TSMC Breaks Ground On New $9.4 Billion Foundry
TSMC officially began building its next-generation Fab 15 foundry on Friday. The facility, or 'gigafab' in TSMC parlance, will begin coming online in 2012, long-term capacity is said to be upwards of 100,000 wafer starts a month. In contrast, GlobalFoundries New York facility currently under construction is targeting 60,000 wafer starts / month once in full production.
According to TSMC, the new fab has a price tag of some $9.4 billion and will come online with both 40nm and 28nm production nodes. We're guessing TSMC's goal here is to further extend its glowing record as a leading edge node provider—after the company's stellar 40nm rollout and ramp, it'll be a challenge to shaft customers that thoroughly again at 28nm.
40nm wafers in production at TSMC
Alright, that last might have been a little snarky, but we're quite curious to see which companies opt for TSMC after the company dragged world+dog into a failquake of bad product yields that still restrained AMD GPU sales in Q2 of this year. Until now, TSMC has been virtually the only cutting-edge option available, but this will change as GlobalFoundries brings its own 28nm nodes online.
According to TSMC, the new fab has a price tag of some $9.4 billion and will come online with both 40nm and 28nm production nodes. We're guessing TSMC's goal here is to further extend its glowing record as a leading edge node provider—after the company's stellar 40nm rollout and ramp, it'll be a challenge to shaft customers that thoroughly again at 28nm.
40nm wafers in production at TSMC
Alright, that last might have been a little snarky, but we're quite curious to see which companies opt for TSMC after the company dragged world+dog into a failquake of bad product yields that still restrained AMD GPU sales in Q2 of this year. Until now, TSMC has been virtually the only cutting-edge option available, but this will change as GlobalFoundries brings its own 28nm nodes online.
