.8 billion from last year`s US$2.6 billion while its nearest rival United Microelectronics Corp. has planned to slash the spending to US$500-700 million from US$900 million in the meantime.

Nevertheless, TSMC estimates its 2008 wafer output to increase 13% from last year as a whole and plans to boost 65-nm production capacity to constitute 20% of its total revenue by the end of this year.

Tsai noted that over the past six years his company had launched 90-nm, 65-nm, and 45-nm processes at its first and second factories of its 300-mm fab in Hsinchu Science Park. The company is developing 32-nm process technology and will be developing 22-nm and 15-nm processes at the fourth and fifth factories of the fab.

The TSMC top executive pointed out that the fourth factory of the fab will call for investment capital between NT$150 billion (US$5 billion at US$1:NT$30) and US$200 billion (US$6.6 billion) and need a total of 4-5,000 talents once it was completed. This factory is planned to put out 35,000 300-mm wafers of chips a month.

(by Ken Liu)