TSMC Delivers Foundry's First 300mm Customer Wafers
HSINCHU, Taiwan, December 18, 2000 - Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd. ("TSMC" or "the Company") (NYSE: TSM, TAIEX: 2330), the world’s largest dedicated semiconductor foundry, today announced yet another major industry first by delivering 300mm customer wafers from Taiwan’s first 300mm wafer manufacturing line, thus moving semiconductor foundry into a new era.
“TSMC is very pleased about delivering 300mm customer wafers as the new century is closing in,” said F C Tseng, president of TSMC. “No doubt 300mm wafer manufacturing will be mainstream for the twenty-first century. By delivering 300mm customer wafers in the twentieth century, TSMC has clearly demonstrated class-of-the-world manufacturing capability that our customers constantly expect of a leader.”
TSMC beats its original schedule for delivering 300mm customer wafers, with better than expected initial yield. Right-the-first-time is of vital importance for quickly bringing customer products to volume. Verifying each process module and electrical performance using the JEDEC test wafers has been extremely helpful in accomplishing this feat. This has led to the establishment of a very solid foundation for 300mm process recipes, which will contribute significantly to many years of 300mm production.
“Yield of the first 300mm customer wafers exceeded our expectation. The results are exciting and most encouraging, and we are now more confident than ever about meeting the future challenges of 300mm manufacturing,” said N S Tsai, senior director of TSMC’s 300mm project. “Establishing the 300mm pilot line is critical to our success. We started with customer products that have been in volume production with 200mm wafers at TSMC using a mature 0.18-micron process. Of course none of these would have mattered without the hard work from our own team and the support from our customers and equipment vendors.”
TSMC is currently constructing two 300mm manufacturing facilities, Fab 12 in Hsinchu and Fab 14 in Tainan, which are expected to start production in the fourth quarter of 2001 and in early 2002, respectively. In addition, TSMC's third 300mm fab is expected to start construction in the first quarter of 2001. TSMC will continue its capacity expansion and development of advanced technology. Also, TSMC will flexibly adjust its capacity expansion plan according to different market situations so that it can quickly meet customer demands when the next semiconductor up-turn begins.
About TSMC
TSMC is the world’s largest dedicated semiconductor foundry, providing the industry’s leading process technology, library and IP options and other leading-edge foundry services. TSMC operates two six-inch wafer fabs (Fab 1 and 2) and six eight-inch wafer fabs (Fab 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8). The company has substantial capacity commitments at three joint venture fabs – Vanguard, WaferTech, and SSMC. TSMC is currently ramping the industry’s first 300mm pilot line at its Fab 6 and is constructing two dedicated 300mm fabs, Fab 12 in Hsin-Chu and Fab 14 in Tainan. In 2001, TSMC expects to produce nearly 4.8 million eight-inch equivalent wafers. Fabrication processes offered by TSMC include CMOS logic, mixed-mode/RF, volatile and non-volatile memory, and BiCMOS. TSMC’s corporate headquarters are in Hsin-Chu, Taiwan.
