Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is reported to enhance even more its development of micro-electro mechanical systems (MEMS) business, as it is installing new equipment, as planned before, reports Digitimes, citing sources at the equipment and material suppliers for the foundry.

 

The current global economic turmoil has affected many IT industry players, with even TSMC saying at one point that the future looked rather challenging. Yet, it seems the foundry's MEMS service deployment hasn't been interrupted, and stands during economic slump, at least according to the cited sources. Moreover, in the context of how things currently stand for the industry, the fact that the company manages to steadily be moving forward is great news.

 

The deployment goes forth according to schedule, and TSMC expects the installation of MEMS production equipment at its Fab 8 to be completed in due time. Moreover, the foundry also hopes that the plant will prove a real help for the company to win MEMS orders in 2009, the sources state. According to the same insiders, TSMC has already started manufacturing MEMS for Analog Devices (ADI) at its Fab 7.

 

Even if looking surprisingly strong at this time, TSMC and its competitors, United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC), Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), are still skeptical about the future during economic slowdown, having already announced that a drop in overall capacity expansion for the next year is to be expected.

 

TSMC remains the market leader in the foundry industry by continuously upgrading its manufacturing technology, and providing the best fabrication process possible. As many of you have already learned, the foundry has recently announced ramping up the new 40nm process technology for graphics processing units, while also starting to make steps towards the move to the smaller 32nm and 22nm fabrication for central processing units. TSMC maintains account service offices in China, India, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, Taiwan and the United States.