See also: International Electronics Forum 2009 - News Roundup
The semiconductor industry is facing a crisis of profitability, and the way out of that is collaboration, according to Maria Marced, President of TSMC Europe, opening the International Electronics Forum 2009 in Geneva this morning.
Marced pointed out that the weighted average of the profit margins of the major semiconductor OEMs (excluding memory, fabless and foundry) declined from 21% in 2005, to 17% in 2006, to 16% in 200 and to 15% in 2008.
"It has to be made more profitable", said Marced, "and it can only be done by collaboration. We have to make sure that the whole industry makes more money."
Marced argued that collaboration reduces waste and shares investment while individual efforts lead to redundant initiatives and heavier investment.
For TSMC the strategy has been to keep investing through the downturn. This year, the company is adding 30% more process engineers to its 1200 strength at the beginning of the year, and 15% more to its current strength of 600 design technology engineers - engineers who work to make sure that the tools and models are available and who work with the IP vendors to make sure everything is ready for their technology.
In June, the company started moving the tools into its new Gigafab (a fab capable of 150,000+ wafers per month) at Fab 12 Phase 4 in Hsinchu, and that fab's cleanroom, which is the size of eight football fields, is now full of equipment.
Asked if Globalfoundries was a potential competitor, Marced replied: "We have capacity for 11m wafers a year. Globalfoundries will have to invest a lot to catch up."
See also: Mannerisms, the blog of David Manners. Updated twice daily, it's the distinctive, entertaining, authoritative and never dull commentary on the semiconductor industry, from someone who knows. Sign up for the Mannerisms eNewsletter.