Based on plenty of reliable statistics and cases, this report surveys the world top wafer foundry fabs in a wide viewpoint from technical analysis, production capacity, output & sales status and market strategies.
The wafer foundry industry can be divided into three camps. The first camp has a sole member of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC), which has first class productivity and owns good quality fame worldwide. So it is always the first choice for many large IC design houses. Whenever the semiconductor industry suffers recession or declining market demand, large-sized IC design houses tend to order from TSMC. Therefore the more recessionary the semiconductor industry is, the more orders TSMC gets and accordingly the fewer other wafer foundry fab has.
The second camp includes United Microelectronics Company (UMC), Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), CHARTERED and IBM. The four wafer foundry fabs are usually the second choice or alternative for large IC design houses and the first choice for medium IC design houses. When recession falls in the semiconductor industry, these four companies are apt to be firstly impacted. To avoid such impact, they all have their own major clients with strong loyalty. The major clients of UMC are Media Tek and NOVATEK, both are included in the UMC camp. Media Tek is the worldwide largest DVD player IC manufacturer with a stable capacity of 50,000 - 60,000 pieces per month. NOVATEK is the largest TFT-LCD driver IC manufacturer with a stable capacity of 30,000 pieces per month. While SMIC takes Infineon and ELPIDA as its major clients and maintains a relatively stable business relationship by offering memory foundry. CHARTERED, Infineon, Samsung and IBM have built a cross platform wafer foundry ally and the
Revenues in the worldwide semiconductor industry were 2.2% lower in June 2005 than for the month of June 2004. The June 2005 Year-To-Date (YTD) sales still exceed May 2004 YTD sales by 6.5%. Regionally, Asia-Pacific accounted for 45.9% of all semiconductor-manufacturing revenues in June 2005. By product, MOS Micro overtook MOS Logic as the strongest semiconductor product category. Included in the August Electronics Report is data about US Motor Vehicle Parts and US Audio and Video Components. The addition of new charts is included to provide a deeper understanding of the US Markets.
The August 2005 Electronics Report is the comprehensive source for June 2005 market data, including semiconductor shipments, currency trends, book-to-bill ratios of key market segments and selected US end-product sales. The graphs and tables are handy reference guides toward understanding trends in the fast-moving semiconductor landscape. Analysis is brief but to the point. The Electronics Report converts data from the SIA, the WSTS, US Department of Commerce, the US Federal Reserve Board, IPC and SEMI into a convenient platform that helps facilitate understanding of this high technology.
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