We got a word from Taiwan about the nearest plans of the largest chip manufacturers, UMC and TSMC, concerning their upcoming shift to thinner manufacturing technology. According to our sources, both companies are now going to transfer all their production lines to a new 0.13 micron copper interconnect technology only in Q4 2001. And before that, UMC will go on using the older 0.18 micron process (and then they will switch directly to 0.13 micron), while TSMC will shift to a "intermediate" 0.15 micron process. They claim that they are unable to start mass manufacturing with the new 0.13 micron technology "due to material and equipment problems".
In fact, all this sounds a bit scary, because a lot of manufacturers (VIA, for instance) have already ordered chips produced with 0.13 micron technology and expected the manufacturing to start in Q2-Q3 2001. We wonder what they will do if the real manufacturing starts a quarter later...