TSMC set to expand its 28nm manufacturing capacity

With the current market flowing with 28nm, and more set to arrive later, TSMC has seen a pile of order fill up its manufacturing lines to the full. In order to counter this, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company is likely to expand its manufacturing capacity later this year

The strong orders for 28nm that TSMC has received has put its 12″ fabs at full capacity, the same goes for the 40nm and 65nm designs. Currently, some companies have already approached TSMC’s rivals due to the companies inability to to satisfy the demands, the foundry will therefore have to speed things up, particularly in the 28nm capacities, if they wish to keep the competition at bay.

The DigiTimes also reports that its sources at fab tool manufacturers rumoured that TSMC would probably increase its capex target for 2012 due to the foundry being ahead of schedule in its plans to spend US$6 billion on capex.

During a recent investor meeting, TSMC said that 28nm process technology would account for 5% of total wafer revenues in the first quarter of 2012, up from only 2% in Q4 2011, while the proportion for all of 2012 is expected to reach 10%.

Source: DigiTimes