By Russell Flannery, Forbes Staff
Taiwan, the high-tech manufacturing hub that is home to globally important tech businesses such as TSMC, HTC and numerous Apple suppliers, is located only about 100 miles from the shore of mainland China, where the spread of new and deadly H7N9 bird flu has brought concerns about public health. What’s the view of H7N9’s risks in Taiwan, and how is it affecting businesses?
The race to make the most advanced chips for smartphones and tablets is gaining steam, with contract chip manufacturer TSMC hastening implementation of its latest manufacturing technology to close a chip-making advantage long held by Intel.
TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.), the world’s largest contract chip manufacturer, on Thursday said it is breaking its traditional two-year manufacturing upgrade cycle and will start making chips using the 16-nanometer process early next year. The company earlier this year started making chips for devices such as smartphones and tablets using the 20-nm process.
Smartphones and tablets are getting smaller, faster and more power-efficient thanks to new manufacturing technologies and the reduction in the size of transistors. Intel’s manufacturing capabilities are considered the most advanced today, and TSMC‘s quick jump to a new process could allow the company’s customers to bring faster and more power-efficient chips to mobile devices a year ahead of schedule. The nanometer process refers to the underlying physics used in fabrication plants to create substrates on which chip features are etched.
One of the recent advances in manufacturing technology is stacking transistors on top of each other — called FinFET or 3D transistors by the semiconductor industry — instead of placing transistors next to each other. That helps squeeze more power efficiency and boost performance of chips, which is reflected in the speed and battery life of smartphones.
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Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) reported that its first quarter net profit was up 18 percent year-over-year, as its revenue for the period exceeded its projections.
The contract chip maker’s net profit for the quarter reached NT$39.6 billion (US$1.3 billion), up from NT$33.5 billion from the same period a year ago.
Revenue reached NT$132.8 billion, a year-over-year increase of 25.7 percent. The revenue surpassed TSMC‘s original projection of between NT$127 billion to NT$129 billion for the quarter.
TSMC reported the strong financial results as orders for the company’s cutting-edge 28-nanometer chip manufacturing process went up in volume, accounting for 24 percent of the company’s revenue during the quarter. This marks a two-percentage point increase from last year’s fourth quarter.
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By Evan Niu, CFA, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
British chip designer ARM Holdings and contract chip manufacturer Taiwan Semiconductor today announced the first “tape-out” of a Cortex-A57 processor on TSMC‘s FinFET process technology. A tape-out indicates completion of the initial processor design and shows that a chip is ready for mass production.
The Cortex-A57 is a high-performance 64-bit processor that will inevitably find its way into mobile devices. The Cortex-A57 is one of the first 64-bit processor designs from ARM. ARM and TSMC have been collaborating on development to optimize ARM‘s newest processor series on TSMC‘s 16-nanometer FinFET process.
The new chips are expected to deliver dramatic performance improvements alongside power efficiency gains.
The article ARM and Taiwan Semiconductor: New Mobile Chip Ready for Mass Production originally appeared on Fool.com.
Fool contributor Evan Niu, CFA, has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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By Steve Heller, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
Although Intel may be showing up fashionably late to the smartphone and tablet party, the party has only just begun. To date, the world has reached about 25% smartphone penetration and the tablet market is expected to grow to about half the size of the PC market this year.
Despite this relatively low saturation, these two industries have experienced explosive growth, which has put pressure on the PC industry, an area where Intel remains heavily entrenched. Last year marked the first time in over 12 years that the PC industry witnessed a decline in overall shipments. In order for Intel to defend itself against the mobile computing assault, it must develop compelling products that find their way into millions upon millions of mobile devices. Intel has only begun its big push into the mobile computing world, and it should continue benefiting from the fact it owns the world’s most technologically advanced semiconductor foundries. If all goes to plan, Intel’s bleeding-edge manufacturing processes will ultimately carry the weight, helping secure its future in our increasingly mobile world.
Processor agnostic
The beauty of mobile computing compared to PC computing is that there’s less rigidity in terms of what chip architecture can be used. Although ARM Holdings‘ architecture is currently dominating Intel in mobile computing applications, Google Android still gives Intel the opportunity to implement its PC-based x86 architecture. Ultimately, this processor-agnostic approach allows the market to decide which chip architecture is best suited for the task at hand.
2014 and beyond
The ARM versus Intel battle will really come to a head next year because it’ll be when Intel will begin delivering 14-nanometer chip designs. At that time, Intel is expected to have a two- to three-year lead over Taiwan Semiconductor because TSMC will only be at 20-nanometers and a generation behind on its FinFET technology, which integrates the use of 3-D transistors. In other words, the next two to three years give Intel a unique opportunity to show how its chips can theoretically be more power efficient thanks to better foundry processes.
Since Intel’s chips were originally designed for power and not efficiency, Intel’s success in mobile computing largely comes down to how efficient it can make its chips. If Intel can make a more powerful and more efficient chip than what ARM‘s licensees can produce, it will surely threaten ARM‘s current stronghold in the mobile computing market. As the next few years unfold, let’s not jump the gun and count Chipzilla out of the running yet.
When it comes to dominating markets, it doesn’t get much better than Intel’s position in the PC microprocessor arena. However, that market is maturing, and Intel finds itself in a precarious situation longer term if it doesn’t find new avenues for growth. In this premium research report on Intel, our analyst runs through all of the key topics investors should understand about the chip giant. Click here now to …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
By Russell Flannery, Forbes Staff (Updates with TSMC’s New York close, SinoPac recommendation and Intel’s woes)
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world’s largest contract chip manufacturer, reported a 32 percent jump in profits in the final quarter last year, benefiting from increasing global sales of smartphones and tablet computers.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Phys.org
By Russell Flannery, Forbes Staff Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, whose chairman and CEO Morris Chang was selected as Forbes Asia’s businessman of the year in 2012, said today its fourth quarter net profit soared by 31.6% from a year earlier to NT$41.6 billion, or about $1.43 billion, amid healthy global demand for mobile products. TSMC, the world’s largest […]
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest