The Week In Review: July 20
By Mark LaPedus
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) posted strong results for the quarter. TSMC also announced plans to accelerate its efforts to bring finFETs in the market. Originally, the silicon foundry giant planned to first introduce finFET transistors at the 14nm node by the end of 2014. During a conference call this week, Morris Chang, chairman and CEO of TSMC, said the company now plans to have finFETs at the 16nm half-node. Risk production is due out at the end of 2013 or early 2014—a year after the 20nm rollout, Chang said.
GlobalFoundries announced that its fabs in Singapore have obtained four workplace safety and health performance awards.
Soitec posted mixed results for the quarter.
The Collaborative Alliance for Semiconductor Test (CAST), a SEMI Special Interest Group, has released a docking and mounting generic terminology guideline. The document defines the generic terminology for all components that are typically found in a standard test cell set-up.
North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $1.46 billion in orders worldwide in June 2012 and a book-to-bill ratio of 0.94, according to SEMI. This compares to a ratio of 1.05 in May.
Mentor Graphics donated $825,000 to establish a chip testing lab at Portland State.
ASML posted strong results. But it also pushed out its throughput targets for its production EUV system. Originally, ASML hoped to have an overall throughput of 69 wafers per hour (wph) for the machine by this year. Now, the company only promises a throughput in the “30ish” wph range this year. C.J. Muse, an analyst with Barclays, said: “ASML continues to make progress with the main bottleneck in the EUV roadmap, the light source. At lead partner Cymer, 50W power has been repeatedly demonstrated, while 105W potential has been demonstrated in a lab environment. From a throughput perspective, this confirms the ability to progress to 70 wph in 2014 and upgradable to 125 wph two years later, which are the throughput specifications of the next round of NXE3300 tools.”
Qualcomm posted mixed results for the quarter. Qualcomm continues to suffer from 28nm supply constraints. Barclays’ Muse said: “Qualcomm remains confident they will bring additional 28nm capacity online by accelerating R&D investment and expects supply to largely meet demand exiting the December quarter.”
Semiconductor revenues worldwide will grow 4.6% in 2012 to $315 billion, according to International Data Corporation (IDC). IDC also forecasts that semiconductor revenues will grow 6.2% to $335 billion in 2013.
IC Insights’ latest survey and ranking of the major semiconductor capital spenders shows that only six of the 35 major semiconductor suppliers—Intel, Samsung, Hynix, TSMC, UMC, and Rohm—with significant capital expenditure budgets are expected to spend more in 2012 than they did in 2011.
Pricing for DRAMs are set to increase. This shows that inventory levels are falling relative to demand, according to IHS iSuppli.
China’s domestic PC shipments in 2012 are set to rise at three times the rate of the global market, according to IHS iSuppli.
Tags: ASML, Barclays, Collaborative Alliance for Semiconductor Test, EUV, FinFETs, GlobalFoundries, IC Insights, IDC, IHS iSuppli, Mentor Graphics, Qualcomm, SEMI, Soitec, test, TSMC