TSMC Admits 28nm Ramp Up Is Taking Longer than Expected

In the company's most recent conference call with industry analysts, TSMC has admitted that the ramp up to 28nm is taking longer than expected, which forced the foundry to lower its sales expectations for this new fabrication node.

“The ramp of 28-nanometer however is taking longer than expected due to the softening economy and the demand outlook of 2011,” said Dr. Morris Chang, chairman and chief executive officer of TSMC.

A little more than two weeks ago, the foundry stated their 28nm fabrication process is on track to enter mass production in the fourth quarter of 2011 and that it is expected to account for 2-3% of its total wafer sales in the last quarter of the year.

However, it now seems like this figure was exaggerated, and that chip sales based on this node will hardly go over 1%.

“The 28-nanometer revenue contribution by the end of fourth quarter this year will be roughly above 1% of our total wafer revenue,” said Lora Ho, senior vice president and chief financial officer at TSMC.

When asked by an analyst if TSMC is having any other troubles with their 28nm node other than demand, the same company representative responded: “the delay of 28-nanometer is not due to their quality issue, actually we have regular tape out and it is unplanned.”

TSMC hasn't revealed any information regarding the customers that are expected to mass produce chips based on this advanced fabrication node in 2011, but both AMD and Nvidia rely on this process to build their next-generation graphics cards.

If in Nvidia's case things are a bit more uncertain, AMD has recently reaffirmed its commitment to deliver its first graphics cards based on 28nm GPUs by the end of this year. (via Seeking Alpha)