Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company said that in the second quarter of 2012 sales of wafers processed using 28nm manufacturing technology contributed to 7% of the company's revenue, which means an increase of supply by nearly 70% (if actual revenues are taken into account). Potentially, it means substantial boost of 28nm supply by TSMC, even though it is obvious that the demand still by far exceeds supply.
TSMC to Continue Boosting 28nm Output
"This year, every quarter, the major effort has been to ramp up 28nm and in doing so of course we did incur a lot of costs. As a result, the gross margin of 28nm all year this year will not be up to the corporate average standard. [...] 28nm is progressing very well," said Morris Chang, chief executive officer of TSMC, during a recent conference call with financial analysts.
28nm process technology accounted for 7% of total wafer revenues, meeting TSMC's internal plans. 40nm accounted for 28% of total wafer revenues, and 65nm was 26%. The advanced technologies accounted for 61% of total wafer revenues.
"Our output and our yields are both above the plans that we set for ourselves and the plans that we communicated to our customers early in the year. [...] We expect to ramp up to about 68 thousand 300mm wafers per month by the end of the year," claimed Mr. Chang.
68 thousand 300mm wafers processed using 28nm manufacturing technology is a very high number.Back in Q1 2012 the world's largest contract maker of semiconductors mainly produced chips using 28LP (SiON) process technology, whereas companies like Nvidia Corp. blamed it for inability to supply processors manufactured at 28HP node that utilized high-k metal gate (HKMG) technology. TSMC projected to boost output of 28HP chips to 50% of all 28nm output by the end of the year. Unfortunately, the company did not reveal the split between 28nm SiON and 28nm HKMG process technologies planned today.
"First quarter of 2013 on, we will fully meet the 28nm demand. It is also then that we expect that the 28nm gross margin will catch up with the corporate average," added Mr. Chang.
TSMC Expects to Further Increase Revenues
“Due to continuing strong demand for our 28nm technology, we expect to double the shipments of 28nm in the third quarter. This increase in 28nm business will account for more than 80% of revenue growth in the third quarter,” said Lora Ho, SVP and Chief Financial Officer of TSMC.
TSMC recently announced consolidated revenue of NT$128.06 billion, net income of NT$41.81 billion, and diluted earnings per share of NT$1.61 (US$0.27 per ADR unit) for the second quarter ended June 30, 2012. Year-over-year, second quarter revenue increased 15.9% while both net income and diluted EPS increased 16.3%. Compared to first quarter of 2012, second quarter of 2012 results represent a 21.4% increase in revenue, and a 24.9% increase in both net income and diluted EPS. Gross margin for the quarter was 48.6%, operating margin was 36.5%, and net margin was 32.7%.
For the third quarter 2012 TSMC expects revenue to be between NT$136 billion and NT$138 billion; gross profit margin is expected to be between 46% and 48%; operating profit margin is expected to be between 34% and 36%.
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Microsoft Admits: Own-Brand Surface Tablets May Impact Relationships with Partners.
Microsoft Corp. has admitted in a filing with the Securities and Exchange commission (SEC) that its forthcoming Surface media and productivity tablets will compete against third-party slate-type products that use Windows 8 operating system, which may lower the commitment of the company's partners to the platform.
"Our Surface devices will compete with products made by our OEM partners, which may affect their commitment to our platform," a statement by Microsoft reads.
Partners of Microsoft Corp. believe that considering the company's heritage and orientation, it will not be able to make its own-brand Surface tablets a strong success since it lacks retail presence comparable to Apple's and will compete not on its own field. To make the matter worse, it will compete against its hardware partners, which is hardly good for business in general. According to Microsoft partners among solution providers and the channel resellers, Microsoft will not be able to convince business customers to buy Surface tablets directly from them hoping that they [clients] will customize the tablets later on themselves. Meanwhile, eliminating partners by selling Surface only in Microsoft's own retail and select online stores, means that the slates will not be tailored for particular deployments in general.
Bill Gates, a co-founder of Microsoft and the former chief executive officer of the company, said in an interview that Surface would not rival products from other makers of hardware and therefore would not impact value added resellers as well as distributors.
"I actually believe you can have the best of both worlds. You can have a rich eco-system of manufacturers and you can have a few signature devices that show off, wow, what is the difference between a tablet and a PC," said Bill Gates.
One of the reasons why Microsoft intends to release Surface is to set up a benchmark for Windows RT/8-based slates, something that hardware makers will have to look at and something that will be clearly competitive against products like Apple iPad. Many hardware makers will now have to reconsider their designs in order to make their devices on par with "reference" tablets from Microsoft. From this point of view, Microsoft's move with Surface is completely justified as it will ensure that Windows 8/RT-powered tablets will be rather good. On the other hand, some partners may decide to utilize other operating systems in order not to compete against Microsoft directly.
"Our Surface devices will compete with products made by our OEM partners, which may affect their commitment to our platform," a statement by Microsoft reads.
Partners of Microsoft Corp. believe that considering the company's heritage and orientation, it will not be able to make its own-brand Surface tablets a strong success since it lacks retail presence comparable to Apple's and will compete not on its own field. To make the matter worse, it will compete against its hardware partners, which is hardly good for business in general. According to Microsoft partners among solution providers and the channel resellers, Microsoft will not be able to convince business customers to buy Surface tablets directly from them hoping that they [clients] will customize the tablets later on themselves. Meanwhile, eliminating partners by selling Surface only in Microsoft's own retail and select online stores, means that the slates will not be tailored for particular deployments in general.
Bill Gates, a co-founder of Microsoft and the former chief executive officer of the company, said in an interview that Surface would not rival products from other makers of hardware and therefore would not impact value added resellers as well as distributors.
"I actually believe you can have the best of both worlds. You can have a rich eco-system of manufacturers and you can have a few signature devices that show off, wow, what is the difference between a tablet and a PC," said Bill Gates.
One of the reasons why Microsoft intends to release Surface is to set up a benchmark for Windows RT/8-based slates, something that hardware makers will have to look at and something that will be clearly competitive against products like Apple iPad. Many hardware makers will now have to reconsider their designs in order to make their devices on par with "reference" tablets from Microsoft. From this point of view, Microsoft's move with Surface is completely justified as it will ensure that Windows 8/RT-powered tablets will be rather good. On the other hand, some partners may decide to utilize other operating systems in order not to compete against Microsoft directly.
AMD Reportedly Delays Release of Dual-Chip Flagship Graphics Card Again.
Advanced Micro Devices will delay the release of its dual-chip flagship graphics card, the Radeon HD 7990, to late August. The reasons for the delay are unclear, but what is important is that add-in-card partners of AMD do not seem to have plans to release their own-developed Radeon HD 7970 X2 ahead of the Radeon HD 7990, despite of expectations.
Although AMD has managed to release the world's first graphics processing unit (GPU) made using 28nm process technology, the Radeon HD 7900 "Tahiti", it has evidently failed to develop a dual-chip flagship graphics card powered by two of such chips. The arch-rival of AMD, Nvidia was several months late with its first 28nm GPU, but was quick enough to launch its dual-chip graphics board for enthusiasts in late April.
According to VR-Zone web-site, AMD has delayed its Radeon HD 7990 again and will unveil it at Germany's Games Convention (GamesCon) video game event in late August. It is noteworthy that this will be one of the first AMD product launches in years that will be made in Europe. In the recent years AMD launched its significant products either in the U.S. or in the Southeast Asia.
AMD Radeon HD 7990 graphics card is expected to carry two Tahiti XT (Radeon HD 7970) graphics processing units (GPUs) and 6GB of GDDR5 memory onboard. Thanks to two AMD Tahiti XT graphics chips, the dual-chip graphics solution will have 4096 stream processors, 256 texture units, 64 render back ends and so on. The novelty will have some kind of Turbo mode that will clock the chips higher when thermal design power allows. Besides, the reference design of 7990 will have four mDP display connectors as well as two dual-link DVI connectors to support up to six displays at once, something that Nvidia's GeForce GTX 690 cannot. What is surprising is that AMD is reportedly working on a special version of the graphics card with 12GB of high-speed GDDR5 memory onboard.
The exact reasons behind the delay are unclear, but besides natural challenges with installation of two Radeon HD 7970/Tahiti XT chips with ~200W thermal design power on the same board, VR-Zone claims that AMD decided to implement a rather exotic power supply circuitry. Instead of using two 8-pin PCIe power connectors, AMD decided to utilize four 6-pin PCIe connectors. Those four 6-pin connectors lead to a multiphase power regulation, divided into three groups. The major groups consist out of Tahiti XT (not the XT2, i.e. the GHz Edition), 3GB GDDR5 memory per core (clocked at 1.5GHz) and the PLX PCIe 3.0 controller.
The Radeon HD 7990 is projected to be more affordable than Nvidia's GeForce GTX 690, which official price-tag of $999 is exceeded in many cases.
AMD did not comment on the news-story.
Although AMD has managed to release the world's first graphics processing unit (GPU) made using 28nm process technology, the Radeon HD 7900 "Tahiti", it has evidently failed to develop a dual-chip flagship graphics card powered by two of such chips. The arch-rival of AMD, Nvidia was several months late with its first 28nm GPU, but was quick enough to launch its dual-chip graphics board for enthusiasts in late April.
According to VR-Zone web-site, AMD has delayed its Radeon HD 7990 again and will unveil it at Germany's Games Convention (GamesCon) video game event in late August. It is noteworthy that this will be one of the first AMD product launches in years that will be made in Europe. In the recent years AMD launched its significant products either in the U.S. or in the Southeast Asia.
AMD Radeon HD 7990 graphics card is expected to carry two Tahiti XT (Radeon HD 7970) graphics processing units (GPUs) and 6GB of GDDR5 memory onboard. Thanks to two AMD Tahiti XT graphics chips, the dual-chip graphics solution will have 4096 stream processors, 256 texture units, 64 render back ends and so on. The novelty will have some kind of Turbo mode that will clock the chips higher when thermal design power allows. Besides, the reference design of 7990 will have four mDP display connectors as well as two dual-link DVI connectors to support up to six displays at once, something that Nvidia's GeForce GTX 690 cannot. What is surprising is that AMD is reportedly working on a special version of the graphics card with 12GB of high-speed GDDR5 memory onboard.
The exact reasons behind the delay are unclear, but besides natural challenges with installation of two Radeon HD 7970/Tahiti XT chips with ~200W thermal design power on the same board, VR-Zone claims that AMD decided to implement a rather exotic power supply circuitry. Instead of using two 8-pin PCIe power connectors, AMD decided to utilize four 6-pin PCIe connectors. Those four 6-pin connectors lead to a multiphase power regulation, divided into three groups. The major groups consist out of Tahiti XT (not the XT2, i.e. the GHz Edition), 3GB GDDR5 memory per core (clocked at 1.5GHz) and the PLX PCIe 3.0 controller.
The Radeon HD 7990 is projected to be more affordable than Nvidia's GeForce GTX 690, which official price-tag of $999 is exceeded in many cases.
AMD did not comment on the news-story.
Asrock Pre-Announces AMP Memory by AMD.
Asrock, one of the most-admired makers of mainboards according to an X-bit labs survey, said that through a new BIOS update its flagship AM3+ mainboard will support AMD-specific memory modules with serial presence detect (SPD) containing special timings for microprocessors designed by AMD.
"Asrock's flagship board Fatal1ty 990FX professional is the only on-sale motherboard offering AMD AMP memory overclocking kit in the consumer market, stepping to the future memory overclocking now," a statement by Asrock reads.
Asrock indicated that its top-of-the-range Fatal1ty 990FX Professional mainboard which has AM3+ socket that supports both current FX "Bulldozer" chips as well as forthcoming FX "Piledriver" central processing units is now also compatible with AMD's AMP (AMD Memory Profile) SPD settings which allow overclockers and enthusiasts to easily get more speed from their memory modules by choosing exact clock-speed and latency settings [which are presented] without faithfully harming the chips.
Potentially, the improvement of supporting pg AMD's AMP-compatible memory chips should enable frequencies ahead of 2.8GHz speeds (supported by Trinity officially) from default of 2.1GHz for memory, which is a rather high frequency.
"Asrock's flagship board Fatal1ty 990FX professional is the only on-sale motherboard offering AMD AMP memory overclocking kit in the consumer market, stepping to the future memory overclocking now," a statement by Asrock reads.
Asrock indicated that its top-of-the-range Fatal1ty 990FX Professional mainboard which has AM3+ socket that supports both current FX "Bulldozer" chips as well as forthcoming FX "Piledriver" central processing units is now also compatible with AMD's AMP (AMD Memory Profile) SPD settings which allow overclockers and enthusiasts to easily get more speed from their memory modules by choosing exact clock-speed and latency settings [which are presented] without faithfully harming the chips.
Potentially, the improvement of supporting pg AMD's AMP-compatible memory chips should enable frequencies ahead of 2.8GHz speeds (supported by Trinity officially) from default of 2.1GHz for memory, which is a rather high frequency.
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