14 DAY TRIAL // Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC for short) is one of the largest chip makers that have no product of their own. They work on a contract, manufacturing computer chips or other parts of hardware for different brands. It's almost like a hardware outsourcing process. TSMC appears to have started work on its production lines in order to accommodate an unknown client. Rumors say that the client is no other than AMD, the chip producer needing a lot of chips in order to saturate the market once the Barcelona quad cores are launched.
Rick Tsai is the TSMC's chief executive officer and he told analysts during a meeting that his company will produce processors for yet to be named customers for the most part of the year 2008. "We expect to see something start to happen during the second half of next year," he said to the analysts, adding that the deal is expected to make a "meaningful contribution" to TSMC's revenue and he was cited by the news site InfoWorld. Tsai also revealed that TSMC is investing in high-K metal gate technology, saying that "we are putting in technology for them".
TSMC has a long-standing history of making computer chips for many different brands like VIA and AMD. As VIA's processors made by TSMC are not using the high-K metal gate technology (a technology for the 45 nanometer chip fabrication process), AMD seems the only logical choice left and AMD has plans to build the next generation Fusion chips using the 45 nanometer technology.
According to InfoWorld "AMD and TSMC have built a closer relationship since AMD's acquisition of ATI Technologies, a graphics chipmaker and former TSMC customer, last year. In May, the two companies announced a deal for TSMC to make graphics chips for AMD using a 65-nm process. That announcement followed a manufacturing deal between TSMC and Spansion, which counts AMD as an investor, and came amid speculation that AMD was seeking a partner for a joint-venture chip plant".