Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/10/tsmc_restatement/
TSMC shocks market with break-even claim
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Posted in Hardware, 10th March 2009 21:26 GMT
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The world's largest chipmaker and a close partner with Intel and AMD had some shocking news for industry-watchers on Tuesday: business in the first quarter of 2009 will be better than they had originally estimated.
According to a report [1] on the Taiwanese trade website DigiTimes, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC [2]) might even accomplish what it previously thought impossible during in the depths of the Meltdown: break even.
According to DigiTimes, TSMC now estimates that its Q1 profit margin will be between -2 and 0 per cent. Back in January, it had feared it would be between -19 and -15 per cent.
This improving health must make the planners at AMD and Intel breathe a bit easier.
AMD relies upon TSMC, for example, to build [3] its new 40nm ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4830 and 4860 [4] graphics chips. These little guys are designed for energy-efficient laptops - one of the only product categories not in the crapper these days.
Just last week, Intel entered into a partnership [5] with TSMC in which Chipzilla would port its Atom processor cores over to TSMC processes and take advantage of some of TSMC's IP licenses to more-quickly pop out system-on-chip (SoC) silicon designed for low-power mobile devices.
Not that all is rosy for TSMC, however - not by a long shot. Its February 2009 sales were down nearly 60 per cent from the same period in 2008, and profits followed the same pattern.
But this recent news - spurred by last-minute orders and increased demand from China - may indicate that the foundry giant is pulling out of its nosedive.
Other Asian tech firms are reporting improved sales [6] as well. We certainly won't go as far as to say that the Meltdown is nearing the bottom of its fiscal flush, but it's heartening to drink to good news rather than hoist a few simply to drown our sorrows. ®