Date: 10/05/2010

TSMC is now the semiconductor fab-favorite of fables and fab-lites

Though the semiconductor industry is estimated to grow in the range of 25 - 35% in 2010, the fab leader TSMC is heading for higher growth than the industry average. Both the fables and fablite semiconductor chip companies are queuing up for TSMC fabs to get their SoCs churned out faster, giving the revenue advantage to TSMC. TSMC has reported net sales of NT$32.68 billion in April 2010, monthly sequential growth of 6% and a 50.3% growth compared same month year ago. This indicates TSMC is ahead of industry average and other fab companies. Where as UMC reported monthly sales of NT$9.32 billion in April 2010, slight fall compared to previous month revenues of NT$9.48 billion but a growth of 35.5% compared to year ago.

Now at this time semiconductor vendors making devices anything below 32nm preferring TSMC over other big fabs. But the other leading fabs Globalfoundries, UMC, and SMIC also investing hugely into lower nodes, we got to wait and see who will win in this close race of technology and capex (Capital expenditure). Compared to UMC and SMIC, Globalfoundries is in better position to compete with TSMC.