Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and United Microelectronics Corp., two leading contract makers of semiconductors, are ramping up their 300mm manufacturing capacities in order to better serve their customers and also improve their competitive positions against Globalfoundries, a new player on the contract semiconductor market, and each other.

TSMC plans to boost output of fab 14 located in southern Taiwan at the Tainan Science Park to 6 thousand wafers by the end of 2009, and to about 35 thousand wafers in 2010, according to a BNP Paribas report cited by DigiTimes web-site. Fab 14 processes 300mm wafers at 40nm manufacturing process. It is believed that the output is increased in order to fulfill demand for Intel Atom-based system-on-chips products. 

In total, TSMC now produces about 140 thousand 300mm wafers per month. Foreign institutional investors estimated the company to spend $3 billion on expansion in 2010, when its output of 300mm wafers may top 200 thousand units a month, reports Taiwan Economic News.

UMC also intends to ramp up capacity of its fab 12B to 100 thousand 300mm wafers per month, up from roughly 50 thousand today.

Globalfoundries, a joint venture between Advanced Micro Devices and Advanced Technology Investment Company, is considerably behind even today’s UMC in terms of 300mm output. However, the company will merge with Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing, which will be acquired by ATIC, which will improve its output and increase the amount of customers.

Tags: TSMC, UMC, Globalfoundries, Semiconductor, Business, 300mm, 40nm