***TSMC Denies AMD Rumor
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) denies any report
made by the press that they are teaming up with Advanced Micro
Devices (AMD) or any multi-national companies in a joint venture
of 12-inch foundry. A TSMC spokesman said the 12-inch fab already
delivered its first 300mm customer wafers last December, which
are attractive to the foreign companies. They are also trying to
cooperate with local foundries for investments in 12-inch fabs.
Further, the spokesman said there is no plan to jointly build a
12-inch fab with any of these companies while the company can
build more foundries on their own.
On the other hand, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) reported that it
is considering teaming with TSMC or United Microelectronics Corp
(UMC) to build a 12-inch wafer plant that would cost US$ 4.0
billion. A TSMC official declined to comment on whether AMD had
proposed the project. Executives at UMC do not have any knowledge
of a negotiation between their company and AMD or between AMD and
TSMC.
The processor plant, dubbed Fab 35, would be AMD's third after
their plant in Austin, Texas, and in Dresden, Germany. The
company plans to build this plant in order to meet high consumer
demand for their Athlon CPU and to introduce new processors
designed for notebook and servers in the future.
Wave Issue 0105 1/26/01 Article 4-04